Alexander Kluge returns to the cinema with "Happy Lamento" | Movies | '
In view of the many clever works for the big screen and the small screen, even the "Internet Movie Database" (IMDb) operated by the global corporation "Amazon" no longer appears. That is quite something. The global database of films, which has become the most important reference book for filmmakers and filmmakers in the digital age in recent years, because it painstakingly enumerates and lists all and all those who work in the world of cinema and film, apparently strikes at Alexander Kluge the weapons.
"Happy Lamento" is in German cinemas – even that borders on a miracle
His latest film "Happy Lamento", premiered in 2018 at the Venice Film Festival, is not listed on IMDb. But there is him, the film that was performed at the Lido in front of a large audience, then ran in Hamburg at the Film Festival and now actually comes to German cinemas. But what does that mean? "Happy Lamento" will start in a few German movie theaters, as in Venice and Hamburg, he will meet a few initiates and curious enthusiasts – and even possibly irritate.
Alexander Kluge and director Khavn De La Cruz of the Philippines
"Happy Lamento" is an essay film that is assembled and edited in an associative way that combines so many references and mental snippets that you can become dizzy when listening and seeing. Is this high culture? Or again mainstream?
In his film, Kluge has worked with the young, wild Filipino director Khavn De La Cruz and combined music and montage so excessively that you can imagine "Happy Lamento" well somewhere in a wild dance shed as a background loop on big screen , How does Kluge make such a film into a cinema landscape between American superhero blockbusters and European Arthaus films? That too is an interesting question.
Alexander Kluge as a young, intellectual head at the Oberhausen Short Film Festival in 1962, when the famous "Oberhausen Manifesto" was adopted
In the 1960s, Kluge revolutionized German cinema
But first of all, back to Alexander Kluge. Does a young audience still know that? In fact, Kluge, who was born in Halberstadt (Saxony-Anhalt) in 1932, is one of the big names in the German cultural landscape of the rank of Gerhard Richter and Martin Walser. In 1962, the law graduate was one of the main initiators of the famous Oberhausen Manifesto, a polemical treatise that upset the old German cinema of the postwar period. It was presented on the occasion of the 8th West German Short Film Festival in Oberhausen at a press conference entitled "Papas Kino ist tot", 26 filmmakers had signed.
Two lions for Alexander Kluge at the Venice Festival
Formally and in terms of content, the German film was reborn at the time. Kluge himself was next to young directors such as Edgar Reitz, Volker Schlöndorff, Werner Herzog and Rainer Werner Fassbinder in the following years to the innovators of the local film. In 1966 and 1968, Kluge brought silver and golden lions for his films at the Venice Festival. Titles such as "Farewell to Yesterday" and "Artists in the Circus Dome" became decisive landmarks in the new cinema of the Federal Republic.
Thinking about Germany: Hannelore Hoger in Kluges "The artists in the circus dome: at a loss"
They were in the truest sense of the word clever films about people in the here and now of the post-war republic, always on the cutting edge between feature film and documentary. Formal boundaries and genre-classifications were never Alexander Kluge's thing – his works have always been experimental and associative.
Filmmaking eventually receded into the background for the restless artist, writing and later working for television became the main occupation. And even in these two areas, it is fair to say that Kluge was one of the defining figures in German cultural life.
Even as a writer, Alexander Kluge is highly honored
There is probably no important literary prize, which he has not received for his novels, short stories and essay volumes, from the Georg Büchner Prize on the Kleist Prize up to the Fontane and Heinrich Böll Prize: Kluge was so often on the floor The literature honored that some experts have at times not remembered that this gentleman had once become famous as a filmmaker and stood for the awakening cinema post-war nation (West) Germany.
Clever head: Alexander Kluge
But the world of moving images approached the bustling cultural man back in the mid-1980s, as in Germany, the private television took root and legislators wanted that even the new commercial channels a few hours of sophisticated program sent in the week. Kluge took advantage of the requirement and established himself as one of the most important players with experimental culture magazines, which often astonished consumers at night-time.
Kluge was open to all cultural channels
It goes without saying that Alexander Kluge's work can be found in bookstores and libraries as well as in the media department stores and on the Internet. Kluge has used almost all cultural channels – and despite all public honors, has remained an outsider.
Why this is so, is once again clear when you look at the new film by the now 87-year-old artist. Let's let Kluge himself speak: "This is an author's film – like the films I have done in the past", the director describes his latest work: "At the same time the film shows the extraordinary young director Khavn De La Cruz Manila's work 'Alipato – The Very Letter Life of an Ember', taken together, is the result of a very special kind of music film. Basically, this film is about electric light, the circus, the song 'Blue Moon' 'And street fighting among children's gangs in northern Manila – with a ferocity that is usually inaccessible to Western eyes. "
Orgiastic Scenery: "Happy Lamento" also relies on scenes from Khavn De La Cruz films
Electrification, circus life, street fighting: "Happy Lamento" is a wild mixture of documentary scenes and feature film snippets (most of which are by Khavn De La Cruz), images, photos and animated sequences, music and noise experiments, text panels and Subtitles: an orgiastic flood of images that often comes along in the split-screen process, a picture explosion that can only be traced back as a viewer.
Experienced observers will be able to follow a few lines of thought, globalization and the media, religion and reality, news and fake news and much more.
Helge Schneider also has a say in "Happy Lamento"
Many viewers are likely to be overwhelmed and leave the cinema at a loss. Smart films are modern art, abstract and at first (and maybe second glance) puzzling to the point of incomprehension.
"Happy Lamento" is an intellectual challenge for every viewer
But unlike visual art, where the viewer looks at an image, sculpture or installation as they pass by and the object can pass by after a few minutes (or seconds), the viewer is bound to it.
"Happy Lamento" lasts 90 minutes and you sit in a dark, black cinema room that you do not usually leave until the final titles pass you by. This is a challenge in the fast-paced digital age of 2019.
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