Dezember 2004

VENEZIA, again and again

I am not sure if you need to invent reasons to visit Venice again and again. Of course the art world provides you with a Biennale every second year which makes Venice to a kind of Mekka for everyone involved iin the arts, but I just came back from a out of season visit to a Venice in winter. This grand dame of citys was not, as expected clothed in mist, but welcomed me with blue sky and at least warmer temperatures than German. Again I was fascinated by the human size of the city. You can go from one end to the other on foot, so meeting someone is not hindered by a one hour tube ride and also: you meet the people you know on the street or in some cafes. The beauty of the architecture(which always reminds me of old cream cakes in the shop-window of an old pasticceria) moves to the background when you know the city better and come there more often; then you are more drawn to the poetics of the every day, you do not vist the Pallazzi, but the small lanes and you drink your coffeee and spritz al banco, which means standing at the bar. A la prossima!

INSIDE OUT

Whenever I leave Germany, I am regarded as very German though in Germany I am definately not described as very German. Maybe rather as the opposite with my patchwork life and my chaotic planing. But it is true, that I like to try to put order in whatever I am doing(which seems very German), but the reality is, that I mostly fail to install it(concerning my life as well as other activities). However isn't it interesting, that with all the globalisation there still is something like national characteristics? Don't we perceive Germans as German and Americans very much as Americans, British as British and so on? For me this phenomenon is especially interesting, when I feel it within myself, not as a prejudice against others. Here I can recommend Tim Parks nove 'destiny', about the relationship of a very British British with a very Italian woman.

THE FAT YEARS ARE OVER!

I was skeptical. A new young German movie was celebrated in the papers, but when I saw that it circled again around German youngsters caught in idealism and adolescence I wasn’t sure if I really wanted to see this. Over the last years some German movies have been produced in which late teens were fighting their way through puberty, their civil servises and boring psycholocgical states and problens. But one evening I had time, the movie was shown close by and I went to see it. Two young men, Jan and X(I can’t remember his name, but he surely is a great actor!) in their early twenties decide to transform their revolutionary ideas into reality. At night, when the ownersa are on holidays they break into villas. They do not steal or demolish anything, but put the whole house upside down. The Meissen procellain comes into the toilet, the expensive stereo finds a new home in the fridge, the furiture is piled up in the living room and they do not leave any trace of their identity, but a note for the owners: THE FAT YEARS ARE OVER. This works quite well for a while. Then one of them, X finds a girl friend, Jule and when he has to travel somewhere alone the story goes on as it has to: Jan and Jule fall in love with each other and Jan even takes Jule on a nightly tour in a villa. Yes and here it happens as it has to: the owner comes home unexpectadely and surprises them. They knock him out, call X, just back from his holiday and in their puzzlement about what to do they decide to kidnap the owner. They take their hostage to a lonesome mountain hut and think about how to get out of this situation. Here hostage and kidnappers are faced with a surprising mirror effect: The kidnapper, who appears to be a revolutionary of 68’ who had close contact to famous members of the students movement is faced with his younger version and old and forgotten ideas. For the kidnappers a possible version of themselves in 20 or thirty years is putting their idealism on a probe and reality check. Here we wonder how some politicians like our foreign minister would look at their younger self, what they would say to each other. Fresh dialogs and surprising turns make this movie well worth while seeing. And I think I will even go to see it again.