Werner Herzog's look at the Internet age: LO AND BEHOLD, Reveries of the Connected World

As someone who runs hot (Into the Abyss) to lukewarm (Cave of Forgotten Dreams) regarding the work of Werner Herzog, TrustMovies would call his new documentary, LO AND BEHOLD, Reveries of the Connected World, one of his better endeavors. In it, this peripatetic filmmaker, whose interests seem to be about as vast as our universe, concentrates on some of the ways our world has changed and continues to change thanks (and sometimes not) to the impact of the Internet.

Herr Herzog, shown at right, is present here, as so often, not only in the visuals he's chosen to shoot but in the interviewing and narration he supplies. He questions his subjects but lets them go on into whatever tangents might interest them (and him, and us). He has divided his doc into something like ten chapters, beginning with The Early Days -- in which he gives us the chance to meet and enjoy web pioneer Ted Nelson, whose remembrance as a child of the way water worked around his fingers is quite lovely and profound -- to his final chapter, The Future, in which he notes how all our movies and TV shows got the future so wrong. No flying cars, space travel or aliens -- but something nobody quite managed to imagine back then: the Internet!

It's this kind of notion -- charming, surprising, observant and wry -- in which Herzog excels. In between the beginning and end of his new film, the filmmaker covers all kinds of odd and interesting stuff. One chapter is devoted to the dark side of the Internet, with one particular family and their terrible history shown front and center.

We also see and wonder at people today who can (sometimes must) avoid the Net: those allergic to cell phone towers and frequencies. We are made privy to what might be the end of the Net, as well (solar flairs, anyone?). We meet some smart hackers (Kevin Mitnik is one of these), hear and see Elon Musk talk about possible life on Mars (his view is thoroughly demolished by one smart woman), meet some intelligent robots and watch them work, and even hear from the man who invented the self-driving car.

It's all thoughtful and fun and occasionally scary and moving, too. Overall, this is one of Herzog's loveliest, most discursive (in a good way) and far-reaching works.

From Magnolia Pictures and running a just-about-right 98 minutes, the movie opens all across the country on Friday, August 19. In New York City, look for it at the Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center; in Los Angeles at Landmark's NuArt, and here in South Florida at the Bill Cosford Cinema in Coral Gables and the Lake Worth Playhouse in Lake Worth. To see all currently scheduled playdates, with cities and t heaters listed, click here.

Read more »

communication, documentaries, German cinema, LO AND BEHOLD: Reveries of the Connected World, modern living, The Internet, Werner Herzog,

Rate it :

One-half of a German lesbian couple pines for a baby in Anne Zohra Berrached's TWO MOTHERS

If only both partners were as eager to have that child mentioned in the headline above, things might have gone differently than they do for the smart and likeable pair of women we meet in TWO MOTHERS (Zwei Mütter), the intelligent, fragmented, but deeply-felt German movie from Anne Zohra Berrached (shown below). Using a documentary style to view her protagonists and their somewhat circumscribed world, Ms Berrached, as director and writer (with some help from Michael Glasauer's script consulting), has come up with a very involving look at a lesbian relationship in the process of growing and perhaps foundering, as one of the two young women finds herself more and more drawn to the idea of having a baby. By any means possible.

Though the film takes place in Germany, a country most of us probably consider relatively progressive (nowhere near the Scandinavian level, however), it seems that -- when it comes to providing lesbian couples state-supported help, financial and/or otherwise -- this country has some learning left to do. The kind of obstacles the couple encounters are surprising -- for one thing fertility clinics that do not, under German law, offer treatment to non-heterosexuals -- and they impact everything from these women's well-being to their pocketbooks.

After exhausting all other avenues, the pair decides to try a sperm donor -- but one who will not insist on being both donor and father. This takes the film into yet further realms of surprise and even a little humor. While the women are played by two fine actresses -- Karina Plachetka (at left, above and below) and Sabine Wolf (at right, above and below) -- the other performers, at least according to what we find on the IMDB, appear to be playing themselves as doctors, donors, and people on the subway and/or street. This certainly adds to the verité quality of the film.

The dialog here seems particularly on the mark -- genuine without ever being "writerly" or overly sophisticated. As much as the movie documents the trials and the time these take before something actually happens, the filmmaker keeps the focus on our two women. This works well because they are at the heart of the drama, and it is their relationship we're rooting for -- at least until it becomes more and more clear that one woman wants what the other does not.

Along the way we meet a number of interesting people who figure into the tale, and as months and more months pass, tension builds and alternatives seems to disappear, while insemination after insemination goes by with nothing to show for them, other than reduced finances. There's a lovely little scene in which Ms Wolf meets, but briefly, an adorable little boy in the library, and we imagine that she may be changing her mind about chil-dren. Finally there's a fellow named Flo who applies as the possible donor, and things take a turn for better or worse, depending on your perspective.

The risks to a relationship when a surrogate is used is shown here to quite believable effect, and while the movie stops short of any actual closure, it is pretty clear where it -- and the relationship -- is headed. Two Mothers, from TLA Releasing under the Canteen Outlaws banner and running a very brief 75 minutes, hit the streets on DVD this past January 13.

Read more »

Anne Zohra Berrached, documentary-style narratives, fertility and insemination, German cinema, GLBT films, Lesbian movies worth seeing, TWO MOTHERS,

Rate it :

Dominik Graf's BELOVED SISTERS: Germany's submission for Best Foreign Language Film

For whatever reason (advance praise, most likely), I fully expected that Dominik Graf's bio-pic about Friederich Schiller and the von Lengefeld sisters would be one of the nine movies listed for possible Best Foreign Language Film honors. When it was not, I wondered why. Now that I have seen the movie, I think I can figure it out. BELOVED SISTERS (Die geliebten Schwestern) is a good film: smart and fast-moving, with wonderful period detail that looks about as genuine as movies these days can manage. The performances are fine, too, as is the writing and direction. But the film lasts ten minutes short of three hours, and this is finally too long for what eventually begins to seem like something a little too close to soap opera. We and the movie spend more time with this threesome than their story -- as seen here and which is, overall, a little on the slight and repetitive side -- will bear.

The Academy is not overly fond of very lengthy movies. For my money, one of the best films of the year --- Winter Sleep -- was also passed over for the BFLF short list, and it lasts a half hour longer than this one. Winter Sleep however, is deeper and more profound than Beloved Sisters, which stays pretty close to the surface, albeit a very alluring and interesting surface, throughout. Filmmaker Graf, pictured at right, a veteran of television, goes for the fast-moving pace, and fills his film with immense detail -- of place, person, plot, the works. His movie is never uninteresting, and considering that it's all about the personal, professional and sexual lives of some famous people, it proves much less leering than you might expect. It is absolutely worth seeing, if not, perhaps, worth awarding.

We've had Young Goethe in Love, so why not Young Schiller, as well. Graf's movie is twice the one that Philipp Stölzl's was. Schiller, as portrayed by Florian Stetter (above), is shown to excellent advantage as a philosopher, writer and lover, while the two sisters -- Caroline (Hannah Herzsprung, below, right) and Charlotte (Henriette Confurius, below, left) are very well paired. The scene (above) in which Schiller first addresses the university at which he has come to teach is genuinely vibrant and moving.

Along the route we get some fascinating facts about the German view of the French Revolution, printing presses of this particular era, current living standards, the importance of money in keeping even the supposed wealthy in appropriate shape, and the behavior required of proper young ladies and gentlemen of the day. (Claudia Messner does a particularly fine turn as the sister's smart, concerned and appealing mother.)

If I appear to damning Beloved Sisters with faint praise, I'll be clear. The praise is not faint, it's simply not immense. The movie is beautiful, consistently interesting and tackles a real story and unusual situation with not mere "taste" but with discipline and style. It has terrific energy and excellent pacing, too.

From Music Box Films and running 170 minutes, Beloved Sisters begins its theatrical run this Friday, January 9, in New York City (at the Lincoln Plaza Cinema and Landmark Sunshine), in the Los Angeles area (at Laemmle's Royal, Playhouse 7 and Town Center 5) and five other cities -- before spreading out across the country in the weeks and months to come. You can view all currently scheduled playdates by clicking here and then clicking on the word THEATERS about halfway down the screen.

Read more »

BELOVED SISTERS, bio-pics, Dominik Graf, Friedrich Schiller, German cinema, Germany in the 1700s-1800s,

Rate it :