God plays sax, the Devil violin (2004)

God plays sax, the Devil violin (2004)
Dumnezeu la saxofon, dracu la vioara (2004)
43 min
Documentary | Short
Director: Alexandra Gulea
Writer: Alexandra Gulea
Stars: Adrian, Bicu, Filip
Country: Romania
Language: Romanian

A documentary made in Cinéma vérité style by Romanian director, Alexandra Gulea rolls her camera through the minds, corridor and rooms of Romanian psychiatric institution of Gura Ocnitei, somewhere in between Bucharest and Southern Carpathians. Even in the uninterrupted availability of  basic needs, life of about 300 inhabitants is like a stagnant pool laden with green boredom. They are chained in the continuous overflow of  time as seconds, minutes, hours, days...Living in their memories, carrying the burden of present and unable to think of future, forsaken by God and Devil.

To overcome this they are creating their own community inside the hospital (the outdoor visuals of hospital resembles that of Hospital of the Transfiguration (1979) based on Lem's novel ). They drink coffee, smoke cigarettes, married- trying to create ripples in their still green water.This is also an urge for endurance also a resistance towards the barricades that prevent the flow of wind into their minds from a parallel outside world.

Usage of photographic still video images in a greenish tone powerfully transmits stillness inside the minds in mental asylum. The documentary becomes an artistic brilliance when the images are stitched with discontinuous voices and music.

Gaganendranath Tagore Art

Gaganendranath Tagore was born on on 18th of September, 1867, at Jorasanko in the Tagore family home in Calcutta. He was the nephew of Rabindranath Tagore. Though he didn't receive any formal education in painting later became a prominent figure of Bengal School of Art. He founded the Indian Society of Oriental Art along with his brother Abanindranath Tagore. Gaganendranath was inspired by Japaneese painting techniques, especially  Yokoyama Taikan and other Far Eastern styles, between the years 1906 and 1910. Also he got inspirations from European experimental art like Cubism and used geometric compositions in Indian/Oriental context, build up his own brand of Cubism. Maybe he was the first to use these types of try outs fruitfully.
However he is best known for his political cartoons and social satires on Westernised Bengalis. His work was exhibited in the 22nd exhibition de Societe des peintres orientalistes francais (1914) in Paris, London, Belgium and Holland, and in a travelling exhibition organised by the American Federation of Art and ISOA (1924) in London and Germany, and he exhibited in the Athene Gallery in Geneva in 1928.
Rabindranath Tagore, his uncle commented on his art, thus, in 1938: "What profoundly attracted me was the uniqueness of his creation, a lively curiosity in his constant experiments, and some mysterious depth in their imaginative value. Closely surrounded by the atmosphere of a new art movement ... he sought out his own untrodden path of adventure, attempted marvelous experiments in coloring and made fantastic trials in the magic of light and shade."
Died in 1938.

Magician (1925)
Water Color

Himalayan Bride

Rabindranath Tagore in the Island of Birds

Composition

Das Kino Und Der Tod (1988)

Das Kino Und Der Tod (1988)
Cinema and Death
West Germany
46 min
Documentary
Director: Hartmut Bitomsky

Using "basic" cinematic concept and techniques Hartmut Bitomsky made this documentary about murder in celluloid. He explains each scene by showing photographs of film scenes through movement of his hands. All the documentary scenes are static like images and also inside it film images are moving. Through this ways he examines Torn Curtain, Blow-Up, Band A Part and a series of classic/B grade films which include murder scenes.  In this documentary too we are not seeing the film clips as "clips" but we are seeing it. Bitomsky severalize a film into film images, its movements, music and voices then uniting them into a single piece through separation. In cinema time is considerably shrunk while dealing with killing- For 2 days death, cinema allows only 15 minutes which clearly shows the tyrannic fist of film over time and eyes. We can see, in this documentary too, time is slaughtered in editing table, showing a burning cigarette and a digital clock.
In first set of movies ie; Hitchcock's Torn Curtain and Seigel's Killers we can see the potential of killers. When it reaches Band A Part "nothing is more unreal as film death" Godard cancels all detailed symptoms of a so called film murder. Underworld by Fuller, Un Chien Andalou by Buñuel and Psycho by Hitchcock viewer is not exactly seeing the "killing" but his mind conceives "a murder has taken place". How photography played a crucial role in films is studied through Antonioni's Blow -Up, Shakedown by Joseph Pevney. Director brilliantly visualizes Bazins " Photography as shroud of reality" dialogue through the images from Chabrol's Les Bonnes Femmes sequencing from the murder scene to backwards.  Bitomsky points out the two classes of murder victims in film- One with a clear destiny and others without ( usually appear as mass) can be seen in Griffith's Massacre, Neutrality and Mechanization of death in Wild Bunch/ Western Movies, Morality of Killing in Orders to kill and Kiss Me deadly and also some other interesting murder classifications.

Andrzej Pagowski Art

Andrzej Pagowski was born in 1953.
He graduated from the Academy of Fine in Poznań, Faculty of Poster Design under professor Waldemar Świerzy. Since 1977 he has designed over 1000 posters printed both in Poland and abroad. He is also an author of numerous book illustrations, drawings for magazines, artwork for CD booklets. He is also a TV and theatre stage designer as well as a screenwriter.

In 1986 he started co-operation with various magazines as their artistic director. For several years he was "Playboy" Polish Edition Art Director.

In 1989 he became involved in advertising business, without giving up his individual development as a graphic designer. He is KreacjaPro Company owner and Creative Director.

Andrzej Pągowski had numerous individual exhibitions in Poland and all over the world. He received several dozens Polish and international awards, among which there are the most esteemed awards in the International Competition The Best TV and Film Poster in Los Angeles and first prizes in the Chicago International Film Poster Competition. Recently he received many awards for his achievements in the field of advertising. There are numerous prizes for advertising achievements in recent years as well.

Bez Konca (No End) Poster- 1985
Director:  Krzysztof Kieślowski

8 and Half Polish Poster- 1988
Director: Federico Fellini

Tabu Poster (1988)
Director: Andrzej Baranski

Psie Serce- M. Bulhakow (Heart of a Dog)
Drama

Ballad of Narayama, Polish Movie Poster (1986)
Director: Shôhei Imamura

John Lennon, Polish Poster 1979

Short Film About Love (photo) 1988
Director: Krzysztof Kieślowski

Beauty and the Beast (1946)

Beauty and the Beast (1946)
"La belle et la bête" (original title)
93 min
Director: Jean Cocteau
Writers: Jean Cocteau (dialogue), Jean Cocteau (screenplay),  Jeanne-Marie Le Prince de Beaumont (Story)
Stars: Jean Marais, Josette Day, Mila Parély
Country: France
Language: French
Jean Cocteau, a notable artist in avant-garde group, is only gently demanding a "child like simplicity" to watch his subdued fairy tale "La belle et la bête" adapted from Jeanne-Marie Le Prince de Beaumont's story of the same name. His cinematic imagery, surreal scenes, stunning costumes, also every elements (with the support of Rene Clement) with its magical blending gave hands to "Beauty and Beast" to attain heights in world cinema.
"Once upon a time" there lived a merchant with his four siblings Adélaïde, Belle, Félicie and Ludovic and was forced  to send his beautiful daughter Belle to the castle of horrible and powerful Beast. The entry of Beast in his black, glittering costume with hairy face, sharp eyes, grunting voice (resembles a cat) is absolutely fantastic in the shadows and lights of forest saying "You steal my roses".Beast is living in a dense forest and he is rejected creature because of his non-perfection; he is a mixture of human and animal and he is cursed to live isolated. When he falls in love with Belle he wants her to marry him and live with him in the same castle,ie, the dark deserted forest. We can see his living atmosphere is so magical and unreal for the outside world, the moving hands holding candelabra, magic mirror, gloves that helps to travel anywhere removing all the barriers, . Cocteau handled this magical scenes with absolute beauty and his surrealist visual language is so simple yet mesmerizing.
One the great visuals i love in this movie is the beast drinking water from a shallow stream. Its so wonderfully crafted with the splashing sounds of water and his animal voice. As Cocteau says at the start, when we say to children "a beast closely resembling face of a large cat, drinking water" they will surely imagine in this way. Fairy tales need only imagination, no thinking, they are simple only the reader/viewer need the simplicity.
When Belle saw Beast at first, she became scared and fainted and Beast says don't look into his eyes. Gradually he is becoming a child in front of her and shivering at her glance, avoiding his violent nature (Remember the scene when Belle telling her love towards Avenant to Beast, he suddenly disappears with anger and returns with blood stains forces viewers to think he killed Avenant, but in the very next cut Cocteau shows as Avenant and Ludovik playing). Sometimes he even losing words to answer her and finally as director says, her love transformed his beastly physic to beauty. When Avenant (Belle's lover) was killed by the armed statue, he became a beast and his body is given to the Belle's Beast which make the story more fairyhood.
Some critics linked this movie with the Liberation of France which is quite interesting. The chained France under German Regime (Vichy France,1940-1944) is finally getting its magnificence. " In love with Belle, that is, Beauty, the Beast suffers afresh an unfree nature despite owning the Enchanted Castle and its spectacular grounds and the trappings of wealth, that is, the magnificence of France. One can go mad trying to determine to what degree, if any, the filmmaker was conscious of his decision to find in the fairy tale such vibrantly recent historical matter, but without doubt the Beast’s predicament evolved from Cocteau’s artistic use of it as the perfect symbol."
Directed by French poet and filmmaker Jean Cocteau, the film stars Josette Day as Belle and Jean Marais ( Cocteau's lover) as The Beast.

Nekromantik (1987)

Nekromantik (1987)
75 min
Director: Jörg Buttgereit
Writers: Jörg Buttgereit, Franz Rodenkirchen
Stars: Bernd Daktari Lorenz, Beatrice Manowski, Harald Lundt
Country: West Germany
Language: German
Rob Schmadtke and his lady friend's affection towards corpses makes him to work for  "Joe's Cleaning Agency", a company that removes bodies from public areas. He can satisfy sexual desire using the corpses acquired through this job. An extremely sick, disturbing, sordid, mad also anti-social movie, which nails in to viewers eyes, entangled scenes of necrophilia, love making with a decayed corpse, bathing in a tub filled with blood and fluids from corpses.
Apart from the perversion of a maniac, the film is forcing to reject so called  social beliefs (may be good/bad) by loving corpses sexual intercourse with them and even he feels nauseating in the presence of a living body. Throughout the film we can see a complete absence of fact "sex as a meaningful biological process of construction a future generation". Showing sex as a mechanical activity (like fixing an iron rod as penis for corpse) rejecting the physical sexual purity is also an interesting side of this subject. Life made him a murderer and finally he enjoys ultimate orgasm through the progression of death. ("For each man who regards it with awe, the corpse is the image of his own destiny. It bears witness to a violence which destroys not one man alone but all men in the end." -- Georges Bataille- from Buttgereit's official website)
In this movie Director didn't have any intention to create fear in viewers by adding gory music but he used romantic, pleasant back ground scores which makes it more strange.
The film is currently banned outright in Iceland, Norway, Malaysia, Singapore, and the provinces of Nova Scotia and Ontario in Canada. In 1992, The Australian Classification Board banned the film outright in Australia due to "graphic necrophilia content". In 1993, the film was banned in Finland. The film was banned outright by the Office of Film and Literature Classification in 1999 due to "revolting, objectionable content (necrophilia, high impact violence, animal cruelty and abhorrent behavior)". The film is banned in a number of other countries as well.
This 1987 West German movie is directed by Jörg Buttgereit.

Festen (1998)

The Celebration (1998)
"Festen" (original title)
 105 min
Directed by
Thomas Vinterberg
Writers: Thomas Vinterberg (screenplay), Mogens Rukov (screenplay)
Stars: Ulrich Thomsen, Henning Moritzen, Thomas Bo Larsen
Country: Denmark | Sweden
Language: Danish | German | English
To celebrate the sixtieth birthday of Danish patriarch Helge Klingenfeldt, the family members are assembled at their family hotel, including the eldest son Christian, a successful Parisian restaurateur, daughter Helene and younger Micheal. The charming, animated ceremonial hall soon transforms in to a grotesque, nauseous atmosphere through some words (or call as revelations, even its a cliche) from elder Christain. It mainly centered on the sexual molestation done by the father, Helge Klingenfeldt to his offspring, Christian and Linda (Christan's twin-sister who has committed suicide).
The first movie in Dogma'95 series is absolutely a new experience from Thomas Vinterberg. Film didn't use any artificial lights, optical effects like technological stuffs, no background scores but concentrating on the theme, cinematography thereby bringing the "pure" aesthetics Through razor edged almost hand held cinematography and editing "Festen" advances by screwing the viewers. While seeing the activities of the mass inside a room, the maidservants it smells like Bunuel.
"Victim" is a thorned-crown which is transferred through words and evidences from person to person. In the first portion of movie, the son reveals his mind and saying he was a victim and in the climax the father reveals/admits his crime and transforming to victim. The main thematic difference between Vinterberg's own The Hunt (released in 2011) to Festen is the absence and presence of evidences. Hunt is more puzzling due to the avoidance of evidences but Festen is more concrete.
Film was screened in Cannes Film Festival (1998) and won Jury Prize. 

Steve Schapiro Photography

Born in Brooklyn, greatly attracted by Henry Cartier Bresson, Steve Schapiro hung camera around his neck and prowled in New York streets.He later studied with W. Eugene Smith, pioneer of the photo essay. From 1961 Schapiro worked as a freelance photo-journalist and contributed to major magazines. His photos appeard in cover pages of Life, Look, Time, Rolling Stone, Vanity Fair etc..
Schapiro shifted his attention to film and produced advertising material, posters and publicity stills for films as varied as The Godfather, The Way We Were, Taxi Driver, Midnight Cowboy, Rambo, Risky Business and Billy Madison. He also was responsible for record covers starring Barbara Streisand and David Bowie.

'Magritte and I didn't talk much, although we were in high spirits. Our relationship was based on smiling'
Schapiro said Magritte is his best shot.

Rene Magritte by Steve Schapiro

Robert De Niro in Taxi Driver

Martin Luther King Jr. - Selma March, 1965

Three Men, New York, 1961

Mohammed Ali with mini boxing gloves, Louisville, Kentucky, 1963

Marlon Brando (The Godfather)

Federico García Lorca: Murder in Granada (1976)

Federico García Lorca: Murder in Granada (1976)
TV Movie  -  61 min
Documentary
Director: Humberto López y Guerra
Writer: Humberto López y Guerra
Country: Sweden
Language: Spanish | English
Frederico Gracia Lorca, the profound Spanish dramatist, poet was murdered by Nationalists at the age of 38 due to his political activities. This 61 minute documentary gives an idea about his life, works and death. Jumping from conversations to conversations (sometimes irksome) and using vintage video footages Lorca's life is "narrating". The attempts, more clearly difficulties, faced by Lorca to draw/write things during his secondary school days seems to be more interesting to me. He had great affection towards drawing which came little late after his interest to music and literature. "He had a very good hand with music and playing with piano, but he had difficulties with drawing and writing"- quoting his brother Fracesco Garcia Lorca. Also he failed in penmanship five times, a subject in secondary school !!!
To create a new form in writing and bored with Madrid life he often moved to his place Granada. The Gypsy, greenish life, orange trees came to his poetry from Granada.
His achievements in theater was incredible. He formed a group in 30's named La Barraca with amateur actors and students and performed dramas in various parts of Spain as a Travelling Theater. He said " La Barraca is my most important work. It interests me more" Neruda commented on La Barraca that its his own self.
We can also see Lorca's life in Madrid, the evolution of "Generation 1927", relationship with Dali, Vicente Aleixandre, his political involvement in Spain through drama, his anti-fascist visions in this documentary.
Federico García Lorca: A Murder in Granada ( 1976) directed by Humberto Lopez y Guerra and produced by the Swedish Television. In October 1980 the New York Times described the transmission of the film by Spanish Television in June that same year as attracting "one of the largest audiences in the history of Spanish Television"

TPB AFK: The Pirate Bay Away from Keyboard (2013)

TPB AFK: The Pirate Bay Away from Keyboard (2013)
85 min  -  Documentary
Director: Simon Klose
Stars: Gottfrid Svartholm, Peter Sunde, Fredrik Neij
Country: Sweden
Language: Swedish | English

A documentary about the leading file sharing website, " The Pirate Bay". Film shows trial faced by Gottfrid Svartholm, Peter Sunde, Fredrik Neij - the steerers of TPB,their efforts to keep the site online, Impact of US/Hollywood, their pressure on Swedish judicial system to shut down this site, finally the verdict and conviction. 

The Blind Owl (1987)

La Chouette aveugle (1987)
The Blind Owl
90 min  -  Drama | Fantasy
Director: Raoul Ruiz
Writers: Sadegh Hedayat (novel), Benoît Peeters, Tirso de Molina (Play), Raoul Ruiz
Stars: Jean-François Lapalus, Jessica Forde, Jean-Bernard Guillard
Country: Switzerland | France
Language: French

A movie is wonderfully made using the threads of shadows interposing between dream and reality (actually "between" is wrong since there is no difference between them). La Chouette aveugle (1987) is clearly a cinematic experience, freely adapted from "The Blind Owl" by Sadegh Hedayat and "Damned by Despair" by Tirso de Molina.
A projectionist working in a mysterious theater is intoxicated by gaze of character in a movie he is showing. He constructed movie by connecting some stories with the base plot and used dark, shadowy, exhausting atmosphere. There are so many limitations for a director to visualize "The Blind Owl". Raoul Ruiz freely adapted the theme of book and its techniques.
La Chouette aveugle is not a rigorous one like the novella, it vacillate between the events in the movie showing and that of watcher; projectionist. The demarcation "between" reality (projectionist) and illusion (cinema) is disappearing here.("We are sated and hungry")
Like a labyrinth we are twisted inside, directed from one story to another, throwing out from it- a different kind of feeling. In the move projectionist watching, a holy man is searching his crazed uncle( not sure he is searcher's father or not) found a man in the woods telling story about two twin brothers who loved a Jewish girl. The man is telling the story of searcher's father/uncle; a similar situation like projectionist and his co-worker Kasim, his lover Fatima; like something repeating by cancelling time, space and being. The projectionist himself is an uncle for his unknown nephew.Mixing the story of Christian niece with this nephew.
May be the protagonist's life is somewhat like that of the film's story when we consider the term "repetition". But its not sure.Ruiz made the film in different levels make the viewer to think this happening in different lives, different times also merging all these to a single plane. In cinema it seems to happen in another life, a previous one or another world, and it is repeating in some other plane.
Ruiz gave some space for the woman's mental agitations (can compare with "bitch" in novella). She asks about damnation and pardon to the butcher. She, her husband, butcher (he kills sinners) all are damned. Even death is not an ultimate rescue. It will repeat, souls will be saved for perdition. We will have to play the same  part of same drama; may be without knowing. But that spark is haunting, disturbing.Only the shore changes, it will be in the same earth and with the same river(Abandon all hope, ye who enter here)

The Blind Owl (1975)

The Blind Owl (1975)
"Boof-e koor" (original title)
Director: Kiumars Derambakhsh
Writers: Kiumars Derambakhsh, Sadegh Hedayat (novel)
Stars: Parviz Fanizadeh, Farshid Farshood, Parvin Solaymani
Country: Iran
Language: Persian

Based on Sadegh Hedayat's novella of the same name but film cant gratify the viewers who already read the book "The Blind Owl". Film mainly visualizes the dreams mentioned in the novel. The film rejects the non-linear and equivocal narration techniques that used in novella thereby losing the spirit. In climax, director adds some extra visuals of a cadaver, which is not in the book, resembling Hedayat's face and he is comparing the existential death of protagonist with that of Hedayat (At the start its showing "An encounter with the anguishes of Hedayat").

The Blind Owl (1937)

The Blind Owl (1937)
Sadegh Hedayat
Iran
Novel

The Blind Owl is written by modern Persian literate Sadegh Hedayat in 1937 during the dictatorial reign of Reza Shah in Iran. But the first edition of book was published in Bombay stamped with "Not for sale or publication in Iran.". After his rule it was released in Tehran in 1941.
An amazing translation to Malayalam was done by Vilasini.
The protagonist/narrator is living outside city from the hustle and bustle of people's lives surrounded by relics of some old houses. Novel/Novella moves through the thoughts, dreams, memories, sexual desires and oppression, fears also reality of this isolated man (Hedayat didn't give names to characters in this work except Bugam Dasi,). In the first part of The Blind Owl we can see dreamy incidents happening to narrator and they are beautifully blended with the realistic second part.
Using repeated descriptions Hedayat made this fiction a wonderful bizarre piece of art and pushes the readers into a whirlpool of disturbing images. But after analyzing the second part we can see that all the "facts" in the first part is somewhat connected, still Hedayat retains mysteries by leaving some incidents isolated. When we say about 'something repeating' there is an intuition in our mind to set an initial point or from which time it started; thereby rejecting the whole idea of recurrence. In Blind Owl how beautifully he used that technique without giving reader, the initial point. Sometimes we feel that we are succeed in finding that the foremost spot during the advance of reading but it surpasses."My life, on the other hand, my entire life, has had one season and one state." The laughs, Horses, Drawing, scene through hole, geometrically shaped houses, his father and uncle, brother-in-law and his wife etc..
But most of his thoughts are linked with his childhood memories. He inducing those images to his dreams to escape from the "world of fools". The narrator is so disturbed with flow of life, finds death as an ultimate solution from the chaos he facing (death/a state of oblivion).
In the first portion of novella, he is entering a new world/dream by ignoring the previous events in his life. By ignoring, i meant the author induced forgetfulness to him there by adding beauty to the images for readers. The Protagonist is fulfilling his desires in another world unannoyed by time and reality. The mysterious woman comes to his house, fall on his bed, giving her body to him without any resistance. But narrator also loved to kill his wife ( he is calling her a whore) giving her poisonous purple wine. That too he is performing in his dream.(By saying "dream" dont take its as a concrete one, a fluid state)
Only one time he was allowed by his wife to kiss her and the rest of time he was rejected cruelly. And she selected all other males to fuck her. "My feelings of love and hatred for her were mixed." shows his strange emotion to his wife. He is fully rejected from satisfying his sexual desires. During a forceful intercourse he accidentally kills her. I had become the rag-and-bone dealer. To some extent the narrator is similar to the old rag and bone dealer except the fact that the dealer is allowed to sex with her. ("On the whole, this time I did not disapprove of my wife's taste,because the rag-and-bone dealer was not a commonplace, vulgar and colorless man like the stud-males who attract foolish women with an inordinate desire for coition. The layers of misfortune encrusted on the old man's head and face, along with the misery that emanated from him, distinguished him as a demi-god; and even though the old man was not aware of this, he was a manifestation, a representative of creation itself").
We cant find a connection/meaning for all the incidents mentioned in the work and that attempt is boring (which kills the beauty of ambiguity) too. Narrator is always fearing watchmen for some crime he has committed. Since we read the first part,  a confusion may arise  "what crime he committed". There are many instances like this in "The Blind Owl".
The novel gives us a wide ground to think about God, mirror, rooms, walls, rest and rust of ourselves, death (influenced by Rilke, Kafka (from the notes by Bashiri)) above all the thoughts, i loved those grotesque visuals this book gave me.

Nobuyoshi Araki Photography

Nobuyoshi Araki  is a Japanese photographer and contemporary artist.

Photo by Nobuyoshi Araki, 1985

Sentimental Journey by Nobuyoshi Araki

"Sentimental Journey" is a visual diary by Nobuyoshi Araki  includes photographs of his wife Yoko by the time of her death. Araki says about the above photo, "The Last Shake hand", taken at the moment when she died. Most emotional still he had ever taken.

"Maybe I only had a relationship with her as a photographer, not as a partner. If I hadn’t documented her death, both the description of my state of mind and my declaration of love would have been incomplete. I found consolation in unmasking lust and loss, by staging a bitter confrontation between symbols. After Yoko’s death, I didn't want to photograph anything but life – honestly. Yet every time I pressed the button, I ended up close to death, because to photograph is to stop time. I want to tell you something, listen closely: photography is murder."- Araki

Björk by Araki

Nobuyoshi Araki- Series Sexteen (1969)

Mon journal d’été -My summer diary
Black and white photography with acrylic paint 

Yoko Araki death (1990)

Arakimentari (2004)

Arakimentari (2004)
85 min  -  Documentary | Biography
Director: Travis Klose
Stars: Araki, Nobuyoshi Araki, Björk

Arakimentari is a documentary about brash Japanese photographer Nobuyoshi Araki. He is notorious for his explicit and bondage photographic series. His photos looks, capturing the real scenes, may be that's the reason he is censured harshly by feminists.He found soul of his erotic art from traditional Japanese Shunga and bringing it to 70's Japanese society, he disputed with rigid social foundations. By destructing a predetermined form he is creating another form of art through his camera. This  interview includes dialogues about him by figures like Bjork, Takeshi Kitano.

Madrid, 1987 (2011)

Madrid, 1987 (2011)
105 min  -  Drama
Country: Spain
Language: Spanish
Director: David Trueba
Writer: David Trueba
Stars: José Sacristán, María Valverde, Ramon Fontserè
Miguel, a famous newspaper columnist/novelist about 70 years of age and Angela, a journalism student, age 17, are happened to stuck inside a bathroom. Film expands through the conflicts of these members from two extremes, the point where they share their bodies, intellectual and frivolous talks. At first she shows some repulsion towards him and is so bold to say that she is not interested to be fucked by him. But after they were shut inside, along with adapting to the claustrophobic atmosphere, she is finding some relief in him (it do not enter into some dramatic unusual love relationship). They use sex, funny talks, imaginations to conquer the time inside bathroom. More than the rigid, warm atmosphere inside bathroom (physical), its the society outside(mental) makes them fearsome. The characters are nude in major part of film directed by David Trueba-Miguel is played by José Sacristán and Angela by María Valverde.

Cinema Komunisto (2010)

Cinema Komunisto (2010)
100 min
Documentary | History
Director: Mila Turajlic
Country: Serbia
Language: Serbo-Croatian

Through cinema/video footage  Cinema Komunisto is telling the story of a nation , now existing only in cinemas-Yugoslavia and its "benevolent dictator"- Josep Broz Tito. A nation formed after WW2, then constructing gigantic, cinematic atmosphere with the support of Tito, the cinephile (fan of western movies!!!), its progress its abjection and finally nostalgia in the relics. Historical and political background of Avala Film Studio, the largest and well sophisticated film studio in post war Yugoslavia, the wide acceptance of  Tito among directors like Hitchcock, Orson Welles, their participation with Yugoslavian film industry,also personal film taste of Tito (had seen 8801 films in his theater), the full support given by him to blow The bridge on the Neretva river (Bosnia) in real to recreate the scene that happened during Neretva river battle- Mila Turajlic finds ethnic film clips to make this Socialist Federal Republic of Cinema Komunisto and succeeded flawlessly . But the documentary only gives a vague idea about the restrictions faced by cinema technicians under Tito. A must watch documentary created by Mila Turajlic.

Kaliya Mardan (1919)

Kaliya Mardan (1919)
47 min
Director: Dhundiraj Govind Phalke
Writer: Dhundiraj Govind Phalke
Stars: Neelkanth, Mandakini Phalke
Country: India

A beautiful silent movie showing mischievous Krishna and his plays. Probably Phalke made this one for children, to allow them act so innocently before camera. Through out the movie, Krisha is showing "us" how he is going to act/revenge/annoy his neighbors. He is looking towards viewer, talking to viewer, communicating with viewer, creating an ambiance;  he is by the side of us. And the most funny Krisha I had ever seen, played by Mandakini Phalke (his daughter). Most attracting side of Kaliya Mardan is, even there are fantastic visual effects sequences in climax, the pureness that spread all over the film. Directed by Dadasaheb Phalke and the protagonist is "Divine" Krishna played by Mandakini.

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Narcis Virgiliu Photography

Narcis Virgiliu  was born in Bucharest, Romania in 1971.
Famed for art nudity In one of his fine art series (Fine Art Nudes), Vigiliu symbolizes sex, relations, rules  by positioning materialistic components.

The Chastity
Album: Fine Art Nudes

The Pearl Inside
Album: Fine Art Nudes

Fatherhood
Album: Fine Art Nudes

Light
Album: Bizarre Still Life

Coffee gossip
Album: Bizarre Still Life

Zdzislaw Beksiński

Zdzisław Beksiński was a renowned Polish painter, photographer, and sculptor. Born in 1929, he grew up in southern Poland, then traveled to Krakow to study architecture where he subsequently spent several miserable years working as a construction site supervisor. His work from that era is primarily photography and sculpture.In the late 1960s, Beksiński entered what he himself called his "fantastic period", which lasted up to the mid-1980s. This is his best-known period, during which he created very disturbing images, showing a surrealistic, post-apocalyptic environment with very detailed scenes of death, decay, landscapes filled with skeletons, deformed figures and deserts. These paintings were quite detailed, painted with his trademark precision. At the time, Beksiński claimed, "I wish to paint in such a manner as if I were photographing dreams".
Although he depicts a harrowing world, Beksiński claimed that much of his work is misunderstood. Like Kafka (known to laugh hysterically when reading his own stories aloud), the Polish painter was often amused by his own work. He insisted his vision was ultimately optimistic.
In 1998, after years of illness, his wife Zofia died. A year later, his son Tomasz (a popular Polish radio personality and movie translator) committed suicide. Beksiński, who discovered his son’s body, was never quite the same.
On 21 February 2005, Beksiński was found dead in his flat in Warsaw with 17 stab wounds on his body; two of the wounds were determined to have been fatal. Robert Kupiec (the teenage son of his longtime caretaker), who later pleaded guilty, and a friend were arrested shortly after the crime. On 9 November 2006 Robert Kupiec was sentenced to 25 years in prison, and his accomplice, Łukasz Kupiec, to 5 years by the court of Warsaw. Before his death, Beksiński refused a loan to Robert Kupiec a few hundred złotys (approximately $100).