Fight(s) Club

I am not a particularly litigious person.
I don’t usually like that much to quarrel and discuss, but if there is one thing in life I am ready to fight for, it is cinema. Touch a movie I love (or I don't love), and you’ll see.
The reasons why we like or hate a certain film are often mysterious and unpredictable, but I am convinced that this is part of cinema’s charm.
Sometimes we love movies because we consider them perfect and sometimes we are crazy about films plenty of flaws but absolutely irresistible to us, no matter what the most important cinema critics write about them. So, dear readers, here’s my TOP 5 List of movies I have most fight for or against in my whole life: 
1 -  BREAKING THE WAVES by Lars Von Trier (1996) 

A milestone, in my life. The strongest cinema experience I ever had: I saw it 4 times in theatres and every single time it was like a tsunami (easily created by my tears!). I adore this film and I had the most outrageous fights over it. A lot of people (mostly men) don’t like it. After almost 20 years, I could clearly see that the film was striking some very personal chords and my obsession with Bess McNeill at that time says something about it, but I still consider it a masterpiece and I would be ready to fight again and again and again over it. Little Bess For Ever!
2 - FIGHT CLUB by David Fincher (1999) 

Everybody knows it. There is no human being in this world that gets on my nerves like David Fincher. And my hatred for him started with this movie. I could have opened a fight club with all the fights I had over it (most probably with the same men who didn’t like Breaking the Waves...). I didn’t get the “free the animal that is in you/can’t you see we are all losers ‘cause we buy Ikea furniture?” kinda things. Not to mention that ridiculous final scene (you gotta be kidding me, right?). Things didn’t get better between me and David with his further movies. I think he is the most misogynist film-maker of cinema history. What can I say? I prefer directors filming “The man who loved women” to the ones filming “Men who hate women”.
3 - TREE OF LIFE by Terrence Malick (2011)

The problem with this movie, is that it’s almost a sin to declare that you don’t love it. I had a tremendous fight with an unknown person on Facebook, once. This man wrote something like: Who doesn’t like Tree of Life it’s because he/she doesn’t have the cultural supports to understand it!!! I almost killed him. That’s the thing. There is a moral judgement involved here, somewhere, somehow. And I can’t stand it. Even if Tree of Life (or any other movie of cinema history) would be considered the most beautiful movie of all time (and IT IS NOT), I think I would have the right to say that I don’t like it without having somebody telling me that it’s because I’m ignorant. I’m curious to know where all those Malicks fans where at the time of To the wonder, the movie he has done after Tree of Life. It was so awful that nobody had the guts to talk about it. Or maybe it’s because nobody had the cultural supports to understand it??! 

4 - ONCE UPON A TIME IN AMERICA by Sergio Leone (1984)

I don’t give a damn about Sergio Leone and I dislike this movie. 
People almost faint when I declare this kind of things but what can I say? This is how I feel about this film-maker and about the movie which is considered his masterpiece. It was one of the most painful visions of my life and I was terrified by the violence in it. And no, I don’t think Robert De Niro is the most incredible actor of all time. I think he is a very good actor who played in many excellent movies but I also think he has done a lot of crappy films and that he wasn’t that good in them. 
Ok, end of my coming out!

5 -  AMOUR by Michael Haneke (2012)

Together with Fincher, Haneke is my second least favourite film-maker of all time.
He makes me feel sick any time I see one of his movies. This one was particularly painful to watch (not as much as The White Ribbon, I reckon, but I definitely had more discussions over Amour). What I can’s stand about this man, is his lack of empathy, his judgmental, cold and distant attitude. Enough of this. Jean-Louis Trintignant and Emmanuelle Riva are absolutely amazing in it and they are the only reasons why I watched this massacre until the end. I guess Haneke would do a better job making a movie called Hate. I’m sure he will be great at it!

Amour (?)

Quali sono le responsabilità di un regista?
Come vanno interpretate le sue scelte stilistiche, il soggetto che tratta, il modo in cui decide di girare le scene? Tutte queste domande mi sono venute spontanee guardando il film vincitore della Palma D'Oro all'ultimo Festival di Cannes, Amour, del regista Austriaco Michael Haneke.
Tanto vale ammetterlo subito: amo pochissimo il cinema di Haneke, anzi, sarebbe più corretto dire che non lo amo per niente. Del resto, lo avevo già scritto chiaramente in questo blog, nel post dedicato al suo precedente film, The White Ribbon.
Non conosco tutta la sua opera, perché alcuni soggetti da lui trattati non suscitano in me il benché minimo desiderio, è il caso ad esempio di Funny Games (che Haneke ha girato due volte, prima in Austria e poi in America), una riflessione sulla violenza gratuita e insensata della società contemporanea. Potrei sottoscrivere quello che aveva affermato una volta Truffaut: "L'unica violenza che sopporto al cinema, è quella dei sentimenti". Ecco, appunto.
Amour, invece, era in cima alla lista dei film che volevo vedere in questo periodo, sia per il premio vinto a Cannes, sia per le recensioni più che elogiative che avevo letto (mi sono detta: sta a vedere che questa volta ha fatto un film che mi piace!), ma soprattutto per i due attori protagonisti, che adoro: Jean-Louis Trintignant e Emmanuelle Riva. Insomma, ci sono proprio andata "con le migliori intenzioni".

Georges e Anne sono un'anziana coppia di coniugi parigini. Una mattina Anne, durante la colazione, ha un momento di passaggio a vuoto. Smette di parlare, non riconosce più suo marito e, quando si riprende, non ricorda nulla di quanto accaduto. Purtroppo, è solo l'inizio di un lento ed inesorabile declino. La donna, colpita da un ictus, perde a poco a poco la sua mobilità e la sua indipendenza. Il marito cerca di far fronte all'emergenza come può. L'unica figlia della coppia, Eva, viva a Londra con la sua famiglia, e le sue visite sono sporadiche e brevi. Quando la situazione si fa insostenibile, Georges si arrende all'evidenza: da soli, non potranno più andare avanti.

Haneke, la Riva e Trintignant sul set del film

Dal punto di vista formale, il film di Haneke è un film ineccepibile: regia fluida e bellissima (l'azione si svolge interamente - tranne una scena iniziale a teatro - tra le quattro mura domestiche), sceneggiatura ben costruita, un tema forte ed universale, dialoghi perfetti, interpreti da urlo. Il capolavoro dovrebbe essere ad un passo. E forse lo è, dal momento che i critici all'unanimità ne tessono lodi sperticate. A questo punto, quindi, diventa tanto più difficile dire quello che devo dire (e davvero non ne posso fare a meno): io questo film l'ho trovato immorale. Quasi inguardabile. Il disagio si è fatto strada a poco a poco, scena dopo scena, all'inizio non riuscivo neppure bene a capirne le ragioni, si trattava più di una sensazione che di una consapevolezza, poi, arrivata ad una certa inquadratura, ho capito che no, c'era proprio qualcosa che non andava. Perché c'è modo e modo di girare un film sulla vecchiaia e la decadenza fisica. Ed è sul modo che io ha da ridire. Perché ancora una volta Haneke fa cinema come lo intende lui, come uno studio, una ricerca, un'analisi. Con una freddezza che mi lascerà sempre sgomenta, il regista si limita a registrare i fatti, a "riportarli", come se stesse facendo una tesi di dottorato. Per me, questa cosa che lui fa è semplicemente inaccettabile. Non si può fare un film come questo e restarne al di fuori. Perché, vorrei dirgli, stai toccando uno degli argomenti più delicati, sensibili, e tristi per l'intera umanità, e ci vuole il coraggio di avere un po' di pietà nei confronti dei due protagonisti (e pure di questi poveri attori!). Ho letto, in un'intervista a Trintignant, che Haneke ha impedito in ogni modo a lui e la Riva di piangere. Impedito. Questo mi pare piuttosto rivelatore. Io capisco voler evitare la piaga del facile vittimismo, della retorica del dolore, tutto quello che si vuole, ma io credo che due persone normali in quella situazione di pianti se ne facciano parecchi, no? E tu caro Haneke non ce ne fai vedere nemmeno uno, no, però in compenso ci fai vedere che si pisciano addosso, che non riescono più a parlare, e ci mostri il loro corpo vecchio e nudo che viene lavato da altre mani (questa è la scena che non ti perdonerò mai, caro mio).  Sono entrata al cinema convinta che avrei pianto, che mi sarei disperata vedendo questa coppia che affronta la prova più difficile che la vita impone, quella della fine, che si vorrebbe almeno dignitosa e invece spesso non lo è. Ma non è andata così. Anziché emozionata mi sono ritrovata indignata. Certo, Trintignant e la Riva sono talmente bravi (ma un premio a loro, piuttosto??!) che riescono nell'impresa meravigliosa di rendere questi due anziani umani, umanissimi, ma io mi sentivo talmente raggelata che non mi sono venute le lacrime agli occhi nemmeno per sbaglio. Esiste una parola di cui Haneke non deve aver mai sentito parlare: compatimento. Che significa Soffrire Con. Ecco, io non voglio un regista che stia a guardare, io voglio uno che ci metta lacrime e sangue, che sbagli un'inquadratura, un passaggio, un dialogo, echissenefrega, ma che mi faccia sentire che è vivo e lotta insieme a noi.
O almeno ci prova. 

Michael Haneke, A suitable case for treatment

I can understand why the jury of the last Cannes Film Festival assigned to The White Ribbon by Austrian film-maker Michael Haneke the Palme D’or, but I have to confess that I don’t agree with them.
I had postponed for months the vision of this movie and I finally decided to watch it last week just because I felt almost guilty, as a cinema blogger, not to have seen one of the so considered best movies of 2009. I always had troubles with Haneke, with his stories, with what he says in his interviews. In the past, I only made one exception, and I went to see The Piano Teacher with Isabelle Huppert. A very good movie, as well as The White Ribbon is an incredible one, but my problems with Haneke, well, that ones remain intact.

The White Ribbon’s story is set in a rural German village around 1913 and it is narrated by a voice-off, the one of the village school’s teacher who, at the time, was a young man in his early thirties.
The apparently quite life of the place is broken by a series of dramatic events: the doctor has a bad accident with his horse provoked by a wire somebody stretched in his garden, during a festivity the little son of the baron is found tied up and beaten, another little child risks to die because the window of his bedroom has been deliberately left open in the cold winter, a fire is set in the baron’s property, and then the midwife’s young son (affect by down’s syndrome) is found tortured and with his eyes burnt.
Who is beyond all these awful facts? This is the question in all people’s mind, but there won’t be an answer. The only one who got a clue, the midwife, goes to town to tell the police but she will never come back, and his son, as well as the doctor (the midwife’s lover) and his family, will disappear. The First World War is around the corner, more terrible events are about to break out and the young teacher, who is going to get married, will leave the village forever.

The White Ribbon is a rigorous, perfectly crafted, sumptuous (oh, those magnificent black and white images!) movie. Haneke is a master in creating, sequence by sequence, a horror tale. Behind the smooth surface, behind the figures that should bring comfort, confidence, and love, there are hidden monsters (just to make a couple of examples: the doctor is abusing his young daughter, the vicar is obsessed with integrity and unable to show any kind of affection to his children). And the children? Well, this is the scariest thing of all: the children are/will be the results of this education, of their parents’ behaviour, of that oppressive atmosphere.
Is Hitler, by any chance, one of the villagers’ surnames? I’m sure nobody will be surprised to hear that, in the end.

The real trouble with Haneke, for me, is that he has what I considered the worst defect a film-maker (and a human being, generally speaking) could have: he is cold. He is detached from what he is saying. He put a distance between him and his images. He doesn’t show any kind of pity towards the human beings he is talking about.
Ok, I got the picture: we are all monsters, human nature is evil, violence is within ourselves and sooner or later will get out and ruin our lives. Well, I think this is insane and extremely uninteresting.
Mike Leigh, for instance (God bless him!), has always shown the bleakness and the misery of human nature in his movies, but he does that with compassion and affection. This is why his movies can save us.

In Haneke's movies there is no salvation, no catharsis, no hope, just condemnation and coldness.
In The White Ribbon there is the most terrifying dialogue between a man and a woman I’ve ever seen in a movie: the doctor and the midwife insult each other in such a bad way, using words filled with such deep hatred, while they don’t move, while they remain still. It is really an unbearable scene to look at.

Haneke once said that "A feature film is twenty-four lies per second".

If it so, why don't you tell us sweet ones next time, Michael?