Yasujirō Ozu: 'Tokyo Story' / 東京物語 (1953)

Yasujirō Ozu's Tokyo Story / 東京物語 (1953). This is the kind of movie you could study many times and still pick up new details. It's a masterwork of world cinema, and though I am not a devout believer in rankings and lists, it's worth noting that Tokyo Story has been listed by film directors as the number one film of all time, up to the year 2012. Certainly it's a memorable film.

Tokyo Story provides an effective answer to world wars, Trumpism, the internet "shallows," and ADHD. Tokyo Story is quiet, slow, thoughtful and deep. 

Tokyo Story subtly shows the intricacies of family systems. Three generations are on display, with variations in life station, geography, age and demeanor. There are: one set of parents, four surviving kids (one son, who had been drafted into the Imperial Japanese Army, died in 1945, near the end of the Second World War), one son-in-law, two daughters-in-law, and a couple of grandchildren. Family members have "stories" about each other, and each fit into the system in their own way. There are also friends, mostly old friends, and a neighbor or two. 

Ozu (December 12, 1903-December 12, 1963) uses several distinctive techniques in his craft. One is the low-angle shot, bringing viewers into interior scenes. For transitions, he often shows technology or architecture, exterior (smokestacks, trains, signs, lights, boats) or interior spaces (a room with plenty of traces of human habitation but no people). For plot shifts, he'll jump forward past a milestone event (wedding, funeral) and into ramifications and changes to the status quo. 

The actors: Chishū Ryū (1904-1993), who plays the father, is superb, using facial expression, body language and occasional verbal expressions to maximum impact. Setsuko Hara (1920-2015), in playing widowed daughter-in-law Norika, is delightful, poignant, deep. These two stand out, and yet the rest of the ensemble cast is very believable and forceful, too. 

Lest we forget, Ozu's main screenwriter: Kōgo Noda (1893-1968).

Today's Rune: Joy.  

Jaroslav Hašek, 'The Fateful Adventures of the Good Soldier Švejk During the World War,' Part 2B

Jaroslav Hašek, The Fateful Adventures of the Good Soldier Švejk During the World War / Osudy dobrého vojáka Švejka za světové války / Los destinos del buen soldado Švejk durante la guerra mundial / Les Aventures du brave soldat Švejk pendant la Grande Guerre / aka The Good Soldier Švejk / (1921-1923).

"During the whole time since Senior Lieutenant Lukáš first became commander of the Eleventh march-gang, he found himself in a state called syncretism, that is in a philosophy of striving to equalize the conceptual contradictions with the help of compromising all the way to a commingling of views."

~~ Jaroslav Hašek, The Fateful Adventures of the Good Soldier Švejk During the World War, Book Two. The Samizdat edition of the new English rendition, translated by Zdeněk "Zenny" Sadloň, AuthorHouse, 2009, page 196. 

I understand where Oberleutnant Lukáš is coming from. Living in the world, I find myself occasionally (often) having to "equalize . . . conceptual contradictions with the help of compromising all the way to a commingling of views." Another word for this is diplomacy. And, melding. Or grokking. 

An example of cultural syncretism follows. Hard to believe, but I first wrote this in the year 2006 -- twelve years ago!

Saint Lucy / Santa Lucia /Sankta Lucia presents an excellent example of syncretism. A dual saint to both Catholics and Nordic Protestants and also to some Eastern Orthodox communities, St. Lucia (traditional dates 283-304 A.D.) was a Greek Sicilian martyr killed during the reign of Roman Emperor Diocletian. Some versions of her death have her stabbed through the throat; others have her eyes gouged out (she is, among other things, Patron Saint of the Blind).

So how on Earth did Santa Lucia become a Swedish / Nordic saint?

In Viking days, the Norsemen traveled, raided, and created outposts all over Europe and, to the West, in Greenland and even in what is now Canada. They sailed into the Mediterranean and landed in Sicily, among other places, where they mingled with natives and absorbed local traditions, including that of Santa Lucia, who in Swedish became Sankta Lucia. The Swedes adopted Catholicism along the way, and remained Catholic until the Protestant Reformation and the infiltration of Lutheran beliefs. Sankta Lucia's feast day survived, rather miraculously, this second conversion.

Under the Julian calendar, Lucy's feast day was commemorated during the winter solstice (December 21-22), syncretized wherever celebrated with non-Christian belief systems. As with Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico, "everybody be happy." Much later, during the Gregorian calendar reforms, St. Lucy's feast day was moved from the solstice to December 13th, where it has remained on the calendar for the past three to four hundred years.

In addition to being Patron Saint of the Blind, Saint Lucy of Sicily is also a patron saint for writers, salesmen, and stained glass workers.

Today's Rune: Initiation. 

Jaroslav Hašek, 'The Fateful Adventures of the Good Soldier Švejk During the World War,' Part 2A

Jaroslav Hašek, The Fateful Adventures of the Good Soldier Švejk During the World War / Osudy dobrého vojáka Švejka za světové války / Los destinos del buen soldado Švejk durante la guerra mundial / Les Aventures du brave soldat Švejk pendant la Grande Guerre / aka The Good Soldier Švejk / (1921-1923).

Hašek conveys meaning by contrasting the absurdities of treatment based on rank, social class and ethnicity. The distinctions of rank are well epitomized in this brief passage:

"The silence of the night was reigning over the military camp in Most. In the barracks for the troops the soldiers were shivering from the cold and in the officers' barracks they were opening the windows, because it was overheated in there." 

~~ Jaroslav Hašek, The Fateful Adventures of the Good Soldier Švejk During the World War, Book Two. The Samizdat edition of the new English rendition, translated by Zdeněk "Zenny" Sadloň, AuthorHouse, 2009, page 122. 

Colonel Schröder is bonkers, but because he's in charge, everyone has to endure his ravings. In this, Colonel Schröder is a stand-in for every madcap, idiotic control-freaking boss anyone has ever had to suffer through. Furthermore, an amazing truth is not the alternating prevalence of SNAFU and FUBAR within any bureaucracy, but that anything functions at all.

"He was making no sense, mixing things five after nine, talking about how two months ago the front down below and in the east too had halted, about the importance of exact connection between individual detachments, about toxic gases, about shooting at the enemy airplanes, about supplying the troops in the field, and then he transitioned to the internal situation in the military . . . The majority of the officers was thinking at the same time, 'when is the old geezer going to stop driveling,' but Colonel Schröder was babbling on about new tasks of new march battalions, about the fallen officers of the regiment, about zeppelins, Spanish riders, the oath . . ."

~~ Jaroslav Hašek, The Fateful Adventures of the Good Soldier Švejk During the World War, Book Two. The Samizdat edition of the new English rendition, translated by Zdeněk "Zenny" Sadloň, AuthorHouse, 2009, page 186.

Today's Rune: Gateway. 

Jim Jarmusch: 'Dead Man' (1995)

Jim Jarmusch, Dead Man (1995). Stars Johnny Depp and Gary Farmer with appearances by Iggy Pop, Billy Bob Thornton and Jared Harris, among several other notables. 

A frontier rite of passage in which the West is Truly Wild. Close attention is paid to period detail, and the setting is more Northwest than West, defamiliarizing the familiar. Jarmusch's use of fade to black fade-ins and fade-outs gives the film an episodic feel, like coming in and out of consciousness. 

William Blake, Depp's character, is a fish out of water everywhere he goes. When he goes West, young man, from Cleveland to Machine, a terrible place to which he's conveyed by coal-burning rail, the end seems nigh. Along the way, brutish fellows shoot at bison and anything else that moves outside the cars. In Machine, avaricious frontier capitalists forge deals with the Devil in a Hellish World. To quote William Blake the poet from "And did those feet in ancient time"  (circa 1804):

And did the Countenance Divine,

Shine forth upon our clouded hills?

And was Jerusalem builded here,

Among these dark Satanic Mills?

Bring me my Bow of burning gold:
Bring me my arrows of desire:

Bring me my Spear: O clouds unfold!

Bring me my Chariot of fire!

The hero of Dead Man is "Nobody," played by Gary Farmer. Cast out of his own homeland and left to wander, he is Blake's spirit guide and moral compass. Blake, with a bullet lodged near his heart, is pursued by psychopathic bounty hunters to the Ends of the Earth. 

From Blake's "Auguries of Innocence" (circa 1803); 

Every night and every morn

Some to misery are born,

Every morn and every night

Some are born to sweet delight.

Some are born to sweet delight,

Some are born to endless night.

We are led to believe a lie

When we see not thro' the eye,

Which was born in a night to perish in a night,

When the soul slept in beams of light.

God appears, and God is light,

To those poor souls who dwell in night;

But does a human form display

To those who dwell in realms of day.

Nobody and William Blake arrive at the Makah village, on the edge of the Pacific Ocean, at the Edge of the World.   

Today's Rune: Initiation. 

Jaroslav Hašek, 'The Fateful Adventures of the Good Soldier Švejk During the World War,' Part 2

Jaroslav Hašek, The Fateful Adventures of the Good Soldier Švejk During the World War / Osudy dobrého vojáka Švejka za světové války / Los destinos del buen soldado Švejk durante la guerra mundial / Les Aventures du brave soldat Švejk pendant la Grande Guerre / aka The Good Soldier Švejk / (1921-1923).

Sometimes, even in a morass of bureaucracy, a soldier lucks out. Not everything turns into a Kafkaesque nightmare, right? Take the case of "the hoodlum Marek" at his military sentencing.

"'One-year volunteer Marek is being sentenced to 21 days intensified regimen and, after having served out the sentence, into the kitchen with him, to peel potatoes.'"

"And the hoodlum Marek stood next to Švejk and was wearing a countenance of total satisfaction. It could not have turned out better for him. It is decidedly better to be peeling potatoes in the kitchen, sculpting bilbouny, idiot-size fruit dumplings and picking a rib than to be hollering, with the pants full, under the tornado of enemy's fire: 'Single file! Attach bayonets!'"

~~ Jaroslav Hašek, The Fateful Adventures of the Good Soldier Švejk During the World War, Book Two. The Samizdat edition of the new English rendition, translated by Zdeněk "Zenny" Sadloň, AuthorHouse, 2009, page 81.

The military train carrying Švejk and comrades arrives in Vienna. War weariness has set in after the initial excitement. Hašek renders a heartbreaking panoramic view of the scene, all the more bittersweet for its satirical flashes. A short sampling of the longer description:

". . . it wasn't like the beginning of the war anymore, when soldiers on the way to the front overstuffed themselves at every railroad station and where they were being welcomed by bridesmaids in stupid white dresses and even dumber faces and . . . an even sillier speech of some dame whose husband now acted the tremendous patriot and republican."

"The welcome in Vienna [now] consisted of three female members of an Austrian Red Cross association and two female members of some war association of Viennese matrons and young ladies, one official representative of the Viennese magistrate, and a military representative."

"In all those faces one could see fatigue. The trains with the troops were running day and night, the ambulances with the wounded were passing through every hour, they were switching cars loaded with prisoners of war . . . It went on one day after another and the original enthusiasm was changing into yawning . . . from the cattle cars were peeking out soldiers with an expression of hopelessness such as seen on those who are going to the gallows."

~~ Jaroslav Hašek, The Fateful Adventures of the Good Soldier Švejk During the World War, Book Two. The Samizdat edition of the new English rendition, translated by Zdeněk "Zenny" Sadloň, AuthorHouse, 2009, pages 120-121.

Today's Rune: Defense. 

Jaroslav Hašek: 'Los destinos del buen soldado Švejk durante la guerra mundial:' Parte 2

Jaroslav Hašek, The Fateful Adventures of the Good Soldier Švejk During the World War / Osudy dobrého vojáka Švejka za světové války / Los destinos del buen soldado Švejk durante la guerra mundial / aka The Good Soldier Švejk / (1921-1923).

Eventually, the good soldier Švejk must ride the rails toward the Galician front. At one station, a "good man" helps him out. "When he was leaving, he told Švejk in confidence: 'So, soldier boy, take it from me, I'm telling you, if you end up a prisoner of war in Russia, pass on my greetings to Zeman, the brewer in Zdolbunov. After all, you've got my name written down. Just be smart so that you will not be at the front long.'
     'Don't worry about that,' said Švejk, 'it is always interesting to see some foreign lands for free.'"

Satire from Hašek. But his flourishes are often darker and more biting. For example, later on the very same page: 

"Mostly there were soldiers from various regiments, formations, and of the most varied nationalities whom the wisdom of war had blown into the field hospitals, and who were now departing again into the field for new injuries, maiming, pain, and who were taking off to earn a simple wooden cross for above their graves on which there would still [be] years later in the sad plains of eastern Galicia in the wind and the rain a sun-bleached military cap with a rusted "Frankie" pin on it,* upon which from time to time would perch a sad raven, grown old and tired, remembering the fat-filled feast of years ago when there used to be set for him an endless table of tasty human corpses and horse carcasses, when just under such a cap that he's sitting on, there would be a bite of the most tasty morsel -- human eyes." 

~~ Jaroslav Hašek, The Fateful Adventures of the Good Soldier Švejk During the World War, Book Two. The Samizdat edition of the new English rendition, translated by Zdeněk "Zenny" Sadloň and Emmett M. Joyce, 1st Books Library, 2009, page 11.

*"Rusty imperial badge" in the Cecil Parrott translation. 

Today's Rune: Breakthrough.  Map from Rooted in Eastern Europe. Link here.

Jim Jarmusch: 'Mystery Train' (1989)

We'll let The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling, rest a bit, and turn to Jim Jarmusch's indie style film, Mystery Train (1989). Set in Memphis, Tennessee, Mystery Train is composed of three connected "fish out of water" stories. 

The pacing is deliberative, letting us hang out with the characters long enough to understand them, at least to a point of empathy -- how and why they arrived and where they may be going. Cleverly, Jarmusch helps us "defamiliarize" ourselves with the USA, looking at aspects of American culture with fresh perspectives.*

Two Japanese music fans arrive in Memphis via Amtrak, needling each other about their preferences and wandering around.

An Italian widow has a layover at the airport, so decides to explore the city. She has adventures along the way and even a little supernatural visitation.

A laid-off and jilted Englishman is drunk, angry, and carrying a loaded pistol in a bar. Buddies and a brother-in-law (who turns out to be only his would-be brother-in-law) try to calm him down and keep him out of trouble. Once outside of the bar, he asks to stop somewhere to get more bounce. What could go wrong? 

Strategic points in the urban landscape (like the patchy hotel and a particular view of the city skyline) combine with time and energy to lightly brush the stories together. 

Joe Strummer (1952-2002) of The Clash plays the surly Englishman with charisma. His sidekicks include characters played by Steve Buscemi (The Sopranos, &c.), comedian Rick Aviles (1952-1995), and Detroit's own Vondie Curtis-Hall. 

Nicoletta Braschi (who is also featured in an earlier Jarmusch film, Down by Law) plays the Italian widow and Elizabeth Bracco (The Sopranos), her temporary roommate. 

Youki Kudoh (Snow Falling on Cedars) and Masatoshi Nagase (Funuke Show Some Love, You Losers!) play the needling Japanese visitants.

The hotel guys are played by Screamin' Jay Hawkins (1929-2000) -- "I Put a Spell on You" (1956) and Cinqué Lee (Spike Lee's younger brother).

Good stuff! More recently, Jarmusch directed Gimme Danger (2016), on Iggy & The Stooges. I posted on it here.

*See Russian Formalism for more on this groovy scrim.

Today's Rune: Joy. 

Anita Nair: 'Ladies Coupé' (2001)

Anita Nair's Ladies Coupé (2001) gives readers a glimpse into some of the workings and manners of India in the late twentieth century. It's really a series of tales related by different women traveling on a train to Kanyakumari.  They are interrelated but could also work as stand-alone stories. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Reminds me somewhat of Tosin Otitoju's Three Sisters (2015) which can be found via here.

Akhila, the main character in Ladies Coupé, has been a primary caregiver for her family. Now in her mid-forties, she's philosophical about life. On the train early on, she chats with a fellow passenger: "'As far as I'm concerned, marriage is unimportant. Companionship, yes . . . The problem is, I wish to live by myself but everyone tells me that a woman can't live alone. What do you think? Can a woman live by herself?'" (page 21). In this way, Anita Nair, the author, also happens to be directly engaging her readers with interesting questions like these. 

Akhila's friend Margaret at one point says: "'Akhila, if there is one virtue I have, it is immunity to what people think of me. Naturally this makes them dislike me even more. People don't like to think that their opinion of someone means nothing to that person. And when it is a woman . . . the thought is intolerable" (page 136).

A couple more quips. "Often Akhila had to remind herself that this woman who gnawed at her nerves like a relentless mouse was her sister" (page 160).

"It seems to me more and more that I know nothing" (page 190).

Given the sometimes long names and nicknames of people, places and things, including foods, I found it helpful to jot down notes to more easily keep track of everything. Now I'd like to eat some Tamil food and think about social expectations and reincarnation. Cool beans!

Today's Rune: Initiation. 

Vladimir Mayakovsky: 'My Discovery of America' (1926)

In the words of Mickey Newberry, "I just dropped in to see what condition my condition was in" (1967): a periodic delving into times gone by. Drop in anywhere and look around: what's different? What's the same? 

For today's time travel experience, let's consider Vladimir Mayakovsky's My Discovery of America, first published in Russian in 1926 (English translation by Neil Cornwell, 2005). Mayakovsky (1893-1930) was a lively Soviet Futurist poet at the time of his 1925 shoestring excursion to Cuba, Mexico and the United States. He traveled mostly by ship and rail (whereas today, one would more likely make the same journey by jet and car). Being a Futurist, he was particularly observant about technology, its impact and possibility. Being a Soviet, he was attuned to class warfare, conditions, and attitudes. A few snippets will give some of his flavor.

He notes of the three classes of passengers aboard the steamship Espagne: "The first class puke up wherever they like; the second -- down on the third class; and the third -- over themselves" (page 6). A vestige of this sentiment can be found  today aboard airplanes, usually divided among but two classes of passengers.

In wandering around the US from poetry reading to poetry reading, Mayakkovsky in 1925 picks up on a segment of American rhetoric that he finds humorous: "There isn't a country that spits out as much moralistic, lofty, idealistic, sanctimonious rubbish as the United States does" (page 68). Comments made by Ted Cruz last night -- in 2016 -- remind us that such hayseed rhetoric still persists.

He sees Havana, Mexico City, parts of Texas, Detroit, St. Louis and Chicago, but his descriptions of Manhattan are the most detailed. This part still rings true, beyond Mayakovsky's astonishment of the widespread use of electric traffic lights (a new development for most of the world in 1925):

During the afternoon work commute in Manhattan, "you can see thousands of cars, racing in six or eight lanes in either direction . . . Every two minutes, the green signal lights up on the traffic lights, so as to let through those tearing out from the side streets . . . Fifty minutes is needed at this time of day for a journey that in the morning would take a quarter of an hour, and pedestrians have to stand and wait . . . deprived of any hope of immediate crossing . . . (page 51). 

There's much more, but there's a taste of it. Traffic hasn't changed a mite in the way it manifests, ninety years later. Mayakovsky is dead, however (suicide at age 36); the Soviet Union came and went. Now we have Putin's Russia, Obama's USA and the internet. Lose some, win some. The human condition remains about the same, I suppose, only with a lot more people scampering around, some livelier than others.   

Today's Rune: Signals. 

Chimes at Midnight: Kraftwerk Late Show, Austin, Texas

It was weird listening this very morning to outdoor wind chimes dingling and tintinnabuluming as a result of a light air-breeze, sounding alternately like a bit of music echoing off a Jean Michel Jarre theme (Ryan's Daughter) or various phantom samples from a Kraftwerk track ("Computer Love," "Spacelab," etcetera).  

Indeed, life and art are often working together, hand in hand, through each other, in time, beyond space and by way of tingling memory responses triggered by music or comparable stimuli . . . 

I can write quite a lot about Kraftwerk's evening performance at Bass Concert Hall in Austin, Texas, this past Friday (September 25, 2015 A. D.), but it mostly comes down to transcending time -- funneling time and feeling and memory -- regaining two other Kraftwerk performances -- Brixton 1991 and Detroit 1998 -- heightened consciousness of our (via Marshall McLuhan) "electronic envelope," keen awareness of "the extensions of man" or humanness, our evolving nature as man-machine, human-machine -- total immersion, total realization . . . total immersion through pure art. 

I can now refer you to an excellent review of the daytime show by Wes Eichenwald here. He gets at the gist of things, giving me no reason to try to reinvent the electronic wheel for this particular post. 

Kraftwerk's music in Austin, with dazzling "retro future" interaction that included multi-lingual text (German, English, Russian, French, Spanish, Japanese . . .), numbers and Gestaltic iconography, was played more or less in this order:

 "Numbers;" "Computer World;" "Home Computer" and "It's More Fun to Compute;" "Computer Love;" "Pocket Calculator;" "The Man Machine;" "Spacelab;" "The Model;" "Neon Lights;" "Autobahn;" "Airwaves" . . . "Geiger Counter + Radioactivity;" "Ohm Sweet Ohm;" "Electric Café;" "Tour de France;" "Trans Europe Express" . . . (first encore) "The Robots;" (second encore) "Aerodynamik;" "Boom Boom Tschak" + "Techno Pop" + "Musique Non Stop" plus individual bows and a dandy Auf Wiedersehen.  

Today's Rune: The Mystery Rune. 

Kraftwerk 2015: Austin. Meine erste Reaktion.

Road trip to Austin, Texas to catch the Kraftwerk 3-D concert on Friday, September 25, 2015, at the Bass Concert Hall off 23rd Street, 10:30 p.m. until well past midnight.

Brilliant, wonderful show and I wish I could see them again in Detroit or Philadelphia! 

Kraftwerk comes from the Mount Olympus of electronic music. One must pull out all the stops to see them. Orphic electronica!

Kraftwerk's remaining venues in the USA for this year are all coming up in October:

October 2nd: Philadelphia
October 3rd: Boston
October 5th: Detroit
Then Minneapolis and Kansas City.

In November, Kraftwerk is off to France, Monaco, and other European hot spots. Pictured above is a scanned copy of a packet for 3D glasses given out at the Austin late show. 

More on Kraftwerk coming down the tracks.

Today's Rune: Breakthrough. 

'The Rolling Stones: Charlie Is My Darling -- Ireland 1965'

Andrew Loog Oldham and Peter Whitehead's The Rolling Stones: Charlie is my Darling - Ireland 1965 covers a mini-tour of Ireland -- fifty years ago -- in black and white. This nifty bit of cinéma vérité clocks in at a little more than an hour. Even in black and white, the Stones colorfully burst through a threadbare socioeconomic backdrop. The people and culture of the UK and Ireland are just then beginning to emerge from the grim preceding era -- of two world wars and the Great Depression, not to mention the Irish Civil War. 

In between wild music sets, Charlie is my Darling lets each member of The Rolling Stones say something. In this original lineup of the band (but not including keyboardist Ian Stewart), we hear from Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Brian Jones, Bill Wyman and the beloved Charlie Watts of the title. 

Two things stand out about the band during this 1965 Irish tour. First, Brian Jones is already fairly well checked out. He doesn't see much of a future and seems almost schizophrenic much of the time (when present at all). Second, Mick Jagger is the clear leader of the band, and for good reason. Considering that he was only twenty-two years of age at the time of filming, his observations are thoughtful and even visionary.  He speaks of the social fabric of fifty years before (1915 -- during The Great War) and how things might be fifty years hence -- in 2015, when The Rolling Stones are even now still touring. The other three lads -- Keith, Charlie and Bill -- are going with the flow and keeping at the music.

 Today, fifty years later, Mick, Keith and Charlie are still in the band and still seem about the same as they were in 1965, albeit with fifty years' worth of road mileage behind them. Bill Wyman retired from the band in 1993 when he was in his mid-fifties. The quixotic Brian Jones died in 1969 at the age of twenty-seven. Ian Stewart died of a heart attack in 1985 at the age of forty-seven. 

Charlie is my Darling is a jagged but durable time-piece that adds to the solving of a larger puzzle: how does one best absorb, understand and appreciate both change and continuity?

Today's Rune:  Possessions. p.s. Andrew Loog Oldham departed from the Stones' production and management team within two years of Charlie is my Darling. Peter Whitehead, the director, continued to work with the Stones for a little bit, and he also worked with Pink Floyd.    

Bille August: Night Train to Lisbon (2013)

Bille August's Night Train to Lisbon (2013) takes on the difficult task of translating Pascal Mercier's densely packed novel Nachtzug nach Lissabon into a 111-minute movie. The result is good, if not great: good enough for me, at any rate. From this film, I learned something about modern Portuguese history, particularly about the effects of the Estado Novo, or de facto dictatorship under António de Oliveira Salazar (1889-1970) and Marcello José das Neves Alves Caetano (1906-1980), an oppressive status quo that was dismantled by the Revolução dos Cravos or Carnation Revolution beginning on April 25, 1974 (Freedom Day in Portugal).

The catalyst for the film's plot arrives quickly when a woman looks about to jump from a bridge in Switzerland; soon the Jeremy Irons character, who "saves" her, walks out of the middle of a class he's teaching and, before you know it, takes the night train to Lisbon. An exhilarating idea for many people, no doubt -- in that way, not unlike John Updike's 1960 novel Rabbit, Run.  

The strong international cast of Night Train to Lisbon ranges from Jeremy Irons as a sort of Mr. Chips professor to Christopher Lee as a hoary priest; from Mélanie Laurent as a tough resistance coordinator to Charlotte Rampling as Amadeu do Prado's slightly barmy sister; from Jack Huston as Dr. Amadeu do Prado to Bruno Ganz as his grizzled friend looking back; from Martina Gedeck as a sharply observant and sympatico eye doctor to Lena Olin as Estefânia in the present. Flashback is utilized as a connecting thread, so many characters have double actors playing them.

Finally, Lisbon provides a colorful, light-suffused backdrop for much of the film. 

Today's Rune: Harvest.

Margarethe von Trotta: 'The Second Awakening of Christa Klages' (1978)

Margarethe von Trotta's Das zweite Erwachen der Christa Klages / The Second Awakening of Christa Klages (1978) is a beautiful gem of a film. First, it captures the Zeitgeist of the 1970s -- the spirit of the times: think Patty Hearst and the Baader-Meinhof, for example. This spirit pervades a crisis framework for the characters to move within, but the more surprising aspects of the film arrive through interdependent character development and social interaction that is refreshingly different from the more typical "buddy movie." 

Barely before The Second Awakening of Christa Klages is underway, two young men and the title character rob a bank in a most foolhardy manner; their ill-conceived notion is to help fund a sort of hippie school for little kids where Christa worked and has left her daughter for safekeeping. 

From this strange beginning, everyone is figuratively off to the races. One of them makes it to an idealistic collective in Portugal, but things don't end there. 

The strongest and more interesting characters in The Second Awakening of Christa Klages are three women and one man. Christa (Tina Engel) befriends the kind and thoughtful Pastor Hans Graw (Peter Schneider) and she also finds solace with Ingrid (Silvia Reize), a friend from the past. Finally, the mysterious Lena (Katharina Thalbach) works at the exchange bank Christa robbed and appears to be stalking her. 

Das zweite Erwachen der Christa Klages was director Margarethe von Trotta's first feature-length contribution to Der Neue Deutsche Film / the New German Cinema movement. The film print of the version I saw was washed out; it would be nice if this movie could be added to the Criterion Collection and given full honors. This is a cool indie film, different from most up to its time because of its special consideration of female characters. 

Today's Rune: The Self.