Artran

Je příjemné, že kyberpunk je stále dostatečně životný na to, aby vznikaly příběhy těžící z jeho estetiky. Gajić pokračuje v budování filmového světa počínajícího Blade Runnerem a rozpracovaného hlavně v Kókaku kidótai. Vtipně mu ovšem obrušuje určité hrany prvky realistična. V Bělehradě budoucnosti proto cikáni sbírají kybernetický šrot do potahu taženého vychrtlou herkou a fabule se v zásadě drží při zemi, neboť popisuje každodenní peripetie partičky studentů. Teprve v polovičce děj poněkud zhoustne, když hlavní hrdinka Edit získá nezvyklého nájemníka. V závěru se však z filmu nestane prequel k hypoteticky možnému seriálu o superhrdince, který by divák vychovaný na animé a amerických filmech očekával, ale vše se vrátí do vyjetých kolejí běžných vztahů budoucnosti. Obecně je zajímavé, že východoevropské sci-fi (Noční hlídka budiž dalším příkladem) mnohem více ukazují život, skutečnou špínu a oprýskané zdi a nikoli jen ten stylizovaný punk. Snad je to to naše latentní dědictví socialistického realismu :)

Lidé bohužel bývají častěji fascinováni těmito genius freaks než vážnou hudbou samotnou (Bach je tu typicky degradován na hudební doprovod). Je to bulvár ukrývající se za roušku umění, neboť Gould je zachycen atraktivní formou jarmarečních snapshotů svého bizarního chování. Jen jaksi mimochodem a pod povrchem vede cesta k porozumění Gouldovy interpretace J. S. Bacha skrze jeho obdiv ke druhé vídeňské škole (jež ovlivnila i Gouldův, podle mého názoru pozoru hodný, Opus č. 1).

Zajímavé, jak se mé názory na tento film v průběhu jeho sledování (a že nebylo nepřetržité) poměrně zásadně měnily. Něco na tom (polistopadovém) Vachkovi ale nakonec je...

After establishing the interrelation between industrialized economies - and in particular, Western economies - and the stagnation of third world countries, van der Keuken then sets his sights towards Switzerland in order to examine the traditional (and at times, reprehensible) centrality of Swiss financial institutions in the conduct of international economic affairs. Correlating the Protestant Reformation (by way of John Calvin's theological work in Geneva) and the origins of capitalism through the converging ideal of a Puritan work ethic, the country's iconic reputation as the epicenter of international finance provides an archetypal framework for the very concept of virtually created wealth, illustrating the country's economic role as an archaic, but ingrained middleman gateway - in a complex financial network that resembles what van der Keuken describes as a "spider web" - for channeling (or perhaps, laundering) money to be reinvested into other parts of the world. It is interesting note that by invoking Calvin, van der Keuken also opens the door to the specter of colonialism though the settlement of Calvinist Boers in South Africa and, in the process, indirectly evokes its legacy of systematic exploitation of natural and human resources that has also contributed to the continued economic disparity of post-colonial, emerging nations in the world market. Více zde.

In the brooding, irresistible epic Route One/USA (1989; January 8 at 7 p.m. and January 13 at 7 p.m.), Kramer and fellow expatriate Doc (Paul McIsaac) join in a trek from the beginning of Route 1 in Maine to its end in Florida. The journey is a doomed search for identity and wholeness. Doc enters, fleetingly, a succession of private worlds, each of which reveals itself to the camera, sometimes in a canned, practiced way suggesting that cameras have been here before (a self-aggrandizing community leader in Bridgeport, Connecticut; a barker in front of the Tragedy in U.S. History Museum in St. Augustine, Florida), sometimes in a capsule of time that is hard, unfamiliar, and complete (an aged Indian woman in Maine going back over her life). "Everything's different and nothing has changed," Doc observes near the beginning of the journey, after observing a spectral anti-abortion picket line in New Hampshire. "The same civil wars are still being fought." Route One/USA has a great density of themes. Running throughout is the idea of rebellion: rebellion of the colonists against Britain, of the South against the North, of child against parent. Constantly, the themes of parents and children, of history, legacies, memory, are linked to the cinema and to photography. The title of the army-recruitment promo tape that an officer proudly displays for Kramer's camera is "Dear Dad." Earlier, two teenage newlyweds are asked: "What were you thinking of when the photographer was taking your picture?" The groom answers, "I was thinking of our kids in the future, how I would show them what their mom was like, to give them pride." The film's complexity of viewpoint, rhythm, and pace matches the complexity of its personal and social narratives. The figure of Doc -- a skeptical observer prowling nervously around the periphery of scenes -- casts melancholy and doubt over the film but never dominates it entirely. Kramer washes us in things, conversations, information; he gives us events staged, reflected on, and isolated in time as if they were part of a dramatic narrative film: the bride and groom rehearsing their wedding vows, or Doc's abrupt decision, in a barber's chair, to abandon the journey -- a decision that results in a radical freeing of the film's style and mood. Much of the last stage of the film is a lyric poem about the Miami waterfront: bird cries and sounds of creaking and humming form a concrete symphony. The gliding images make explicit the longing for distance, for transcendence, that one feels throughout Kramer's film --- Chris Fujiwara

One thing I wanted to include was an important theme, not just jumping. The unknown thing jumping, that the audience never sees and cannot tell if it's either human or animal, gets out of control. Usually jumping becomes smaller after while but in this movie it becomes unstoppable. And at the end the unseen person or animal jumps into an atomic bomb. The idea was that the culture of human beings is becoming more and more technological and unstoppable and as a result is going to hell. It ends up as the ultimate fear of nuclear war. In other words, I wanted to include irony in the film. It could have been omitted but I had to include hell as a scene in the movie because I wanted to explain this feeling of irony. --- Osamu Tezuka

Warum läuft Herr F. Amok!? Pan R. žije přeci spokojeně dál svůj mrzký život v mém sousedství!

"You still want to know what the horizon is? [...] When you look at the hills beyond the houses and beyond the trees where the earth touches the sky that's the horizon. Tomorrow, in the daytime, I'll show you something. The closer you get to that line, the farther it moves. If you walk towards it, it moves away. It flees from you. I must also explain this to you. You see the line. You see it, but it doesn't exist."

Věděl jsem, že pták létá, že ryba plave, že zvířata běhají; ale zvířata lze chytit do pasti; ryby do sítě; ptáky lze zasáhnout šípem. Pokud se týká draka, nevím nic, jen to, že létá do Nebes, vynášen mraky a větrem. Dnes jsem viděl Jima Jarmusche. Je jako drak.

Takaši Miike: Imprint: *** a 1/2 - - - John Carpenter: Cigarette Burns **