a world without love (film: Loveless – Andrey Zvyagintsev, 2017)

Posted on November 14, 2020 by admin

‘Loveless‘ made in 2017 by Andrey Zvyagintsev is the story of a divorce. Divorce movies often belong to the genre of the melodrama, sometimes they are romantic comedies (especially those that end in reconciliation), or court dramas. One of the rules shared by almost all movies with such topic is that if there are children in the story, their fate is protected in one way or another. ‘Loveless‘ is a very different film from all the others I’ve seen in this genre. The title actually summarizes the whole story. We are witnessing the breakup of a loveless marriage in a loveless world. The film is a metaphor for today’s Russia with film director and script co-writer Andrey Zvyagintsev demonstratively introducing background news that locate exactly the events that take place in the film at the end of 2012 in a city about three hours drive from Moscow. But the story is universal and what we see on the screen could happen in any other developed country in the world today.

A Beatles song warns us of the dangers of a world without love. This is the world described in ‘Loveless‘. The lead heroes are Zhenya and Boris, a middle-class couple, caught in a marriage that began as a youthful relationship followed by the ‘accident’ of the birth of an unwanted child, Aliosha, who has reached the age of 12. We catch the marriage in the final stage of its disintegration, the one in which the common house is sold and the universe of the child is destroyed. Aliosha does not seem to lack anything from a material perspective, but emotionally he seems to lack everything. The two spouses are already engaged in extra-marital relationships and neither of them seems interested in keeping the child in care. The scene in which Aliosha listens with a mute cry to the parents’ quarrel is anthological, heartbreaking. When Aliosha disappears, Zhenya and Boris are brought together by the search procedures, but does that mean a reunion?

The cinematography and soundtrack of the film are exceptional, so is also the description of the social, professional, material environments in which the heroes live their lives. The metallic colors of the buildings and interiors and the frozen natural landscapes are the ideal settings for a world where feelings seem mechanized and inter-human communication takes place mainly through telephone screens. The two actors cast in the main roles, Maryana Spivak and Aleksey Rozin, have the not so trivial mission to interpret their roles naturally but without gaining undeserved empathy from the audience. They manage to do it brilliantly. ‘Loveless‘ is a complex and expressive film about a world in which if we do not already live completely, we are in danger of reaching to live in a short time. Recommended viewing.

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first film, interrupted? (film: Supernova – Bartosz Kruhlik, 2019)

Posted on November 13, 2020 by admin

I often see the debut films of the great filmmakers and I notice signs and qualities that indicate the talent that will develop in a wonderful career. ‘Supernova‘, the film written and directed in 2019 by Polish filmmaker Bartosz Kruhlik is not only a remarkable debut in writing and film quality. It’s also half of a very good movie, but a movie that ends abruptly and surprisingly. I almost had the feeling that the screening stopped half way. Its duration (74 minutes) is on the border between medium and long, certainly a few tens of minutes shorter than the ‘standard’ length of today’s movies. Were there any production or financing problems? I don’t know, but on the other hand, Kruhlik being the only screenwriter, the decision regarding the duration and the narrative structure may have belonged entirely to him. We may have to wait for his future films to understand if this was a production accident, a style decision or a long-term trend. In any case, I will try to follow a career that promises much.

The film begins with a long frame, shot with the camera on the shoulder. The scene takes place on a road in a village somewhere in a remote corner of Poland. We witness a separation, a woman with two small children leaves home followed by her visibly drunk husband (Marcin Zarzeczny), who at one point falls into a ditch. We hear a terrible noise. There was a serious traffic accident. The road is blocked, the police appear, one of the cops (Marek Braun) seems to know the victims. The accident was caused by the driver of an Audi, a guy in a suit (Marcin Hycnar) visibly belonging to another world, at least from a social point of view. The guilty driver first flees the scene of the accident, then returns, not before calling for help a troupe of lawyers and government officials. Ambulances, firefighters, other police officers appear, including the head of the local police, a man on the verge of his retirement. The crowd also gathers, more and more agitated, the victims are recognized, people demand accountability, they are afraid of covering up of the case, as it seems to happen often also in Poland when those responsible belong to the upper classes. From a family quarrel, the story evolves and combines police investigation, social drama, political conflict between rich and poor Poland, and a dose of fantasy. They all line up and develop logically, we are dealing with the well-directed construction of a crescendo, and then … the film ends.

70 of the 74 minutes the film manages to concentrate and expose an entire social and human universe . Director and screenwriter Bartosz Kruhlik manages to create characters that develop in the time dedicated to them on screen, from routine to shock, revolt and action. Each of the characters is believable and convincing, and the acting performances are excellent. In the last four minutes, the story receives a twist not exactly related to what had happened until then, which tries to give a different meaning to what we have seen before. This ending did not convince me. Of course, I will not reveal it. I recommend watching ‘Supernova‘, there are many good reasons for cinephile satisfaction anyway, and maybe other viewers will find more logic and interest in the ending than me. Bartosz Kruhlik‘s is, however, a career to follow.

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women liberation (film: United States of Love – Tomasz Wasilewski, 2016)

Posted on November 12, 2020 by admin

The life stories in ‘United States of Love‘ (the original title is ‘Zjednoczone stany milosci‘), the 2016 film by Polish director and screenwriter Tomasz Wasilewski take place in 1990. That was the first year of freedom in Eastern Europe after 50 of years of wars and totalitarian communist dictatorships, and the four not so young women who are the heroines of the film enjoy for the first time a personal freedom with which they do not exactly know what to do with. Each of them lives an impossible love story, and none of them manages to find solutions to turn their dreams and desires into reality. Are these individual stalemates or the crisis of a generation that has led to change but no longer has the power or skills to use this change in their own private lives? Tomasz Wasilewski‘s film addresses a recurring theme in Eastern European cinema after 1989, the original flavor of his script (awarded a Silver Bear at the Berlin Film Festival) being the fact that his heroines are all women. The film has an explicitly feminist perspective, although it is written and directed by a man. Hence some of the qualities of the film but also some of its problems.

What I liked. The cinematography of Oleg Mutu, creator of the visual style of the films of directors such as Cristian Mungiu, envelops the whole film in an atmosphere of standardized geometric gray, in which the colors and feelings of the characters struggle to be perceived. The structure of the film is symmetrical, four life stories of four women, with an exceptional scene in the middle of the film, which those who will see it will not forget for a long time, neither aesthetically nor emotionally. The changes that take place around are hinted at by fragments of news from that fractal year in the history of Poland and Eastern Europe which was 1990. The narrative structure is non-linear, consisting of several time loops that together compose the film’s message. The acting interpretations, especially of the four main characters are very good, within the limits of the conception and the directorial indications.

What I liked less. The directorial approach is cold and the four stories are repeated in similar terms and attitudes. The result is more routine than emotional amplification. We can understand the lack of communication and emotional paralysis of one or the other of the heroines, but all four act similarly and assume in an illogical way the wrong decisions, sometimes with tragic consequences. I’m far from an opponent of nudity on screen, but in this case the use of nudity seemed excessive to me. Each of the four heroines is exposed nude several times, and perhaps just in a third of them nudity would be justified. I assume that the director wanted to express in this way the feelings of liberation experienced by the heroines, as well as their internal tensions and vulnerabilities in the unhappy relationships they live. But I doubt the film would have looked the same if it had been directed by a woman. The heroines of ‘United States of Love‘ enjoy very little love if at all. Freedom does not bring them happiness. The first thing to learn or re-learn after liberation is to live and decide what to do with your own life.

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demons and buried skeletons (film: Demon – Marcin Wrona, 2015)

Posted on November 11, 2020 by admin

The story surrounding the film ‘Demon‘ made in 2015 by Polish director Marcin Wrona is almost as tragic as the story in the film, and builds around it a special aura. The director committed suicide shortly after the premiere, during a festival that promoted this third and final feature film of his, a film that has in its center a wedding that ends tragically. Marcin Wrona himself was freshly married and left behind a young wife (who had also been one of the film’s producers). Those who believe in such phenomena may speculate that perhaps some of the evil spirit exemplified by the phenomenon of ‘dybbuk’ described in the film has spilled over into reality. The rest of us can mourn the disappearance of a film director who was on the path to become one of the most representative for Poland, and beyond the borders of his country. ‘Demon‘ is a very interesting film, which does not leave its viewers indifferent, located somewhere between the Gothic horror genre with elements of Polish and Jewish folklore, and the art film with social and historical commentary. The film is a Polish-Israeli co-production, which is, I think, also first time kind of collaboration.

Pyton (Itay Tiran) comes from London to a remote village in Poland only accessible by ferry (the bridge collapsed some time ago) to marry Zaneta (Agnieszka Zulewska), the daughter of the owner of the stone quarry that seems to be the main industry of the village. The two had only met her via skype, but we can’t blame him because Zaneta is a blonde beauty, or her because she probably dreams that sooner or later she will get London. The problem is that for now Pyton dreams of reverse migration, learns Polish, changes his name (and personality?) to Piotr before the wedding, and begins to renovate a dilapidated house to settle in. The bulldozer used for the works uncovers a buried corpse, and from here, an evil force seems to be released and takes possession of Pyton who became Piotr on the day and during his wedding. Did a demon take over him? Are we perhaps dealing with a phenomenon of ‘dybbuk’ descended from the Jewish folklore and mysticism, in which souls that do not find peace take possession of foreign bodies and refuse to release them until they see their goals achieved? Are the strange events taking place in this Polish Catholic village related to the history of the Jewish community, a whole world that disappeared in the Holocaust with only one survivor alive in the person of an old teacher?

The film oscillates between grotesque, social satire and horror, adding at the end a commentary with historical significance. The light, comic, folkloric tone of the wedding scenes can lead viewers to false path, as the final message is much gloomier, telling about the impossible reconciliation between an amnesic present and a past that does not let itself be buried and returns to haunt the descendants or accomplices of wrongdoers. The cinematic execution is not perfect and the spectators are required to focus so as not to omit details or clues that flip on the screen for only a few seconds. I liked the cinematography and the acting of the Polish team , who managed draw clearly both the lead roles and the smaller ones that make up the social background of the story. Itay Tiran, who plays the lead role, was at the time of making the film in 2015 a mega-star of Israeli theater, the most talented and successful actor and director of his generation. (Since then he has decided to move to Berlin, where he started a new career from scratch). His roles in film are, in my opinion, a bit marked by theatricality and this happens also in ‘Demon‘. What works perfectly on stage (Tiran played on stage Klaus Mann’s Mephisto among others) doesn’t work as well on screen, and he lost me exactly in the ‘demonic’ scenes. For all its imperfections, Marcin Wrona‘s farewell film is a meritorious cinematic work, an experience not to be missed.

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a beautiful movie about a troubled marriage (film: Arrhytmia – Boris Khlebnikov, 2017)

Posted on November 10, 2020 by admin

The beautiful film ‘Arrhythmia‘ made in 2017 by Boris Khlebnikov reminded me of a brand of Russian (Soviet in fact) cinema that I had kind of forgotten and which I really liked in the late ’70s and early ’80s. Those movies were bringing to screens simple and moving stories from the lives of ordinary people, the inhabitants of the Soviet empire of that time. they were telling such human and emotional stories and presenting without any propaganda ornaments the reality of the last decades of communism in the country that was trying to impose it on the world and especially on the Eastern Europe. Of course, there were limits, there were never any direct criticisms of the communist regime, but even apolitical approaches were a stance in those years. ‘Arrhytimia‘ similarly manages to bring to screen a sample of today’s Russian reality with its people, conflicts and problems. The quality of acting and film production is no lesser than of the best such films I can remember from 40 years ago.

Oleg and Katia are a young couple from a provincial town in Russia today who are living an uneasy marriage. At the origin may be the difference in education and social position between the two, who both work in the emergency teams of the health system. Katia is a surgeon. Oleg is just a paramedic, works on ambulances, provides first aid, saves lives. The film follows him especially, and the intervention scenes of his team captivated me, although I’m not a big fan of movies or series with medical themes. Oleg is one of those paramedics that anyone wants in the difficult times when calling the emergency services – dedicated, competent, humane, brave, takes responsibility for his actions, refuses compromise and fights bureaucratic complications. However, this total involvement in the profession has a negative impact on the rest of his personality and private life – Oleg drinks excessively and does not have the time, power or maybe even the emotional intelligence to express his feelings towards Katia and not let the work on ambulance and hospitals take over their lives. Their marriage is in danger of falling apart. Katia shows a lot of love and understanding, but for how long?

The film could have easily slipped into easy melodrama or medical techno-drama, but it doesn’t, because the script is written with intelligence and sensitivity (with the exception maybe of the ending which disappointed me). The acting interpretations of the two main protagonists are exceptional: Aleksandr Yatsenko and Irina Gorbacheva perform two beautiful roles, authentic and profound psychologically. It’s hard not to resonate, even to fall in love with them watching this movie. But the other characters are also remarkable, from Oleg’s ambulance colleague and the chief sent from Moscow to implement the new working rules of the ministry, to the small roles of the people met during the various emergency interventions. Following them we get the impression that we are acquainted with an entire sector of contemporary Russian society and especially with its people. ‘Arrhythmia‘ is both a beautiful love story that takes place in the context of a troubled marriage, and an excellent open door to the human universe of today’s Russia. Highly recommended.

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in the footsteps of Ozu (film: Still Walking – Hirokazu Koreeda, 2008)

Posted on November 9, 2020 by admin

Coincidentally, I viewed ‘Still Walking‘, Hirokazu Koreeda‘s 2008 film the day after viewing ‘Tokyo Story‘, Yasujirô Ozu‘s masterpiece. The two films are made 55 years apart, but they are very close in terms of dealing with the relationships between generations, between aging parents and children who have become parents, the time that passes irreversibly and the lost opportunities to express feelings and fix the mistakes of the past. However, the two films are more related to each other than by the subjects, because in this film Koreeda reuses some of Ozu‘s cinematic techniques. The films seem related in terms of topics and style, and I suspect that ‘Still Walking‘, was conceived by Koreeda as a tribute to the master of himself and of an entire film school in Japan.

As in ‘Tokyo Story‘, the film centers around a family reunion that brings together three generations. The occasion is sad, because the gathering is about the commemoration of the death of the eldest brother of the three children of Dr. Kiohei Yokoyama (Yoshio Harada), who was supposed to continue his work taking over his clinic, and who died saving a boy from drowning. The event occasions the confrontation between the elderly father, retired from his practice, but ‘still walking’ and the second son, Ryota (Hiroshi Abe) who lives in the shadow of his missing brother, of his father’s disappointment and of the insecurity in his personal life. The dialogue between parents and children highlights the differences in style and pace of life between generations and the effect of the passage of time marked by unfulfilled expectations and missed opportunities. As in Ozu‘s movies, the heroes fail to translate their feelings into words, but are ultimately united by simple shared memories and by gestures that are sometimes part of ceremonies designed to pass from one generation to another the respect and the memory of those who no longer are.

Among the excellent acting performances, I have especially noticed that of Hiroshi Abe, who injects complexity and veracity to the role of Ryota. Cinematography often quotes Ozu, especially in the indoor scenes, with the fix camera and the characters building the entire dynamics of the scenes through their movements in the rectangular space. Quotes can also be considered to be the connecting frames – trains, the sky, the sea that describe the social background in which the action takes place. Hirokazu Koreeda proves with ‘Still Walking‘, that he assimilated the lessons of his predecessors and continues them with respect, talent and sensitivity.

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CHANGE.WORLD: Tehnologia înlesnește tirania?

Posted on November 9, 2020 by admin

Yuval Noah Harari nu se sfiește să facă afirmații răspicate, surprinzătoare, provocatoare. Intelectualul israelian născut în 1976, profesor în departamentul de istorie al Universității Ebraice din Ierusalim, autorul a trei cărți de mare succes și popularitate apărute în traducere și în limba română la Editura Polirom (‘Sapiens. Scurtă istorie a omenirii’; ‘Homo Deus. Scurtă istorie a viitorului’;  ’21 de lecții pentru secolul XXI’) este și un oaspete solicitat al emisiunilor de televiziune, și utilizează cu pricepere și formatul podcast sau cel al dialogurilor filmate și postate pe Internet, având ca parteneri alte celebrități media, de la Natalie Portman până la Mark Zuckerberg. De multe ori își punctează aparițiile publice sau articolele pentru ziarele și revistele de mare circulație cu fraze-ghilotină care se transformă repede în titluri sau citate. ‘Tehnologia înlesnește tirania’ apare în titlul (‘Why Technology Favors Tyranny’) unui articol apărut în numărul din octombrie 2018 al revistei ‘The Atlantic’ într-un grupaj care are și el o temă menită să atragă atenția: ‘Este democrația pe moarte?’ (‘Is Democracy Dying?’). Articolul este interesant în sine și abordează câteva subiecte și dezbate idei pe care, de-a lungul timpului, le-am adus în discuție și în rubrica CHANGE.WORLD. Au trecut doi ani de la publicare, s-au întâmplat multe evenimente de atunci, inclusiv o pandemie globală care a accelerat unele procese descrise sau prevăzute de Harari în articolul său, și cred că este un moment potrivit pentru a reveni asupra acestei problematici și a dezbate afirmația istoricului de la Ierusalim. Am păstrat titlul, însă mi-am permis să-i adaug un semn de întrebare.

(By Daniel Naber – sursa imaginii: commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=71405651)

Viziunile pesimiste prevalează astăzi cam în toate prevederile despre viitor. Ce deosebire față de atitudinea optimist-utopică cu care eram obișnuiți să abordăm viitorul în copilărie și adolescență, când mulți dintre noi ne-am îndrăgostit de sci-fi! Tehnologia urma să fie controlată riguros de oamenii viitorului, iar problemele sociale fie deja își găsiseră soluțiile, eventual prin ‘progresul’ spre socialism și comunism, fie erau atenuate și în curs de rezolvare, prin intermediul tehnologiilor avansate. Până și roboții erau prietenoși, devotați și aveau simțul umorului. Ce s-a întâmplat de atunci? Una dintre diferențele dintre viziunile despre viitor din trecut și realitățile de astăzi este faptul că, pe măsură ce roboții se perfecționează și Inteligența Artificială (AI) se maturizează, mașinile primesc sarcini din ce în ce mai complexe, și nu de natură mecanică, devenind competitori ai speciei umane în domenii legate de gândire și mai puțin de abilitați fizice. În 1997, calculatorul Deep Blue al lui IBM l-a învins într-o partidă istorică pe campionul mondial en titre, Gary Kasparov. De atunci încoace campionatele mondiale de șah ale calculatoarelor au devenit la fel de interesante și de mare nivel ca și cele ale oamenilor. Programul AlphaZero, care a câștigat competiția în 2017, avea însă o calitate specială. Învățase șah singur, spre deosebire de toți adversarii săi care fuseseră programați. În cât timp? În patru ore. Generalizarea poate fi făcută imediat. Dacă un calculator poate atinge în mod autonom un nivel competitiv de campion într-un domeniu ca șahul, atunci acest lucru se poate întâmpla în multe alte domenii de activitate care implică activități intelectuale – medicină, administrație, finanțe etc. Abia ne obișnuiserăm cu ideea că robotii și programele digitale vor înlocui muncitorii de pe liniile de asamblare sau șoferii de vehicule, și iată că și o mare parte dintre profesiile ‘intelectuale’ par a fi amenințate. Tensiunile sociale rezultate din eliminarea a sute de milioane de locuri de muncă par inevitabile. Cine va profita de aceste schimbări?

(sursa imaginii: newatlas.com/go-chess-artificial-intelligence/42968/)

Harari abordează în continuare subiectul posibilei ‘revolte a mașinilor’, scenariu care i se pare puțin probabil în deceniile următoare. Amenințarea principală o consideră a veni din altă parte.  Progresele spectaculoase ale Inteligenței Artificiale permit acestora să propună decizii care, cel puțin teoretic, sunt superioare celor luate de oameni. Fie că este vorba despre alegerea unei viitoare profesii sau a școlii unde să fie trimiși copiii, sau de decizii privind cariera profesională la mijlocul vieții, sau de investiții financiare de care poate depinde siguranța economică a familiei, programele AI pot face recomandări competente. Care este problema? Competența aceasta se bazează pe datele pe care programele AI le au la dispoziție despre noi. Acestea includ capacitățile noastre fizice și intelectuale, gusturile și preferințele personale, ambițiile și angoasele de care câteodată nu suntem nici noi conștienți. Problema este că aceste date despre noi, ceea ce se numește în termeni de specialitate ‘profilul’ nostru, sunt culese prin analiza unor acțiuni și a unor date pe care le furnizăm uneori voluntar, alteori semi-voluntar (știm că Facebook sau Google înregistrează interacțiunile noastre, ‘like’-urile și căutările, dar ‘nu ne pasă’), și de multe ori fără știrea noastră (de exemplu, prin analiza fizionomiei). Dar dacă aceste informații cad în mâinile unor criminali sau ale unor servicii de ordine aservite unor sisteme politice care nu ne sunt pe plac (sau noi lor)?

(sursa imaginii: aicgs.org/publication/moving-beyond-cyber-wars-a-transatlantic-dialogue/)

Poate că este vorba despre întâmplare și noroc, sau poate că nu. De-a lungul istoriei, tiranii și dictaturile nu s-au împăcat prea bine cu avansurile tehnologice. Unii dintre ei poate că s-au temut de acestea, în alte cazuri descoperitorii și oamenii de știință au ezitat să-și pună talentele în slujba unor cauze sau sisteme nedrepte. Mihail Gorbaciov recunoaște în memoriile sale că unul dintre factorii centrali în pierderea de către Uniunea Sovietica a competiției geopolitice, care s-a numit în a doua jumătate a secolului trecut ‘războiul rece’, a fost decalajul tehnologic în domenii precum electronica, informatica, telecomunicațiile, genetica. Unele fuseseră declarate ‘științe burgheze’ în perioada stalinistă, și chiar daca sovieticii au renunțat după Hrușciov la aceste etichetări și au încercat să recupereze întârzierea, aceste schimbări de direcție au avut loc prea târziu. Investițiile uriașe în tehnologie militară și prioritatea acordată industriilor grele și energofage au făcut ca decalajul să nu poată fi recuperat până la căderea sistemului comunist, în ultimele decenii ale secolului trecut.

(sursa imaginii: sites.google.com/site/futureproblemsolvingclub/practice-problems/surveillance-society)

Situația aceasta se schimbă însă în ultimele decenii. Cea mai bună dovadă o reprezintă progresele uriașe făcute de China în domeniul Inteligenței Artificiale și, în general, în activitățile și economia legata de informatică. China este astăzi incontestabil a doua putere economică și tehnologică în aceste domenii și și-a propus să devină numărul unu mondial până în anul 2030. Aceasta țintă ambițioasă este inclusă în programul președintelui Xi, care este pentru China ideologie de stat. Universitățile și centrele de cercetare asociate din China, cum ar fi Institutul de Automatizări din Beijing au devenit centre de excelență, lideri științifici în domeniul AI. Sistemul economic chinez permite libera inițiativă și concurența, ceea ce stimulează dezvoltarea economică și garantează susținerea statului pentru întreprinzătorii care joacă după regulile stabilite și colaborează cu sistemul. Platforma City Brain, de exemplu, este un fel de centru informatic care colectează și prelucrează date de la senzori distribuiți într-o așezare urbană, de la camere video cu identificarea fizionomiilor până la cardurile care detectează tranzacțiile personale sau numerele de înmatriculare ale vehiculelor. Fiecare telefon personal este legat la sistem. Aplicațiile pot fi extrem de diverse și de utile – planificarea semafoarelor și a fluxului de circulație pe străzi și autostrăzi, identificarea bagajelor pierdute de turiști, a copiilor rătăciți și a situațiilor de urgență. Într-o pandemie, sistemul poate identifica pe cei care încalcă condițiile de carantină și poate contribui la anchete epidemiologice. Același sistem poate fi însă folosit și pentru scopuri polițienești și chiar și de supraveghere ideologică. Poate, și după multe informații și mărturii ar fi fost deja folosit în provincia Xinjiang din nord-vestul Chinei, unde autoritățile centrale sunt acuzate de reprimarea etnică și culturală a minorității musulmane uighure. Capacitățile de supraveghere personală în scopuri politice sunt practic nelimitate, și le-au depășit de mult pe cele imaginate de Orwell. Amenințarea este globală. Devenită deja o mare putere AI, China își exporta în toată lumea prin companiile sale de succes produsele cu capabilități de supraveghere personală și sistemele software asociate. Orice conducător autoritar populist și orice regim polițienesc la care vă puteți gândi este un client potențial.

(sursa imaginii: informationweek.com/strategic-cio/security-and-risk-strategy/ais-impact-on-data-protection-strategies-/a/d-id/1337317?)

Aplicațiile AI și folosirea datelor personale în scopuri care se află în afara controlului utilizatorilor este o problemă în toată lumea. În țările democratice, structurile politice dau o șansă de a restrânge intruziunea în datele personale ale utilizatorilor. Uniunea Europeană aplică reguli stricte (dar nu perfecte) de protejare a utilizatorilor. În țările cu regimuri politice totalitare, limitele sunt cele impuse de sistem. Ca și în alte domenii legate de drepturile omului, atunci când este vorba despre garantarea spațiului privat și a datelor personale cuvintele sunt aceleași, dar înțelesurile lor sunt diferite. Este necesară o revizuire a Cartei Drepturilor Omului și a legislațiilor care să includă definirea dreptului cetățenilor de a-și proteja datele personale și de a limita utilizările acestora. O astfel de revizuire ar putea fi baza unui răspuns și la problema tranzacțiilor de date personale și a utilizării acestora în scopuri comerciale de către aplicații cum sunt rețelele sociale. Aș minți daca aș spune că sunt optimist în ceea ce privește atingerea rapidă a acestui scop. Suntem însă într-o fază în care, ca societate, începem să înțelegem noua economie bazată pe date personale și valoarea acestora, ca și implicațiile politice ale controlului acestui tip de informație. Yuval Noah Harari trage un serios semnal de alarmă legat de aceste pericole, de concentrarea datelor personale în prea puține centre cu interese comerciale sau politice. Mesajul său este simplu. Dacă nu vrem ca noi și urmașii noștri să trăim în dictaturi digitale, este momentul să începem să acționăm.

(Articolul a apărut iniţial in revista culturală ‘Literatura de Azi’ – http://literaturadeazi.ro/)

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parents and children (film: Tokyo Story – Yasujirô Ozu, 1953)

Posted on November 7, 2020 by admin

Yasujirô Ozu‘s ‘Tokyo Story‘ was made in 1953, the year of my birth. 67 years have passed since then, the film is the same age as me. It addresses a recurring theme of Ozu‘s creation – the disintegration of the family structure under the pressure of the evolution of modern society (some call it progress). It is a film about the relationships between parents and children, about caring for the elderly and caring for those who come after us, about the time we dedicate to the family, about love and loneliness. Today, when I also have in care my 90-year-old mother, when I am a father and a grandfather, this film is perfectly actual for me and talks about situations that I experienced and feelings and emotions I went through in my life, which started in the year the movie was made. At the same time, it is a film that describes more eloquently than a library of historical books the situation of Japan eight years after the end of the war that changed the course of history and reshaped the character of the nation. The characterization of ”Tokyo Story‘ as one of the best films ever made is not exaggerated.

The story. Shukici and Tomi Hirayama live in a remotevillage located a day train ride away from Tokyo. They are old, they have raised five children, three boys (one of whom died in the war) and two girls. Only the youngest girl remained with them, life and careers took the other away to Tokyo and Osaka. We are in 1953, people were still writing letters and sending them by mail, long distance telephone calls or telegrams were the means of rapid communication used only in emergencies. The elderly couple go on a trip to the great metropolis to visit their children and meet their grandchildren. They are received with apparent respect and Japanese ceremonial, but in reality the children (the physician son, the beautician daughter) don’t have much time for them and they don’t even know how and what to communicate. The differences of generations, of lifestyles and environments have their say. Shared traditions and memories are not enough to create true cohesion. Feelings exist, but the priorities of the active and busy life of the townspeople take precedence, at least until the mother’s health proves to be fragile and the children will be the ones to make their way back to the village where they started their lives.

Ozu‘s style is perfectly polished in this film. The frames are fixed most of the time (only once I think, the camera moves) and the world is seen from the height of the eyes, like in paintings representing mostly indoors. Each scene becomes a refined visual composition, a setting with geometric frames in which each object adds functionality, balance, beauty. Within these frames the characters move and live, communicating with each other but also with the spectators represented by the camera. The acting interpretations are magnificent, I think I could write a whole story about each character, that much I got to know them at the end of the two hours of watching. I will mention two actors who I think are making top creations here: Chishû Ryû, the actor who accompanied Ozu throughout his career and who featured in 52 of his 54 films in the role of the father, and Setsuko Hara, the muse and Ozu‘s favorite actress in the final part of his career, who plays the luminous role of Noriko, the elders’ daughter-in-law, and the widow of their fallen son, who turns out to be closer and more devoted to them than their true children. When the camera is taken outside (maybe about 10% of the film’s duration) we get a glimpse of a Japan in transformation, a Japan after the storm, with obvious social and landscape changes, a world where family, tradition, and human feelings struggle to survive. ‘Tokyo Story‘ is a film that is very japanese and very universal at the same time, one of those cinematographic works that is destined for eternity both as a document and as a perennial human message.

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Andrey Konchalovskiy is still here (film: Dear Comrades – Andrey Konchalovskiy, 2020)

Posted on November 6, 2020 by admin

‘Dear Comrades‘ (2020) presented in world wide premiere at the Venice Film Festival where it won the special jury award proves that at the age of 83 Andrey Konchalovskiy is not satisfied with just being a living legend. The screenwriter of the first films of Andrei Tarkovsky, the director who joined Tarkovsky and his own younger brother Nikita Mikhalkov in making outstanding movies in the ’70s that signaled in cinema, before Gorbachev’s ‘glasnost’, the thaw that was to come, has returned to Russia in the last decades after a stormy stage in Hollywood and makes a significant film every few years. ‘Dear Comrades‘ is one of the best of his career, a haunting description of a dark episode of totalitarian repression in the Soviet era, a film that can be said to come a few decades too late but is still relevant today, as any good lesson in history is important in the actuality. It is in any case a remarkable film both in content and in the way the message is transformed into images and transmitted to viewers.

The confusion of values ​​and the gap between ideals and reality dominate the film. The period in which the action takes place is one of those considered relatively ‘liberal’ in the history of the USSR, the one in which Khrushchev was in power. He had denounced Stalin’s crimes (to which he had been an accomplice at least through passivity) after his death, but continued a policy of competition with the West outside and of repression inside. In order to achieve their ambitious economic plans, the Soviet leaders subjected the population to severe economic shortages and any attempt at revolt was suppressed, if necessary by force. Confusion reigned among the population. “In Stalin’s time, prices were falling, now they are rising,” we hear Soviet citizens in the Don area where the film’s action takes place complaining. Young people and workers naively believe in the apparent democratization and in the rights enshrined in the Constitution, but when they claim them and resort to strikes and demonstrations to protest against economic problems, the response of the party and of and its tools of repression are bullets and arrests. Lyuda, the main heroine of the film (played exceptionally by Yuliya Vysotskaya) is an activist in the city party committee, not very important in rank, but significant enough to benefit from direct supply from food warehouses while her fellow citizens stand in endless lines for anything . She is indoctrinated and longs for Stalin (‘in his time I knew who the enemies were’). When her daughter (Yuliya Burova), a factory worker, disappears after the demonstrations are stifled in blood, her devotion to the party is put to the test. Her disabled and alcoholic father (Sergei Erlish) keeps in his chest the uniform of the Cossack and the icon of the Mother of God on the Don, connections hidden in fear with a past that the authorities want forgotten and buried. Ideological dilemmas and gaps dominate the relations between generations in the conditions in which truth cannot be spoken even between parents and children within the walls of their own homes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vWEiriaRgOo

The cinematography is cold, almost documentary. Konchalovskiy uses black and white film and the 4: 3 screen format specific to the Mosfilm studios in the years when the story takes place. The endless meetings of the party bureaucracy, corruption and cowardice of activists, the intervention of the leaders of the ‘center’, food queues and material deprivation, fear of the KGB, all these will be familiar to spectators who lived in the Eastern Europe before the fall of Communism. Humanity appears where we do not expect it – human gestures of solidarity of simple people, the refusal of some officers to arm their soldiers against the workers, the KGB member who helps Lyuda in the most difficult moments. What seems different is the ideological confusion that the characters seem to be dominated by. Lyuda is unable to live in a different system of reference than the communist one (‘without communism what are we left with?’). Adoration of Stalin seems to be a kind of Stockholm complex that escapes any logic. Konchalovskiy doesn’t even try to explain it. Can this attitude be considered a symbol of Russia’s history in the last century? The answers are left to the spectators.

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the train station in the center of Europe (film: Closely Watched Trains – Jiri Menzel, 1966)

Posted on November 5, 2020 by admin

Films from Czechoslovakia were among the hottest and most interesting topics of world cinema in the mid-60s. In 1966, when he made ‘Closely Watched Trains‘, Jirí Menzel was 28 years old and this was his first feature film. He won the Academy Awards for the Best Foreign Language Film, but his film was actually the second Czechoslovak film that enjoyed (two years apart) this precious recognition. From the perspective of more than half a century that has passed since the making of the film, the decision of the Academy jury of that year seems very inspired. ‘Closely Watched Trains‘ is a beautiful and human film, which uses as a pretext a genre of movies deprecated due to propaganda productions in order to tell a simple and emotional story, with credible characters, anti-heroes if you will, or simply ordinary people living in unusual times.

Train stations, and especially the small and lonely ones, were a perfect setting for many memorable films from the American productions to these of the Eastern European cinema. The station in ‘Closely Watched Trains‘ was located in central Europe, in the Czech Republic occupied by the Nazis, in the last year of the Second World War. The stationmaster obeyed the regulations, the railway inspector repeated the slogans of the Nazi occupiers, while ordinary people tried to live their lives. Milos, the main hero of the film (Václav Neckár) is a young man just out of adolescence, who inherits his retired father’s job at the train station. His magician grandfather had been crushed by the German tanks entering Prague while trying to stop them by hipnose (the scene was filmed 23 years before the events in Tiananmen Square). Milos’ thoughts are more on his own sexual performance in doubt after a failed experience in the company of an attractive ticket controller. The strictly guarded trains filled with German soldiers that continue to pass through the station will at some point bring the roller of history over the characters of the film. Innocence and the threat of death, coming to age and first loves, the desire to live and heroism, sex, absurd and death are combined in the story in a way specific to Czech literature and cinema. The film, like other by Menzel, is an adaptation of a novel by Bohumil Hrabal.

‘Closely Watched Trains‘ was one of the first films of world cinema to approach the theme of World War II in an absurdly humorist register and especially from a human perspective, of those who did not necessarily want to be involved, who did not seek heroism but nor did they belong to the despised category of the traitors. I do not know to what extent today’s viewers can appreciate not only the talent of the screenwriter and of the director but also their courage in making such a different and daring film under the conditions of communist ideological control in Cold War Europe. Each of the characters has humanity, color, and a distinct psychological profile. The story is told fluently, and there are many anthology scenes in this film. I already mentioned the scene of hypnotizing the tanks, I would add the car on rails that predicts the films of Emir Kusturica which carries the inspector or the scene in which the stationmaster’s wife gives Milos explanations life while caressing the long neck of a stuffed goose. With ‘Closely Watched Trains‘ Jirí Menzel made perhaps one of the best debuts in the history of the film. It is remarkable, however, that what followed never lowered by much the bar of quality.

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