Norwegian poster for Inland Empire

A film poster might be a tiny subject for a blog post, but this is so cool, I could not not put it up here. Since seeing Inland Empire in Lisbon (of all places) last april, I’ve been championing for a theatrical release of this Lynch film here in Norway. Sadly, the market for a surreal 3 hour Lynch film is not that big here, but after a long, hard distribution juggle, it finally opened in two cinemas a few weeks ago.

It is released by Norway’s most cherished art cinema distributor, Arthaus, a non-profit organization owned by the Norwegian Association of Cinematheques. Arthaus has a long-running collaboration for their film posters with celebrated graphic designer Egil Haraldsen of Exil design, and eventhough he’s been doing this for over 10 years, his Inland Empire poster is one of his finest.

I present the Norwegian theatrical poster for Inland Empire here with a certain pride; I find it to be the most striking poster for this film anywhere. To me, it captures all the intensity of the film, the lynchness in the tone, the horror of Laura Dern’s character’s journey and the pixellated visuals (that I really loved). Kudos to Mr. Haraldsen and Arthaus for this one.

(Check out this Inland Empire poster collection. The German one is most alike the Norwegian)

Short film: “J’Attendrai Le Suivant” (2002)

Every now and then, I’m going to present some short films here at Subtitles to Cinema. It can either be random discoveries, well-known classics or even some of my own stories. Today, I’d like to share the brilliant French short film J’Attendrai Le Suivant (2002), directed by Philippe Orreindy. It is a perfectly told story, and I would ruin it by writing too much about it beforehand. So, enjoy - and please do leave any thoughts in the comments.

Gone with the Woman

Autumn is the season for new, local films in Norwegian cinemas. The most anticipated release this fall is Gone with th Woman (Tatt av kvinnen), directed by Petter Næss (Elling) from a celebrated cult-novel by Erlend Loe. The story is about an unnamed man (He), and his encounter with a woman who decides to enter his life. Or as described by The Norwegian Film Institute: “…about a young man’s first tentative steps into the potential disaster area of love, about the female monologues that pass for dialogues, and the right of a modern man to decide who wears the pants in the family.”. The opening paragraph of Loe’s book explains a lot (and has become a much-quoted line in Norway):

That was when she started coming around more often. In the evenings, right before I turned in for the night. She would sit down and talk. Talk about how much she loved silence, and how great it was to spend time alone. Talk and talk and never stop.

The book was published in 1993, and within few years it had become a phenomenon, and its author Erlend Loe was catapulted into fame. Loe is educated as a screenwriter from The Danish Film School, and as a result of that his stories tend to carry with them a certain cinematic flare. So, when a film version of Gone with the Woman went into production last year, it came as no surprise - though Loe himself was not involved with the adaptation. A few years back, the story was adapted into a play - also directed by Petter Næss - and the same main actor, Trond Fausa Aurvåg (The Bothersome Man), now brings the persona of ‘He’ from theater to the silver screen.

Now, I have yet to see the film myself - it opens here friday 7th of September, but has already garnered rave reviews from local critics. The film is also a part of Toronto International Film Festival, and I really hope it finds an audience there. The programmers seem really fond of it, describing the main character like this: “[He] is a preternaturally lethargic bachelor leading what he considers a harmonious existence: cycles of work followed by staring blankly into space in his apartment,” and continuing; “The visual scheme is, at times, as hyper-stylized as a Jacques Demy movie, and as coolly unwelcoming as a Tarkovsky landscape”.

I know the filmmakers are really psyched about presenting the film in Toronto, and wish them the best of luck. Anyone going to Toronto will find the charming Norwegians through this information sheet. (And make sure to congratulate them on being Norway’s submission for Best Foreign film Oscar this year.)

When I’ve seen the film, I’ll be back with a review. Apart from being a huge fan of the source material and loving what I’ve seen of the film so far, I’m especially looking forward to seeing what famous Swedish actor Peter Stormare (Fargo) can make of the most fun supporting character from the book; Glenn. So to conclude here, I give you two still images from scenes involving Stormare’s character’s encounters with He in the local sauna (and then, the un-subtitled trailer):

The Soloist - interview with Abbas Kiarostami

So, on with the first interview published on Subtitles to Cinema. It is a conversation I had with the great Iranian film director Abbas Kiarostami a while ago. Hope you enjoy it!

* * *

Abbas Kiarostami makes only one half of his films. The rest is up to the audience to create themselves.

“I prefer to work alone,” he says.

Photo: Hanne Hvattum (contact)

The Iranian film director, photographer and poet is sitting across from me on a soft bench in the middle of Oslo’s Stenersen Museum, surrounded by walls with his own huge, black/white photos. The precise, short-worded and patient man in his sixties have got his sunglasses so firmly joined to his nose that they seem to have been with him since birth. And what is he talking about in this moment? To be alone. Working in solitude, without anyone interfering with him.

“The video camera has liberated the cinema artist,” says Kiarostami. “Now, we’re no longer trapped by big budgets and large crews when we are about to make film. An artist should be mostly alone with his tools: The camera and the actors, or objects.”

In Kiarostami’s video work Five dedicated to Ozu (2003) you can find a characteristic scene: A piece of wood, sized like a fist is washed onto the shore. The waves pushes it gently up and down in the sand for a few minutes, until a smaller piece of the wood comes off from the large one. The smallest wooden piece remains on the beach, but he larger one floats out to sea.

There’s similar scenes in many of Kiarostami’s photographies; motives from nature that allude to what he wants to say about us humans. A treet that stands alone, separated from a group of trees that stands together like soldiers.

“To me, nature represents an escape from daily life, the political life, society and city life.”

Introducing Subtitles to Cinema

Dear reader,

Welcome to a new film blog; Subtitles to Cinema. This is the place in which I, Norwegian writer/filmmaker Karsten Meinich, will share my thougths on cinema from all corners of the world, and also my own work.

So, who am I, and why do I write about cinema?

I’m a half-Turkish Norwegian with moustache and beard. I’m 25 years old, and I’m madly in love with film. I dig both American and European cinema and films from other parts of the world alike, but my goal, and passion, is to find and delve into films that transcend in some way, - that carry me over into another place (examples at the end of this post).

I’m going to write more about these subjects, but for now… I’ll say we’re on a need to know basis. I’ve been writing about film in Norwegian for many years - starting out in ‘99 at long-running, though now defunct, web magazine FilmListen. Five years ago I decided to shift into focusing mainly on making my own films, but I’ve also been writing freelance for Norwegian film journal Rushprint and its blog Rushblogg.

Personal and passionate writing about cinema have always been a dear thing to me; both as a reader and as a writer. For the last few years I’ve been slowly falling in love with some exceptional writing being laid out on a variety of English language film blogs - so much that I’ve almost completely ceased writing myself.

But then I thought I should give it another shot; I would like to try writing in English - try to take part in the ongoing discussion (or rather; Lovemaking with cinema art) that is going on in all these wonderful film blogs around (you can find links to some of these in my blogroll). That idea of creating “Subtitles to Cinema” is at least two years old. So it has been long in the making. Finally, I now have a space for this kind of writing. Content-wise, the focus here will be on writing about films that engage me, doing interviews with people that inspire me and commenting on issues that I care about. And I’ll make sure to spark a discussion or two.

So, I hope you will find something worth reading here in the weeks and months and years to come. Again: Welcome to “Subtitles to Cinema”, and please subscribe to the feed.

Best regards,

Karsten

PS: I’m adding four stills from my two most favorite films from recent years. Norwegian film Reprise (2006) and German-Turkish film Gegen die Wand (2004). Both films are recent masterpieces of European cinema worth checking out (I’ll write more on them further on).