'Jeanne Dielman' by Chantal Akerman an eternal classic

Director Chantal Akerman with actress Delphine Seyrig on the set of "Jeanne Dielman"

Festival de Cannes

Jeanne Dielman 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles

When Chantal Akerman made "Jeanne Dielman 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles" in 1975 she was only 24 years old. The road to making the film began with contacts and one of them was French filmmaker Babette Mangolte , currently a professor of visual arts at UC San Diego who wound up being the cinematographer on this film . Akerman and Mangolte met in New York, a city that would later become the young Belgian director's adopted home. Mangolte introduced Akerman to experimental filmmaking, a small and exclusive world she loved.

Success came early to Akerman whose film was selected for the Cannes Film Festival Directors Fortnight in 1975. Suddenly 50 international festivals wanted to screen it. It starred the brilliant French actress Delphine Seyrig as a housewife and widow who stays at home to take care of her teenage son. Once a week she solos as a prostitute for one of her regular clients. Of the film Akerman said that she wanted to value the rare subject of a housewife whose ritualistic work is at home. She has said that a woman almost certainly would have had to make it since a man barely pays attention to his wife’s work at home. To that extent Akerman does a meticulous study of the daily motions of Jeanne Dielman and as she later explains, the film was based on watching the routines of her mother at home, a survivor of Auschwitz whose parents died in the camp.

"Jeanne Dielman" is 200 minutes long and is a fascinating film which breaks down and compartmentalizes Jeanne’s various chores and activities such as putting coffee into a thermos, boiling potatoes, shining her son’s shoes, making up his bed or putting the money from her clients into a large covered dish in the living room. Each day the routines are shot and the procedures given extraordinary importance. This is especially because of Akerman’s framing of the kitchen and the hallway, an almost claustrophobic environment where we as spectators engage in Jeanne’s activities. We are forced to acknowledge how the order is exact and strictly kept in Jeanne’s schedule. We notice how Akerman is careful to present the one day when Jeanne has some time to think for a bit unlike previous days and the film changes its trajectory. This is the compelling force of the film that remains an enchanting narrative construction to this day. Chantal Akerman died in October last year at the age of 65. Her final film on her mother, “No Home Movie”, will be released this year.

Published in San Francisco Examiner.com 1/4/2016

Mika Kaurismaki's 'The Girl King' unveils a brilliant Queen Kristina

Queen Kristina (Malin Buska) of Sweden with Lord Chancellor Axel Oxenstierna (Michael Nykvist) flanked by Count Johan Oxenstierna (Lucas Bryant and Karl Gustav Kasimir (François Arnaud)

Courtesy of Festival de Cannes, used with permission

The Girl King

Mika Kaurismäki has made a quality and authentic study for modern audiences of Queen Kristina of Sweden in “The Girl King”. It debuts on VOD on Dec 8 via YouTube, Vudu and Google Play and the film's distributor Wolfe Video. Wolfe Video bought the North American rights at the Cannes Film Festival where the film debuted in May and has also released a DVD.

The 17th century regent of Sweden, daughter of the great king Gustav Vasa, has been the subject of several films including Rouben Mamoulian's 1933 epic "Queen Christina" starring Greta Garbo. Kaurismäki presents a sober and realistic portrait of the queen. He has shown her as a commanding figure with a court that could not accept that she wanted to have sovereign control over her life and her kingdom. Kaurismäki also tells the story of René Descartes whom Kristina invited to the Swedish court to instruct her on his theories.

In Kaurismäki’s film Descartes works against Kristina and helps to separate her from her lover Ebba Sparre (Sarah Godon) so she can fulfill her duties as Sweden’s queen and not become a Catholic. The love story is important to the history of Kristina and is given ample room in the film. Kaurismäki was incredibly captured by this brilliant thinker who ended the 30-year war and in so doing was a pioneer in working for a European Union. He regards her as an extraordinary woman who would be modern even today.

The time period of the film concerns Kristina from a young girl to the time she abdicated from the throne under the guise of becoming a Catholic. Karusimäki, if asked, said he would make another film about Kristina. After she left Sweden she brought with her a treasury of Swedish cultural artifacts. When she got to Italy, she created a lab where she studied alchemy and founded "Accademia dell'Arcadia". She was part of the Pope Clement X's inner circle and initially lived in Palazzo Farnese which was a model for part of the Swedish palace. Queen Kristina is buried in the Papal Basilica of St. Peter in the Vatican.

Kaurismäki said the film took 10 years to make and during the process his editor died. His framing of the film has the form of chamber music – music created with few instruments, and usually in a palace chamber. It is a form that grows on you in its subtle power. There are few outdoor scenes and the castle is Finnish located in Turku. In this castle is the room where Kristina was actually conceived.

Michael Nykvist as Axel Oxenstierna, the Lord High Chancellor of Sweden, has an interesting role that departs from his usual action films as the man who tried to steer Kristina on the path her father had expected her to follow. Swedish actress Malin Buska as Kristina gives a compelling performance and brings to the screen the rage that such a brilliant woman must have possessed to be thwarted in love and in all her endeavors as a queen.

Laurie Anderson's 'Heart of a Dog' tells ghost stories and love stories

World debut of 'Heart of a Dog' by Laurie Anderson

Courtesy of La Biennale di Venezia

Heart of a Dog

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Performance artist and filmmaker Laurie Anderson was in San Francisco for a brief visit in conjunction with the theatrical release of her new film “Heart of a Dog” that opens in San Francisco November 13 at Landmark Theatres. The film debuted at the Venice Film Festival September 9 and is a thought provoking film about love stories and ghost stories, and how stories are relayed in our personal lives through art and media. Anderson relates stories about dreams and the possibilities for new ways of storytelling with new media.

"Heart of a Dog" weaves story telling with films Anderson shot of her dog Lolabelle and 8mm films from her childhood. She uses iPhones, drone phones, and different textural backgrounds. She wrote the script and did the art work and composed the music. This kind of singular vision seems to be the hallmark of her work. Anderson usually travels to cities and does installations, creating image, word and musical journeys.

Anderson explores the synchronicity of what we do in life having its source in experiences from our childhood. She looks over her past as a pilgrimage. The talented artist even provides a description of death from the "Tibetan Book of the Dead". She explains that before going to another world the deceased experiences their present incarnation before finding a new form in a state called "Bardo". She calls the death ritual an automation of walking backwards in past lives. Even her film engages in this kind of backward sojourn. All of this is extremely thrilling and provocative for Anderson never ceases to engage with her creations, as she has always done through several decades of work. ' Heart of a Dog' is her newest edition, her latest work of art, which is truly inspirational.

Laurie Anderson recently collaborated with the Cullberg Ballet in Stockholm. Her film is dedicated to the late Lou Reed who she lived with for over 20 years.

Published in San Francisco Examiner Nov 14, 2015

San Francisco City Hall in solidarity with the citizens of sister city Paris. Nov 13, 2015.

Vive la France

France cannot be destroyed

Wikepedia censors Freja Film, historic Swedish women's film organisation

As of September 19, the men's club at Wikipeida has eliminated a post on Freja Film, a women's screening forum in Stockholm Sweden from the 1980's. By trying to save this entry it is clear that decisions are made within a very select group of individuals, who are not only undemocratic but discriminatory towards women's culture. No amount of change to the article could save it. The young male wikepedians with a sense of white male under 30 smell insist on scholarly reports, quotes, cross references, statistics, search engines, metrics , in short "pulling a rabbit out of a hat" documents prior to the profuse public use of internet. This means that history can only be determined from this, since none of these individuals have gone to Sweden to research at "KvinnSam - Nationellt bibliotek för genusforskning" - the national library for gender studies. Kvinnobulletinen, a woman's magazine from 1971 to 1996 mentions "Freja Film" in several articles.

According to Seneca, 2000 years ago , "To be everywhere is to be nowhere." Yet Wikepedia uses this rule of thumb for subject validity.

Since no one really takes Wikepedia serious except students who rely on it for plagiarized term papers , the omission of this article should be seen as a blessing. But it's a marvel to behold the process of getting an article into Wikipedia, dictated by a spider web of techno geeks who conjure up the anonymous faces of the Deep Web. If you have ever entered into discussions with wikipedians, the modern concept of fascism actually comes to mind, with this definition, from Wikipedia, as context:

• the use of fascist as an epithet for authoritarian and intolerant power-holders has a distinct analytical basis, suggesting that fascism is a continuum or a social relation, rather than simply a political system, and that acts of repression are in some way homologous with fascist ideology.

When Wipedia asks for donations to continue its practice of selective entrees, remember who is really behind the decisions.