Kinoblog

Via Popkitchen, a brief introduction to Yugoslav cinema’s 1960s ‘black wave’.

I’ve just discovered the Short Animated World blog, dedicated to chronicling all 100 entries on the recent Annecy Film Festival/Studio Magazine/Variety poll of thirty animation historians to establish the best animated films of all time. There’s no original critical material, but each entry offers links and - in most cases - a streaming copy of the actual film.

Unsurprisingly, central and eastern Europe animators loom large in the poll, notching up the following entries:

• 3. Dimensions of Dialogue (Možnosti dialogu, d. Jan Švankmajer, 1982, Czechoslovakia)
• 6. Tale of Tales (Сказка сказок, d. Yuri Norstein, 1979, USSR)
• 18. Tango (d. Zbigniew Rybczyński, 1980, Poland)
• 25. The Hand (Ruka, d. Jiří Trnka, 1965, Czechoslovakia) - Kinoblog review here
• 31. The Cameraman’s Revenge (Месть кинематографического оператора, d. Władysław Starewicz, 1911, Russia)
• 33. Hunger (La faim, d. Peter Földes, 1974, Canada)
• 35. Satiemania (d. Zdenko Gašparović, 1978, Yugoslavia)
• 44. Franz Kafka (d. Piotr Dumała, 1991, Poland)
• 47. The Grey Wolf and Little Red Riding Hood (Серый волк энд Красная шапочка, d. Garry Bardin, 1990, USSR)
• 49. Hedgehog in the Fog (Ежик в тумане, d. Yuri Norstein, 1975, USSR)
• 65. Monsieur Tête (L’horrible, bizarre et incroyable histoire de Monsieur Tête, d. Jan Lenica/Henri Gruel, 1959, France)
• 68. Repete (d. Michaela Pavlátová, 1995, Czech Republic)
• 69. Hen, His Wife (Его жена курица, d. Igor Kovaliyov, 1989, USSR)
• 83. The Lion and the Song (Lev a písnička, d. Břetislav Pojar, 1959, Czechoslovakia)
• 85. The Roll-Call (Apel, d. Ryszard Cekala, 1970, Poland)
• 86. A (d. Jan Lenica, 1964, West Germany)
• 88. Tuning the Instruments (Strojenie instrumentów, d. Jerzy Kucia, 2000, Poland)
• 89. Le Pas (d. Piotr Kamler, 1974, France)
• 95. Le Concert de M. et Mme. Kabal (d. Walerian Borowczyk, 1962, France)
• 97. Hotel E (d. Priit Pärn, 1992, Estonia)
• 98. Film Film Film (Фильм, фильм, фильм, d. Fyodor Khitruk, 1968, USSR)
• 99. Les Jeux des Anges (d. Walerian Borowczyk, 1964, France)

The latest edition of online journal Senses of Cinema has several lengthy articles devoted to aspects of central and eastern European cinema, including:

• Sweet Movie: The Gentle Side of “Destructive Art” by Dušan Makavejev
• The World Tasted: Dušan Makavejev’s Sweet Movie by Lorraine Mortimer
• Slovak Cinema of the 1970s Revisited by Peter Hourigan
• Pride and Panic: Russian Imagination of the West in Post-Soviet Film by Yana Hashamova - book review by Lars Kristensen
• plus three pieces on Andrzej Wajda’s films: Ashes and Diamonds by Rahul Hamid, A Generation and Kanal by Boris Trbic, and Polish Reveries & Reflections:
  Andrzej Wajda’s Man of Marble by Adam Bingham.

While researching something else (as is always the way), I stumbled upon former Guardian critic Derek Malcolm’s A Century of Films - a survey of his personal Top 100, with a robust defence of each film’s inclusion.

And on glancing down the list again for the first time since 2001, I notice that nine of his choices came from central and eastern Europe (or, in the case of Blanche, from a Polish filmmaker adapting a Polish play). This is perhaps unsurprising for a critic who came of age in the 1960s when Jancsó, Tarkovsky and the Czech New Wave dominated cinematic proceedings, but it’s gratifying nonetheless.

So here’s a direct link to his individual reviews:

• Andrei Rublev (Андрей Рублёв, d. Andrei Tarkovsky, 1966, USSR)
• Ashes and Diamonds (Popiół i diament, d. Andrzej Wajda, 1958, Poland)
• Blanche (d. Walerian Borowczyk, 1970, France)
• Closely Observed Trains (Ostře sledované vlaky, d. Jiri Menzel, 1966, Czechoslovakia)
• Love (Szerelem, d. Károly Makk, 1971, Hungary)
• The Round-Up (Szegénylegények, d. Miklós Jancsó, 1965, Hungary)
• A Short Film About Killing (Krótki film o zabijaniu, d. Krzysztof Kieślowski, 1987, Poland)
• Strike (Стачка, d. Sergei Eisenstein, 1925, USSR)
• W.R. - Mysteries of the Organism (W.R. - Misterije organizma, d. Dušan Makavejev, 1970, Yugoslavia)