"Facing the Bitter Truth"-Filmpreis 2018

BESTER FILM

• Annihilation von Alex Garland
• BlacKkKlansman von Spike Lee
• Call Me by Your Name von Luca Guadagnino
• The Florida Project von Sean Baker
• A Ghost Story von David Lowery
• Kulenkampffs Schuhe von Regina Schilling
• The Rider von Chloé Zhao
• Roma von Alfonso Cuarón
• Sweet Country von Warwick Thornton
• You Were Never Really Here von Lynne Ramsay

BESTE REGIE

• Alfonso Cuarón – Roma
• Alex Garland – Annihilation
• Lucrecia Martel – Zama
• Steve McQueen – Widows
• Lynne Ramsay – You Were Never Really Here
• Alice Rohrwacher – Lazzaro felice
• Chloé Zhao – The Rider

BESTE HAUPTDARSTELLERIN

• Yalitza Aparicio als Cleodegaria "Cleo" Gutiérrez in Roma
• Toni Collette als Annie Graham in Hereditary
• Viola Davis als Veronica Rawlings in Widows
• Frances McDormand als Mildred Hayes in Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
• Maggie Mulubwa als Shula in I Am Not a Witch
• Brooklynn Prince als Moonee in The Florida Project
• Saoirse Ronan als Christine "Lady Bird" McPherson in Lady Bird

BESTER HAUPTDARSTELLER

• Timothée Chalamet als Elio Perlman in Call Me by Your Name
• John Cho als David Kim in Searching
• Marcello Fonte als Marcello in Dogman
• Ryan Gosling als Neil Armstrong in First Man
• Hamilton Morris als Sam Kelly in Sweet Country
• Joaquin Phoenix als Joe in You Were Never Really Here
• Benoît Poelvoorde als Commissaire Buron in Au poste!

BESTE NEBENDARSTELLERIN

• Sakura Andō als Nobuyo Shibata in Shoplifters
• Awkwafina als Goh Peik Lin in Crazy Rich Asians
• Cynthia Erivo als Darlene Sweet in Bad Times at the El Royale
• Lilly Jandreau als Lilly Blackburn in The Rider
• Lesley Manville als Cyril Woodcock in Phantom Thread
• Laurie Metcalf als Marion McPherson in Lady Bird
• Bria Vinaite als Halley in The Florida Project

BESTER NEBENDARSTELLER

• Willem Dafoe als Bobby Hicks in The Florida Project
• Jonah Hill als Donnie Green in Don't Worry, He Won't Get Far on Foot
• Michael B. Jordan als N'Jadaka / Erik "Killmonger" Stevens in Black Panther
• Daniel Kaluuya als Jatemme Manning in Widows
• Denis Ménochet als Antoine Besson in Jusqu'à la garde
• Charlie Sexton als Townes Van Zandt in Blaze
• Michael Stuhlbarg als Samuel Perlman in Call Me by Your Name

BESTE VOICEOVER-PERFORMANCE

• Bryan Cranston als Chief in Isle of Dogs
• Jessica Dinnage als Iben in The Guilty
• Tom Hardy als Venom in Venom
• Holly Hunter als Helen Parr / Elastigirl in Incredibles 2
• Shameik Moore als Miles Morales / Spider-Man in Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse
• Koyu Rankin als Atari Kobayashi in Isle of Dogs
• Maria Schrader als Regina Schilling in Kulenkampffs Schuhe

BESTES SCHAUSPIEL-ENSEMBLE

• Crazy Rich Asians – Awkwafina, Gemma Chan, Ronny Chieng, Henry Golding, Ken Jeong, Lisa Lu, Sonoya Mizuno, Chris Pang, Constance Wu, Jimmy O. Yang, Michelle Yeoh
  
• The Florida Project – Macon Blair, Valeria Cotto, Willem Dafoe, Caleb Landry Jones, Aiden Malik, Mela Murder, Brooklynn Prince, Christopher Rivera, Bria Vinaite
  
• Hunt for the Wilderpeople – Rhys Darby, Julian Dennison, Rachel House, Oscar Kightley, Sam Neill, Rima Te Wiata, Taika Waititi
  
• Lady Bird – Timothée Chalamet, Beanie Feldstein, Lucas Hedges, Stephen McKinley Henderson, Tracy Letts, Laurie Metcalf, Saoirse Ronan, Lois Smith
  
• Ocean's Eight – Richard Armitage, Awkwafina, Cate Blanchett, Helena Bonham Carter, Sandra Bullock, James Corden, Mindy Kaling, Sarah Paulson, Rihanna
  
• Shoplifters – Sakura Andō, Lily Franky, Sōsuke Ikematsu, Kairi Jō, Kirin Kiki, Mayu Matsuoka, Miyu Sasaki
  
• Widows – Jon Bernthal, Carrie Coon, Viola Davis, Elizabeth Debicki, Garrett Dillahunt, Robert Duvall, Cynthia Erivo, Colin Farrell, Lukas Haas, Brian Tyree Henry, Daniel Kaluuya, Liam Neeson, Michelle Rodriguez, Jacki Weaver
  

BESTER NICHT-ENGLISCHSPRACHIGER FILM

• Cold War von Paweł Pawlikowski (Polnisch)
• The Guilty von Gustav Möller (Dänisch)
• Jusqu'à la garde von Xavier Legrand (Französisch)
• Kulenkampffs Schuhe von Regina Schilling (Deutsch)
• Lazzaro felice von Alice Rohrwacher (Italienisch)
• Loveless von Andrey Zvyagintsev (Russisch)
• Roma von Alfonso Cuarón (Spanisch und Mixtekisch)
• Shoplifters von Hirokazu Kore-eda (Japanisch)
• Visages villages von Agnès Varda und JR (Französisch)
• Zama von Lucrecia Martel (Spanisch)

BESTER ANIMATIONSFILM

• Bao von Domee Shi
  
• Isle of Dogs von Wes Anderson
• Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse von Bob Persichetti, Peter Ramsey und Rodney Rothman

BESTER DOKUMENTARFILM

• Ex Libris: The New York Public Library von Frederick Wiseman
• The King von Eugene Jarecki
• Kulenkampffs Schuhe von Regina Schilling
• Shirkers von Sandi Tan
• Visages villages von Agnès Varda und JR

BESTES ORIGINALDREHBUCH

• The Guilty – Gustav Möller, Emil Nygaard Albertsen
  
• Lady Bird – Greta Gerwig
  
• Lazzaro felice – Alice Rohrwacher
  
• Loveless – Oleg Negin, Andrey Zvyagintsev
  
• Private Life – Tamara Jenkins
  
• Searching – Aneesh Chaganty, Sev Ohanian
  
• Shoplifters – Hirokazu Kore-eda
  

BESTES ADAPTIERTES DREHBUCH

• The Ballad of Buster Scruggs – Ethan Coen, Joel Coen ("All Gold Canyon" basiert auf der gleichnamigen Kurzgeschichte von Jack London; "The Gal Who Got Rattled" basiert auf der Kurzgeschichte "The Girl Who Got Rattled" von Stewart Edward White)
  
• BlacKkKlansman – Spike Lee, David Rabinowitz, Charlie Wachtel, Kevin Willmott (basierend auf den Memoiren Black Klansman von Ron Stallworth)
  
• Call Me by Your Name – James Ivory (basierend auf dem Roman Call Me by Your Name von André Aciman)
  
• Hunt for the Wilderpeople – Taika Waititi (basierend auf dem Roman Wild Pork and Watercress von Barry Crump)
• Widows – Gillian Flynn, Steve McQueen (basierend auf der TV-Serie Widows von Lynda La Plante)
  
• You Were Never Really Here – Lynne Ramsay (basierend auf der Novelle You Were Never Really Here von Jonathan Ames)
  
• Zama – Lucrecia Martel (basierend auf dem Roman Zama von Antonio di Benedetto)
  

BESTE KAMERA

• Climax – Benoît Debie
  
• Cold War – Łukasz Żal
• The Florida Project – Alexis Zabe
  
• A Ghost Story – Andrew Droz Palermo
• The Killing of a Sacred Deer – Thimios Bakatakis
  
• Roma – Alfonso Cuarón
  
• Searching – Juan Sebastian Baron
  

BESTER SCHNITT

• BlacKkKlansman – Barry Alexander Brown
  
• Blaze – Jason Gourson
• Call Me by Your Name – Walter Fasano
  
• A Ghost Story – David Lowery
• The Other Side of the Wind – Bob Murawski, Orson Welles
  
• Widows – Joe Walker
  
• You Were Never Really Here – Joe Bini
  

BESTE FILMMUSIK

• Geoff Barrow, Ben Salisbury – Annihilation
  
• Carter Burwell – The Ballad of Buster Scruggs
• Cody Carpenter, John Carpenter, Daniel Davies – Halloween
  
• Alexandre Desplat – Isle of Dogs
• Jonny Greenwood – You Were Never Really Here
  
• Daniel Hart – A Ghost Story
  
• Justin Hurwitz – First Man
  

BESTES TONDESIGN

• Climax – Ken Yasumoto
  
• First Man – Mary H. Ellis, Mildred Iatrou Morgan, Ai-Ling Lee
• Hereditary – Lewis Goldstein, Steven C. Laneri, Viktor Weiszhaupt
  
• A Quiet Place – Erik Aadahl, Michael Barosky, Brandon Jones, Ethan Van der Rhyn
• Roma – Craig Berkey, Steve Browell, Sergio Diaz, Enrique Greiner, Javier Quesada, Liliana Villaseñor
  
• You Were Never Really Here – Paul Davies, Drew Kunin
  
• Zama – Guido Berenblum, Manuel de Andres, Gerardo Kalmar
  

BESTE AUSSTATTUNG

• Annihilation – Gareth Cousins, Michelle Day, Mark Digby, Lauren Doss, Simon Elsley, Elaine Kusmishko, Denis Schnegg
  
• Au poste! – Joan Le Boru, Jérémie Sfez
• The Florida Project – Kurt Thoresen, Stephonik Youth
  
• In den Gängen – Daniela Grömke, Maria Klingner, Jenny Rösler
• Roma – Carlos Benassini, Eugenio Caballero, Barbara Enriquez, Oscar Tello
  
• The Shape of Water – Paul D. Austerberry, Nigel Churcher, Jeffrey A. Melvin, Shane Vieau
  
• Shoplifters – Akiko Matsuba, Keiko Mitsumatsu
  

BESTE KOSTÜME

• Black Panther – Ruth E. Carter
  
• Blaze – Lee Kyle
• A Ghost Story – Annell Brodeur
  
• I Am Not a Witch – Holly Rebecca
• I, Tonya – Jennifer Johnson
  
• Phantom Thread – Mark Bridges
  
• Zama – Julio Suárez
  

BESTE SPEZIALEFFEKTE

• Avengers: Infinity War
• Bumblebee
• First Man
• Mission: Impossible – Fallout
• Roma
• The Shape of Water
• Solo: A Star Wars Story
  

"SPOILER ALERT": BESTE SZENE

• Annihilation – "The Dance" / "Unfathomable mind"
  
• The Ballad of Buster Scruggs – "Stories"
  
• BlacKkKlansman – "Charlottesville" / "Too Late to Turn Back Now"
  
• Black Panther – "No tears for me?"
  
• Call Me by Your Name – "I envy you"
  
• Crazy Rich Asians – "Can't Help Falling in Love with You"
  
• First Man – "Quarantine"
• The Florida Project – "Soda"
• A Ghost Story – "I Get Overwhelmed" / "Thesaurus tuus"
• Hereditary – "Pylon"
• Hunt for the Wilderpeople – "Doors"
• Jusqu'à la garde – "Ouvre!"
• Roma – "10 junio" / "La mar"
• Searching – "Family computer"
• The Spy Who Dumped Me – "Vienna chase"
• You Were Never Really Here – "I've Never Been to Me"

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Nominationen-Total:

• 9 Nominationen: Roma
• 8 Nominationen: The Florida Project, You Were Never Really Here
• 6 Nominationen: Call Me by Your Name, A Ghost Story, Widows
• 5 Nominationen: Annihilation, First Man, Shoplifters, Zama
• 4 Nominationen: BlacKkKlansman, Isle of Dogs, Kulenkampffs Schuhe, Lady Bird, Searching
• 3 Nominationen: The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, Black Panther, Blaze, Crazy Rich Asians, The Guilty, Hereditary, Hunt for the Wilderpeople, Jusqu'à la garde, Lazzaro felice, The Rider
• 2 Nominationen: Au poste!, Climax, Cold War, I Am Not a Witch, Loveless, Phantom Thread, The Shape of Water, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, Sweet Country, Visages villages
• 1 Nomination: Avengers: Infinity War, Bad Times at the El Royale, Bao, Bumblebee, Dogman, Don't Worry, He Won't Get Far on Foot, Ex Libris: The New York Public Library, Halloween, Incredibles 2, In den Gängen, I, Tonya, The Killing of a Sacred Deer, The King, Mission: Impossible – Fallout, Ocean's Eight, The Other Side of the Wind, Private Life, A Quiet Place, Shirkers, Solo: A Star Wars Story, The Spy Who Dumped Me, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, Venom

Kinojahr 2018: Top 10

1

ROMA

(Alfonso Cuarón, Mexiko)

2

A GHOST STORY

(David Lowery, USA)

3

ANNIHILATION

(Alex Garland, UK/USA)

4

CALL ME BY YOUR NAME

(Luca Guadagnino, Italien/USA)

5

THE FLORIDA PROJECT

(Sean Baker, USA)

6

BLACKKKLANSMAN

(Spike Lee, USA)

7

KULENKAMPFFS SCHUHE

(Regina Schilling, Deutschland)

8

YOU WERE NEVER REALLY HERE

(Lynne Ramsay, UK/USA)

9

SWEET COUNTRY

(Warwick Thornton, Australien)

10

THE RIDER

(Chloé Zhao, USA) 

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HONOURABLE MENTIONS

• Black Panther (Ryan Coogler)
• Ex Libris: The New York Public Library (Frederick Wiseman)
• Isle of Dogs (Wes Anderson)
• Loveless (Andrey Zvyagintsev)
• Zama (Lucrecia Martel)

Zama

"They were two perfectly insignificant and incapable individuals, whose existence is only rendered possible through the high organization of civilized crowds. Few men realise that their life, the very essence of their character, their capabilities and their audacities, are only the expression of their belief in the safety of their surroundings. The courage, the composure, the confidence; the emotions and principles; every great and insignificant thought belongs not to the individual but to the crowd: to the crowd that believes blindly in the irresistible force of its institutions and of its morals" – Joseph Conrad, "An Outpost of Progress"

Zama, Lucrecia Martel's remarkable period drama about the misadventures of a low-level judge in colonial Argentina, is a haunted film – haunted by both the shadowy presence of countless works of art that preceded it and, not unlike Warwick Thornton's stunningly radical Sweet Country (2017), a lurking feeling of repressed guilt.

Watching Martel's ethereal, deviously laconic adaptation of Antonio di Benedetto's eponymous 1956 novel is to see textual spectres at every corner – allusions the film does not seem to actively invoke. Most obviously, there is the sense of imperialist ennui, which has been a mainstay of European postcolonial art from Joseph Conrad all the way to Werner Herzog's Aguirre (1972): Zama's protagonist, Don Diego de Zama (Daniel Giménez Cacho), is stuck in a sleepy Argentinian backwater, where he is respected neither by the natives nor by his fellow colonisers. His only wish is to be called back to his native Spain, but the vast and abstract network of authority that rules over his deployment never deigns to indulge him.

There is something Sisyphean about Zama's existence – reinforced by the frequent repetition of mundane lines of dialogue – which gives the whole affair a distinctively absurdist tinge; a life spent waiting in vain for a better life, sporadically interrupted by pointless tasks and hopeless appeals to uncaring and ever-changing superiors, whose offices aren't even powerful enough to keep out the llamas. Remnants of Buñuel, specifically the sense of self-imposed stagnation encountered in The Exterminating Angel (1962) and Simon of the Desert (1965), are rattling around the film as well.

Hapless coloniser Don Diego de Zama (Daniel Giménez Cacho) is waiting to be transferred to a better position.
© trigon-film

Finally, Martel's deft direction, coupled with DP Rui Poças' beautiful and precise tableaux of rooms, windows, and doorframes, brings to mind Diego Velázquez's painting Las Meninas with its complex web of sight lines, which philosopher Michel Foucault famously translated into indications of power relations. In Zama, as in Las Meninas, it matters who sees whom, who looks at whom, and who notices – or not – whether they are being looked at. And it's rarely the colonisers – and least of all Zama, in spite of all his posturing in the foreground of the frame – who come out on top in this game of political peekaboo.

Indeed, Martel, without diminishing the racist entitlement and cruel capriciousness of the Spanish invaders, portrays her titular character and most of his compatriots as being almost comically out of their depth. As time wears on, with no way of telling whether months or years have passed, their fashionably powdered wigs become increasingly dishevelled, their clothes ragged and dusty. The native population confounds them with customs and a language they do not understand, nor bother to learn; they unsettle each other with tales of a mysterious outlaw, who has either been executed or is waiting to strike at any moment. The third act, an aimless trek into the countryside, plays like a dark variation on Don Quixote, with a local tribe refusing to adhere to European notions of "savagery" standing in for the windmills, and Sancho Panza slowly dying of an infected insect sting.

In colonial Argentina, Zama and his compatriots are hopelessly out of their depth.
© trigon-film

As in the somewhat grimmer Sweet Country, the bottom line of Martel's brilliant film appears to be a thinly veiled challenge to the legitimacy of a state founded on colonialism. The historical injustice on which Argentina, and much of modern South America, is built is palpable in nearly every scene – be it the native people in the margins, the black slaves waiting on the white aristocrats in wary silence, or the moral doubts that creep into some of the colonisers' conversations here and there.

Even though its larger point is virtually unmissable, Zama is an extraordinarily subtle film that gains upon reflection and, presumably, revisiting. It is at once a serious deconstruction of colonialist attitudes and a wryly funny satire of the very notion of European supremacy – incorporated into an absurdist descent into madness and despair. In short, it's a treat.

★★★★★

22 July

Over the course of his almost 30-year career, Paul Greengrass, even though probably best known for his series of Jason Bourne thrillers, has fashioned himself into cinema's premier expert for what could be termed "fact-based atrocity procedurals." Since his 1989 debut, the Englishman has covered egregious police misconduct (Open Fire), racist hate crimes (The Murder of Stephen Lawrence), the Northern Irish Troubles (Bloody Sunday, Omagh), 9/11 (United 93), the Iraq War (Green Zone), and Somalia-based piracy (Captain Phillips) in his trademark style of fast-paced immediacy.

Going into 22 July, Greengrass' take on the 2011 Norway attacks, in which far-right terrorist Anders Behring Breivik (played here by Anders Danielsen Lie) killed 77 people, with this back catalogue in mind might prove disorienting, however. In fact, those who expect the Netflix-produced film to be a fly-on-the-wall documentary thriller focused on the event itself, something in the vein of United 93 – which dramatised one of the 11 September plane hijackings –, will be in for a surprise: Breivik's highly publicised massacres – the detonation of a car bomb in downtown Oslo and a shooting spree on Utøya Island, the site of a Labour Party-organised summer camp for teenagers – take up just 30 minutes of the 143-minute film.

The rest of the runtime concerns itself with the political, legal, and emotional fallout of Breivik's crimes. While Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg (Ola G. Furuseth) calls for an inquiry into how the events of 22 July 2011 could happen, left-leaning lawyer Geir Lippestad (Jon Øjgarden) grapples with Breivik handpicking him as his defender in court. And then there's Viljar Hanssen (Jonas Strand Gravli), an Utøya attendee who barely escapes the attack with his life and who now faces an uncertain future.

Presumably spurred by Erik Poppe's Utøya: 22 July (2018) depicting the island attack in real time, it's a curious but by no means unwelcome move on Greengrass' part – more welcome, in any case, than his decision to have his Norwegian actors speak English, which is never less than at least slightly awkward. Shining the spotlight on the aftermath rather than on the bloodshed feels like the logical extension to the end of Captain Phillips (2013), which served as a stark reminder that a traumatic incident doesn't end when the last shot has been fired.

On 22 July, 2011, Anders Behring Breivik (Anders Danielsen Lie) killed 77 people in two coordinated terrorist attacks.
© Netflix

22 July does well to point out the multi-faceted impact the 2011 attacks had on Norwegian society and what their significance were in the broader context – a far-right side character Lippestad interviews on Breivik's behalf even slips in the term "alt-right." However, it's a different question altogether whether Greengrass' adaptation of Åsne Seierstad's non-fiction book One of Us, does justice to all of its narrative strands.

Although Ola G. Furuseth gives an arresting performance as Prime Minister Stoltenberg, he is underserved by a script that is noticeably unsure what to do with him, as his main function for the majority of the film is to keep in the background and let the public inquiry run its course. Thus, the audience is left waiting, along with a powerful yet largely inactive character, for the completion of the inquiry's decidedly uncinematic work.

But whereas the political drama of 22 July proves to be a bit of a bust, the legal chamber play that plays alongside it fares much better. Greengrass' unflinching, records-based dramatisation of Breivik's violent, ideological narcissism makes for some of the film's most disturbing moments – such as when Breivik, after being arrested, asks for medical attention because he cut his finger on of his victims' fractured skull.

Viljar Hanssen (Jonas Strand Gravli) is one of the survivors of Breivik's massacre.
© Netflix

The introduction of Geir Lippestad is a dramatic relief, but his captivatingly written verbal sparring with his client does little to counteract Breivik's grandstanding, which is, admittedly, in keeping with the lawyer's convictions: if the state did not give a fair hearing to a mass murderer, it would renounce the very democratic ideals he wants to topple. The movie translates this into a fairly well executed humanisation of its terrorist figure – though there is a lingering sense of the script, and Anders Danielsen Lie's frighteningly excellent portrayal, giving him an unduly prominent platform. It certainly is an interesting contrast to Poppe's Utøya, which made a point of relegating Breivik to a marginal figure.

Interestingly, the film's most successful element is the one that would most comfortably fit into a stereotypical Hollywood disaster narrative. Together with his mother, Svalbard politician Christin Kristoffersen (Maria Bock), young Viljar Hanssen, who narrowly survives the five gunshot wounds Breivik inflicts on him, forms 22 July's emotional core. Here, carried by two affecting performances, Greengrass' hit-and-miss script delivers a touching drama about working through trauma, grief, and survivor's guilt, which could also have worked as a film of its own.

In fact, most parts of 22 July may have reached their true potential if they had been addressed in individual works. In trying to offer a panoptic view of the Norway attacks, Greengrass has crafted an intriguing but overlong procedural that is at once heavy on details and lacking in depth. Thematically, it snugly fits into the Greengrass œuvre, but it probably won't go down as one of his major creations.

★★★

Shirkers

© Netflix

★★★★

"Shirkers ist ein faszinierender, vielschichtiger und immer wieder tief berührender Film über das Kino, über Kunst, über Machtverhältnisse – zwischen Männern und Frauen, zwischen dem Westen und dem Rest der Welt –, über geplatzte und verwirklichte Träume, über das Erwachsenwerden, über Singapur."

Ganze Kritik auf Maximum Cinema (online einsehbar)

3 Faces

© Filmcoopi

★★★★

"Unter der etwas chaotischen Oberfläche von 3 Faces – die wohl auch der ungewohnten Freiheit des Regisseurs zuzuschreiben ist – spielt sich eine spannende Auseinandersetzung mit der sozialen, politischen und künstlerischen Vergangenheit, Gegenwart und Zukunft des Irans ab: Kann die Generation, die unter dem Joch der Ayatollahs gross geworden ist, ihren Nachkommen überhaupt noch etwas beibringen? Oder liegt die einzige Hoffnung in der Rückbesinnung auf die Zeit vor der islamischen Revolution?"

Ganze Kritik auf Maximum Cinema (online einsehbar)

Bumblebee

© Paramount Pictures

★★★★

"Die Freundschaft zwischen der introvertierten Charlie und ihrem tollpatschigen Riesenroboter sorgt nicht nur für zahlreiche witzige Momente, sondern berührt auch mit einer Einfühlsamkeit, die nach dem fast schon pathologischen Machismo von Bays Vorgängerfilmen wie ein kleines Wunder wirkt."

Ganze Kritik auf Maximum Cinema (online einsehbar)

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse

© Sony Pictures Releasing Switzerland GmbH

★★★★

"Produziert und mitkonzipiert wurde das Ganze von Phil Lord und Christopher Miller, dem Zweiergespann hinter 21 Jump Street und The Lego Movie. Entsprechend überrascht es nicht, dass der Film des Regie-Trios Bob Persichetti, Peter Ramsey (Rise of the Guardians) und Rodney Rothman vorab mit schrägem Humor und sympathischen Figuren glänzt."

Ganze Kritik auf Maximum Cinema (online einsehbar)

Climax

Neben dem diesbezüglich wohl unantastbaren Lars von Trier ist Gaspar Noé die vielleicht umstrittenste Persönlichkeit in der Welt des Arthouse-Kinos. Kein Wunder, steht der Name des Argentiniers doch mindestens ebenso für konfrontativ-überhebliche öffentliche Auftritte wie für schonungs- und kompromisslose Filme, in denen nicht selten Sex und Gewalt in geradezu verstörendem Detailreichtum abgebildet werden. Die Karriere des Wahlfranzosen, die bereits Mitte der Achtzigerjahre mit Kurzfilmprojekten begann, fusst auf virtuosem Filmhandwerk, seine internationale Bekanntheit auf unablässiger Provokation und gekonnt inszenierter Publikumsverachtung.

Vor diesem Hintergrund wirkt es beinahe albern, Noé so etwas wie Altersmilde attestieren zu wollen; und doch schlägt sein neuestes Werk, der psychedelische Musik-Horrorfilm Climax – verglichen mit seinen Vorgängern Seul contre tous (1998), Irréversible (2002), Enter the Void (2009) und Love (2015) –, ungewohnt freudige, bisweilen sogar sanfte Töne an.

Der Film spielt 1996 in einem alten Internatsgebäude irgendwo in Frankreich. Während draussen ein Schneesturm tobt, feiert im Innern eine moderne Tanztruppe das Ende eines Probewochenendes kurz vor dem Aufbruch zu einer US-Tournee. Doch schon bald verkommt die feuchtfröhliche Party zu einem regelrechten Höllentrip: Jemand hat Drogen unter die Sangría gemischt, woraufhin alle Tänzerinnen und Tänzer nach und nach auf ihre eigene Weise die Kontrolle verlieren.

Doch auch ohne den rabenschwarzen Pessimismus eines Irréversible – berüchtigt für seine neunminütige, ungeschnittene Vergewaltigungsszene – ist Climax nichts für schwache Nerven. Schon in der ersten längeren Szene – einer Reihe von aufgezeichneten Interviews, in denen die Mitglieder der Gruppe über ihre Beziehung zum Tanzen sprechen – legt Noé offen, in welcher Tradition er hier arbeitet, welche Themen ihn umtreiben. Zu sehen sind die Gespräche auf einem Fernseher, flankiert von Büchern über Drogen, Selbstmord und menschliche Augen, sowie von Videokassetten einschlägiger radikaler Kinoklassiker, von Andrzej Żuławskis Possession (1981) über Dario Argentos Suspiria (1977) bis hin zu Pier Paolo Pasolinis Salò (1975).

Vive la danse!
© Xenix Filmdistribution GmbH

So durchzieht Noés Party – neben Sofia Boutella (Star Trek Beyond, Atomic Blonde) ausschliesslich bevölkert von professionellen Tänzerinnen und Tänzern ohne Leinwanderfahrung – von Anfang an das Gefühl, dass die Sache kein gutes Ende nehmen kann. Noch bevor ein Kind die psychoaktive Sangría getrunken hat, bevor eine Tänzerin zur Selbstverletzung getrieben wird, bevor jemandes Haare Feuer fangen, fällt die Bemerkung "Ich glaube, hier spukt es." Grund für dieses Unbehagen ist eine schillernd glitzernde Tricolore hinter dem DJ-Pult – eines von diversen Details, die suggerieren, dass man es hier mit einer hinterhältigen Allegorie auf La Grande Nation zu tun hat. Oder aber Noé will sein Publikum auf eine falsche Fährte locken.

Fest steht, dass Climax auch ohne soziopolitischen Subtext ein fulminantes Kinoerlebnis ist. Die langen, ausgeklügelt inszenierten Einstellungen, in denen sich die Kamera von Benoît Debie (Irréversible, Spring Breakers) durch schummrig beleuchtete Korridore und grell geschmückte Nebenzimmer voller berauschter Tänzer schlängelt, sind schlichtweg brillant; derweil die Szenen, in welchen zum permanenten Soundtrack tatsächlich getanzt wird, mitreissende Liebeserklärungen an die moderne Choreografiekunst sind. (Tänze aus der Vogelperspektive sind ein faszinierender Anblick.) Und inmitten dieses visuell brillanten Horrortrips findet Noé wider jeglicher Erwartung Momente der Schönheit, der Kameradschaft und der zwischenmenschlichen Zärtlichkeit: Für einmal hält die Menschlichkeit dem blutigen Verderben stand.

★★★★

The House That Jack Built

It's an interesting, and slightly maddening, experience to watch The House That Jack Built, the latest offering from controversial Danish director Lars von Trier, shortly after finishing the new season of BoJack Horseman, the critically acclaimed animated Netflix show about the zany misadventures and emotional toxicity of a washed-up sitcom star.

This year, in its fifth season, the series, which throughout its run has been maturely dealing with weighty issues such as depression and addiction as a matter of course, has zeroed in on an especially delicate thematic concern – the idea that admitting to having a problem is not the same as actually tackling that problem. More often than not, self-flagellation is a solipsistic performance rather than meaningful self-improvement. Or, as one character succinctly puts it in an earlier season: "You can't keep doing shitty things and then feel bad about yourself like that makes it okay. You need to be better."

It takes a certain degree of self-awareness to reach that point – and BoJack is taking that awareness to remarkable creative and emotional places. Jack, on the other hand, for most of its fitfully engaging 155 minutes, is painfully unaware of its own unreflected narcissism, which it tries to pass off as a tongue-in-cheek self-indictment.

The film stars the excellent Matt Dillon as Jack, an engineer and would-be architect who gains notoriety as a sadistic serial killer during the 1970s and 1980s. Echoing the structure of Nymph()maniac (2013), it flouts a straightforward narrative in favour of five episodes, or "incidents," each retelling one specific murder – a smug quasi-confession, which Jack, in a variation on Dante's Inferno, directs at the Roman poet Virgil (Bruno Ganz) via voice-over.

The metaphorical thrust of The House That Jack Built is so obvious that it feels like a stretch to call it subtext – the movie even features clips from Antichrist (2009), Melancholia (2011), and other works by von Trier. What he is essentially doing here, by graphically detailing a cold-blooded psychopath's gruesome dismemberments, killings, and posthumous desecrations of (mostly) women and children, is pronouncing to the world his knowledge that he is a bit of a creep.

Jack (Matt Dillon) is a highly intelligent psychopath.
© Concorde Filmverleih GmbH

There's nothing inherently wrong with that, of course. Over the last ten years, von Trier's projects have invariably been thinly veiled cinematic therapy sessions. And it's undeniably true that he has cultivated an image of rude, standoffish arrogance ever since he co-founded the Dogme 95 filmmaking collective: he has expressed sympathy for Hitler and called himself a Nazi; he freely admits to being a tyrant on set; and at least a few of his movies reek of misogyny posing as female empowerment. Considering all of this, a little self-criticism would definitely not go amiss.

This is where the comparison with BoJack Horseman becomes relevant, however. The House That Jack Built is less a case of von Trier confronting and exorcising his demons than of him hyperbolically playing them up in a sort of best-of compilation. Jack, von Trier's on-screen alter ego, is an almost comically evil mastermind, fully aware of his own narcissistic superiority complex and quick to defend his bloody deeds as high art: "Do not look at the acts, look at the works," he tells a bemused Virgil at one point.

Yes, this is filtered through a thick layer of irony, but it's the kind of puerile irony that seems rather like a defence mechanism – a distant relative of the "Relax, it's just a joke" brand of bigotry – than a serious distancing of the author from his text. If the audience is indeed meant to read Jack as an irredeemable villain, the film offers precious little in terms of resistance to him: he gets to tell his own story, to spout misogynistic slogans, to wax poetic about his own "handiwork" with only the mildest and most sporadic of pushbacks from Virgil. The result is an entirely performative act of navel-gazing, an infuriating refusal to truly engage with the implications of having a Lars von Trier stand-in brutally slaughter a bunch of women. In this context, the primary purpose of invoking the unreliable-narrator trope appears not to be to undercut said narrator but to deflect any criticism directed at him.

Every once in a while, Jack feels the need to kill.
© Concorde Filmverleih GmbH

For fairness' sake, one should concede that the film, ultimately, seems to be grasping for some sort of redemption. In an extended, Dante-inspired epilogue, which ranks among the more brilliant things von Trier has ever directed, The House That Jack Built does reckon with Jack's disturbing psychopathy – if only metaphysically – before playing "Hit the Road Jack" over the end credits, apparently acknowledging the merit of at least the idea of "doing better."

However, by that point, the audience has already been subjected to more than two hours of off-putting, self-important theatrics, most of which seem to actively relish in Jack's atrocities. Finding this kind of perverted joy in the breaking of taboos may be one of cinema's oldest traditions. But in The House That Jack Built, it not only seems like shock value for shock value's sake – it feels like it belies what the film as a whole attempts, and utterly fails, to achieve.

★★

ONE FOR YOU: "Disobedience" & "This Is Not a Film"

The newest episode of the pod is up! Thanks to @AlanMattli for the interesting discussions on #Disobedience and #ThisisNotaFilm. https://t.co/Gm6gfZab6k

— ONE FOR YOU (@oneforyoupod) December 2, 2018

This weekend, I had the pleasure of appearing as a guest on the English-language movie podcast One for You. Fellow critic Olivia Tjon-A-Meeuw and I met up for a discussion of Sebastián Lelio's underwhelming drama Disobedience and Jafar Panahi's documentary masterpiece This Is Not a Film. You can listen to the episode on Soundcloud or on the podcast app of your choice.

First Man

Am 20. Juli 1969 betrat der NASA-Astronaut Neil Armstrong als erster Mensch den Mond. Nicht lange nach seiner Rückkehr zur Erde wurde er von Vertretern beider grosser amerikanischer Parteien angefragt, ob er eine politische Karriere in Betracht zöge. Er lehnte entschieden ab.

First Man, der Verfilmung von James R. Hansens gleichnamiger Armstrong-Biografie, widerfuhr im Zuge ihres US-Kinostarts ein ähnliches Schicksal. Erst beschwerten sich konservative Kommentatoren über angeblich fehlende amerikanische Flaggen und unzulänglichen Patriotismus seitens der Filmcrew, woraufhin einige Exponenten von links, allen voran der streitlustige New Yorker-Kritiker Richard Brody, den Film aufgrund seiner Darstellung von Geschichte als "versehentliches rechtes Fetischobjekt" brandmarkten.

Beide Vorwürfe zielen meilenweit am Film vorbei. First Man mag nicht die beste Arbeit von Oscargewinner und Regie-Wunderkind Damien Chazelle (Whiplash, La La Land) sein – dazu ist das Ganze etwas zu lang und uneinheitlich –, wohl aber seine emotional komplexeste. Was das Publikum hier erwartet, ist mindestens ebenso sehr eine Charakterstudie über Einsamkeit, Trauma und Desillusionierung wie eine historische Abhandlung über den steinigen Weg zum Mond.

Obwohl sich Chazelle und Drehbuchautor Josh Singer (Spotlight, The Post) pflichtbewusst von NASA-Projekt zu NASA-Projekt arbeiten, die zum Erfolg des bahnbrechenden Apollo-11-Fluges im Sommer 1969 nötig waren, bleibt ihre Handlung durchgehend in der Figur Neil Armstrong verankert. Gespielt wird dieser von einem herausragenden Ryan Gosling, dessen Schlafwandler-Persona – perfektioniert in Filmen wie Drive (2011), The Place Beyond the Pines (2012), Only God Forgives (2013) und Blade Runner 2049 (2017) – wie geschaffen scheint für den schweigsamen, enigmatischen, eben nur scheinbar gefühlskalten Stoiker, der sich in der Rolle des amerikanischen Helden niemals richtig wohlfühlte.

Viel musste passieren, bevor Neil Armstrong (Ryan Gosling) auf die Mondoberfläche geschickt werden konnte.
© Universal Pictures International Switzerland

Mit seinem minimalistischen Spiel vermittelt Gosling ein faszinierendes, zunehmend aber auch beklemmendes Gefühl von Hilflosigkeit und Ohnmacht, von einem haltlosen Leben in konstanter Schwerelosigkeit. 1962 stirbt Armstrongs Tochter Karen im Alter von zwei Jahren an einem Hirntumor, was sein Familienleben, insbesondere die Beziehung zu seiner Ehefrau Janet (die starke Claire Foy), zu zerrütten droht. Die lange Vorbereitungsphase auf die erste bemannte Mondlandung ist gezeichnet von tödlichen Unfällen, die auch vor Armstrongs Astronautenfreunden nicht Halt machen.

First Man widersetzt sich jeglicher Form simpler Legendenbildung: Sein Held – und er ist trotz allem einer, wenn auch ein tragischer – ist kein rebellischer amerikanischer Pionier. Er ist eine im schlimmsten Fall austauschbare menschliche Resource, die es zur Ikone gebracht hat, weil sie ihre entscheidenden Missionen überlebt hat – dank Intelligenz und Einfallsreichtum, ja, aber auch dank einer gehörigen Portion Glück. Die hehren Fortschrittsträume der Raumfahrt – wie sie Ridley Scott in The Martian (2015) so mitreissend inszenierte – prallen hier auf die pragmatische, klapprige, nachdrücklich analoge Realität, ohne jedoch in den Zynismus eines Gravity (2013) zu verfallen. Den Erdball von oben zu betrachten, ist und bleibt ein lebensveränderndes Ereignis; doch es gehört auch zum Astronautendasein dazu, um anhaltende staatliche Finanzierung zu werben.

Spätestens seit dem Tod ihrer gemeinsamen Tochter herrschen Spannungen zwischen Neil und seiner Ehefrau Janet (Claire Foy).
© Universal Pictures International Switzerland

All das bildet den Hintergrund, vor dem sich Chazelles wahre "Space Odyssey" abspielt. Eine Odyssee ist bekanntermassen eine Heimkehr auf Irrwegen – eine Irrfahrt, welche die meisten Weltraumfilme nach Stanley Kubrick als Heimkehr zur Erde interpretiert haben, von Apollo 13 (1995) bis Interstellar (2014). Doch Neil Armstrong irrt in First Man nicht durchs All. Seine Aufgaben sind unmissverständlich: ein Testflug ausserhalb der Atmosphäre, ein Andockmanöver in der Erdumlaufbahn, die Reise auf die Mondoberfläche und wieder zurück. Seine Odyssee ist emotionaler Natur.

Getragen von Justin Hurwitz' grossartigem Musikscore, in dem statt orchestralem Protz sanfte Harfenklänge mit fein ineinander verwobenen Leitmotiven dominieren, erzählen Chazelle und Singer davon, wie Armstrong über sieben lange Jahre versucht, den Tod seiner Tochter zu bewältigen. Die sachlich vorgetragene, ausgezeichnet inszenierte Historie, die in First Man rekonstruiert wird, profitiert von diesem emotionalen Tiefgang, der dem Ganzen nicht nur zu einer der besten Schlussszenen der vergangenen zwei, drei Jahre verhilft: Was leicht zur trockenen biografischen Routineübung hätte werden können, ist dank der subtilen Darstellung der Spannungen innerhalb der Armstrong-Familie – Neils psychische und physische Unerreichbarkeit, Janets wachsende Frustration, die nie wirklich gelösten Konflikte ihrer beiden Söhne – eine berührende Auseinandersetzung mit der Menschlichkeit einer unfreiwillig übermenschlichen Figur.

★★★★