jürgen fauth’s muckworld

When I first visited Berlin (West) as a wide-eyed teenager, one of the highlights of the trip was running into Einstürzende Neubauten singer Blixa Bargeld in the back room of a shady Kreuzberg bar. Blixa, Alexander Hacke, and the rest of the Neubauten are still making beautiful noise, and watching their 2004 video Palast der Republik, I was happy to get reacquainted with Haus der Lüge, a catchy tune I’ve been singing on all the elevators in town.

Gott hat sich erschossen / ein Dachgeschoss wird ausgebaut!

I’m running a little contest over on idrinkyourmilkshake.com: for a chance to win one of five There Will Be Blood DVDs, grab your camera phone or webcam and upload a video of yourself saying the line that gave the site its name. The video above is the entry by IDYM regular EatHimByHisOwnLight. As a matter of fact, EatHimByHisOwnLight is the only person who has entered the contest so far, so the field is still wide open — even though he did set the bar pretty high.

My review copy of the Blood DVD arrived today, and I probably don’t have to tell you that I’ve been spending the better part of my day with it. Head on over to idym.com for details on the contest — after all, who doesn’t need more outtakes of the napkin scene in their life?

Hard-working German actor Jürgen Vogel plays the serial rapist Theo in Matthias Glasner’s almost unbearably grim The Free Will (Der Freie Wille). When we meet Theo, he’s heavy-set and angry, working at the cafeteria of a seaside youth hostel. Within minutes of the film’s beginning, he spots a potential victim, knocks her off a bicycle and drags her into the dunes, where he ties her up, rips off her clothes, beats and rapes her in a brutal sequence that seems designed to weed out those audience members who won’t have the stomach for what’s to come.

When we see Theo again, nine years later, he seems profoundly changed: with a buff body but a docile and contrite manner, he tells his parole board just what they need to hear to release him. Told in handheld scenes with an authentic, documentary feel, Der Freie Wille unflinchingly observes Theo’s struggle to contain his own aggressive desires and insecurities.

Glasner’s script manages to steer clear of any move that could be construed as making excuses for Theo as we follow the tortured paths he takes through the provincial German town, including harrowing scenes in which he follows random women through subway tunnels and darkened streets. Der Freie Wille takes a surprising turn when we’re introduced to Nettie (the striking Sabine Timoteo), a young woman who is just leaving behind her overbearing father.

The brittle love that blossoms between Theo and Nettie is the film’s thorniest conceit. We’re trained to wish happiness on all screen couples, but the heavily fraught intimacy we become a party to here is exceedingly difficult to watch. In fact, without the eye-opening performances by Vogel and Timoteo, the film is impossible to imagine: they don’t seem to be afraid to lay bare their very souls.

Glasner softens the blows with moments of fragile joy, but this is not a film that harbors any illusions that love will conquer all. No doubt, Der Freie Wille goes places where not everybody will want to follow, but it stays emotionally true to its frightful subject and finds moments of startling honesty at the extremes of what audiences can endure.

Benten Films will release The Free Will on DVD in the U.S. later this year.

Der Freie Wille. Matthias Glasner, 2006. ****

• Review in Der Spiegel
• The trailer:

So this is why they invented the phrase “va-va-voom!” The second most pleasant surprise about this film is the ending, which eschews the usual moralizing. Take note, Smiley Face: just because you have a female main character who behaves comme un animal sauvage (sexually or herbally) doesn’t mean you have to make her pay for it. Guess that’s what makes And God Created Woman such a libertine landmark. But why don’t we leave the analysis to Chuck Stephens and ogle Bardot in the trailer instead? This movie would make a fine double-feature with Le Gendarme de St. Tropez.

Et Dieu…créa la femme. Roger Vadim, 1956. ****

• And God Created Woman at Wikipedia
• Brigitte Bardot at Wikipedia

A guy walks into un bar a pute and tells a beautiful prostitute that he just won the lottery. Would she live with him for a hundred thousand a month? Of course she would. Problem is, the guy (Bernard Campan) has a weak heart, and Daniela, the hooker, is played by Monica Belluci. His doctor warns him: “How many times a day will your heart rate climb to 140? I cannot condone it!” Another problem comes in the hulking shape of Gerard Depardieu — he’s Daniela’s James Lipton. How Much Do You Love Me?, now available on DVD from Strand Releasing, is a sexy, silly romp that, like much of Blier’s work, straddles the line between affecting and absurd, often to hilarious effect.

Combien tu m’aimes? Bertrand Blier, 2005. ***

A woman director working in black and white on a limited budget, a capricious main character with a looming fate, a city that is playground and character at once, a summer’s day full of promise, distraction, and chance encounters, a cast of strangers whose snippets of overheard conversation work themselves seamlessly into the texture of the film, and a fresh New Wave approach to life and art — it’s thrilling to confirm how many similarities Agnès Varda’s celebrated Cleo from 5 to 7 shares with May Spils’ overlooked classic Zur Sache, Schätzchen.

Cleo is now being reissued as part of a shiny new Varda box set from Criterion. May Spils’ films are, so far, unavailable in the US. Zur Sache, Schätzchen is one of my all-time favorites, and I have translated and created English subtitles for the film in hopes of a stateside DVD release. There have been promising stirrings lately so keep your fingers crossed for Zur Sache.

Cléo de 5 à 7. Agnès Varda, 1961. *****

The trailer:

How do we relax from the New York Film Festival’s two-movies-a-day schedule? With an old classic, of course, courtesy of the Criterion Collection. Jim Jarmusch’s episodic 1991 taxi cab confidential moves around the globe while Tom Waits growls and hasn’t lost a bit of its spirit and charm. Especially after seeing a film as cynical as Sidney Lumet’s Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead, I was struck by how good-natured and kind Jarmusch’s vision was.

In the confined spaces of cabs in Los Angeles, New York, Paris, Rome, and Helsinki, strangers are meeting strangers and, with the exception of the “bishop” who has the ill fate of running into Roberto Benigni, good things happen. I was especially pleased to note connections between the episodes and to other movies that I’d previously missed. Since this is a Criterion DVD, I shouldn’t have to mention that the quality of the transfer is first rate. Jarmusch won’t watch his own movies after they are completed, so there is no director’s commentary, but he does answer fan questions. Other extras include commentary by the DP and location sound mixer, a Belgian TV interview with Jarmusch, and essays by Paul Auster and others.

Night on Earth. Jim Jarmusch, 1991. *****

Not bad for a black comedy based on a website. We always like looking at Winona Ryder, and her insurance-adjuster romance with uptight Joseph Fiennes is plenty cute. But the meat-and-potatoes of the movie are the outrageous scenes of people killing themselves in idiotic ways. With David Arquette, Lukas Haas, Juliette Lewis, Tim Blake Nelson, and Chris Penn is various bit parts. Any movie in which both Metallica and Lawrence Ferlinghetti have speaking parts is ok by me.

The Darwin Awards made history in Muck’s World because it’s the first Netflix Movie-on-Demand we tried. I hadn’t realized that you get an hour of free streaming time for every dollar you paid on your regular subscription — to ease the transition, no doubt. Once I stopped grumbling about the fact that it doesn’t work with Firefox, the software installed without a hitch, and quality over a cable connection was great. It’s the way of the future! As a man who knows a thing or two about online movie distribution once told me, there’s a reason it’s called Netflix, not NetDVD.

The Darwin Awards. Finn Taylor, 2006. ***