“Apocalypse”: Ben Becker reads Joseph Conrad’s “Heart of Darkness”
Ben Becker is one of the most profound berserkers in the German acting business. This is usually the case even if he’s just reading something out loud. The Bible, for example, with which he was on tour, together with a band and orchestra. Now he’s touring again, through at least 30 cities, reading Joseph Conrad’s novel “Heart of Darkness”, and you expect: something like Francis Ford Coppola’s film “Apocalypse Now”, Marlon Brando, total divestment. And then, at the premiere in Munich’s Prinzregententheater, you meet a tender giant who timidly and all alone enters the text. No theatre, extreme concentration. A table, a chair, a video camera. And a crazy pull into the darkness of human existence. As if Becker were holding up a horribly true mirror to the viewer. But “Apocalypse” shatters the face to pieces at the end. Egbert Tholl
Tracy Gotoas in Emilie Carpentier’s Horizon.
(Photo: Rental)
No victim: the character Adja in the film “Horizont”
Adja works in a nursing home and doesn’t yet know what to do with her life. Her girlfriend is an influencer and her brother is a professional soccer player, the hope of the family. Gradually, however, she turns into an environmental activist. Because of love, but also because the problems are real: while the police bulldozers are rolling in Paris to tear down the activists’ camp, Adja’s relatives in West Africa are struggling with the rising sea levels.
The ecological discourses of Film “Horizon” by Emilie Carpentier are wooden and didactic. Nevertheless, they allow the black protagonist of a French film to be something other than just an expression of a socio-cultural identity and a victim of racism, discrimination and police violence. Films like “Dheepan”, “Les Misérables” or this year’s Netflix production “Athena” regularly turn the banlieues into battlegrounds, while Arab and black characters in mainstream comedies (“Wine Tasting for Beginners”, the “Monsieur Claude” films) still do have to play the role of the “others” in order to prove themselves to be “good” (that is, well-integrated) Frenchmen.
Adja (Tracy Gotoas), on the other hand, is just part of everyday life and her community at first, when she role-plays, watches football and goes to bars, is bored at her job or is amused by the weird people at the environmental camp.
And then there is that beautiful moment of joy and family intimacy. After a fight with her brother and her friend – the two have started dating – the three of them are in the kitchen of their shared apartment while Adja’s mother calls from Africa and asks how everyone is doing. The mood brightens up immediately, Adja makes jokes and hints on the phone about her girlfriend and brother, who stand by, embarrassed and laughing.
It is precisely the youthful, diffuse, sometimes bored (and, yes, boring) character that makes Adja so interesting, because in this way she escapes the usual stigmatization. More of this in the future please. And of course, going to a demonstration is also important, anyway. Philip Stadelmaier
Mila Kunis as Ani FaNelli in the film I Am So Happy.
(Photo by Picturestart/IMAGO/ZUMA Press)
Crumbling facade: Mila Kunis in “I. Am. So. Happy.”
“I’m so happy” is a Cinderella story turned on its head: Ani (Mila Kunis) has made it, she lives in a luxury apartment in Manhattan, is about to marry a son from a rich family and trades her job at a magazine for one at the New York Times exchange. But something is wrong with her. When she is contacted to give an interview, flashbacks unfold as to why. She was gang raped and everyone around her thought she shouldn’t have been drinking. As if that wasn’t enough, there was a massacre at the school and she is said to be to blame for that too. “I.Bin.So.Happy” now tells about the dismantling of the hard shell behind which Anis is hiding – and Mila Kunis plays this woman behind the crumbling facade wonderfully. The Netflix film adaptation of Jessica Knoll’s bestseller from 2015 is still not a perfect film – but one about so-called victim blaming, and they are rare. Susan Vahabzadeh
The influencer Tara-Louise Wittwer has 260,000 followers.
(Photo: tiktok.com/@wastarasays)
Wastara says: Tiktok critic Tara-Louise Wittwer
On Tiktok, you can say that, in addition to great things, there is a lot of crap. Self-declared dating coaches, for example, who blow dubious wisdom on the subject “That’s how men tick, that’s how women tick” into the algorithm. The Berliner Tara Louise Wittwer has herself collected 260,000 followers on Tiktok by dissecting their content. So, for example: A shirtless bald man takes a selfie and marches in front of palm trees and says: “Look, do you know what woman’s nature is?” Reverse cut: Tara grimaces. He: “She needs a strong alpha male, that’s the way it is.” Tara: “It’s not like that.” And so forth. But don’t worry, Wittwer’s account isn’t the boxing ring of the enlightened feminist battling alpha males. It’s also about the online misogyny of women who complain about “arrogant women”. If already consume crap, then at Tara. Or as the author Stefanie Sargnagel writes: “The only influencer I respect is Tara.” Aurelie von Blazekovic
On his latest record, Krystian Zimerman plays the impressionist Karol Szymanowski.
(Photo: Deutsche Grammophon)
Krystian Zimerman with piano works by Szymanowski
The Polish pianist Krystian Zimerman belongs to that kind of artist who always seems a bit anachronistic and who makes himself as rare as possible. Less out of affectation than out of a natural fear of publicity. You can hear him live from time to time, but he obviously feels most comfortable in the studio. And he seems to prefer the mixed form of both: the recording in the concert hall. His recording of Claude Debussy’s “Préludes” from 1994 at the Stadthalle Kassel or the Schubert Sonatas from 2016 at the Performing Arts Center in the Japanese city of Kashiwazaki are memorable.
On his new album “Karol Szymanowski: Piano Works” (DG) he devotes himself to his compatriot, who died in 1937, with the usual meticulousness, which in Zimerman’s case never only concerns the finger technique, but to a far greater extent a musical-emotional complexity, the only goal of which is to give the listener that To offer surprises and moments of recognition that bring him into a state of emotional tension. This does not always mean restless expectation, but much more often calmness and curious understanding. It is often not enough to listen impartially, but that is a good prerequisite. Like this also in the pieces by Szymanowski, which oscillate between high romanticism and impressionism.The legendary pianist Arthur Rubinstein localized him between Chopin and Scriabin, but also attested to his powerful, original personality.And he was by no means just referring to a mature late work.
Szymanowski composed Preludes Nos. 7 and 8, which also appear on this disc, when he was only 14, and they impressed Rubinstein no less. It is a phenomenon of great artists – composers as well as performing instrumentalists – that they often create works at a young age that they later only achieve with great difficulty in direct expression. Both Szymanowski and Zimerman seem to search for this early state of unbiased intensity and, over time, come very close to it. Helmut Mauro