#29 Thoughts on German cinema

[kaberett]

Okay, this one is actually really easy: I pretty much don't have any thoughts on German cinema. Sorry!

The reason for this is that I find watching film of any description very intense, in terms of concentration and ability to perform audio-visual processing go. It's less bad for things where I'm familiar with the format and actors, which is how I manage to remain current with TV shows once I've got into them; it's less bad if I'm sat down to watch with someone who actively enjoys the material in question and is willing to sit down with me and be enthusiastic at me and tell me why they like it so much and be patient when I pause and go "wait, is this brown-haired white dude #72 or number #56?"

Which is to say: my knowledge of German cinema is only slightly worse than my (nearly non-existent) knowledge of Anglophone cinema. So, for context, I am pretty sure the last general-release Anglophone film I saw was Kill Your Darlings, okay, because queer poets + Daniel Radcliffe = Relevant To My Interests, and even that I only went to because I had company. (On which point, I would like to note again how impressed I am by the shot in KYD in which DR is on the opposite side of a stairwell from the camera, his torso's cut off the top of the image, his lower body's partially obscured by the railings, and he's fully clothed - and he manages, by means of wiggling one knee, to unambiguously communicate overwhelming mind-consuming lust. It is pretty impressive, okay.)

In this context: the last general-release German film I saw was Das Leben Der Anderen, and I adore it. I adore it sufficient that I have it on DVD; the only reason I don't show it to more friends is that my mum observed that it was cheaper from amazon.de including shipping than it would've been from amazon.co.uk, and failed to realise that this was because the .de version didn't have English subs. (Why haven't I seen more? Because it's harder, in this country, for me to find people who are willing to enthusiastically rec me German-language media and then watch it with me.) (The other difficulty is of course that the majority of spoken German is nothing like my home dialect or any of the varieties of German I get most exposure to, which means I'm also always contending with an unfamiliar accent, which means the audio-visual processing budget goes overdrawn more easily.)

Much more recently than that I have seen some indie shorts, a mix of English-origin and German-origin focussing on queer subcultures; I was less-than-impressed, but that was content- rather than language-specific.

Because of all of the above (processing issues leading to very low consumption rates) I don't actually have much by way of opinions on the technical aspects; I will notice if someone is acting particularly well (Orphan Black!) or particularly lovely things being done with camera and lighting work; but in general this is an area in which I know really very little.

Comments

[ex_we935]

I'm glad we're not the only ones who feel this way about film (though it extends to TV as well), at least the intensity bit. We'll watch a programme or film sometimes, but it has to be broken up into different sections unless we'rewatching it with somebody else.

~K.

[vass]

The reason for this is that I find watching film of any description very intense, in terms of concentration and ability to perform audio-visual processing go. It's less bad for things where I'm familiar with the format and actors, which is how I manage to remain current with TV shows once I've got into them; it's less bad if I'm sat down to watch with someone who actively enjoys the material in question and is willing to sit down with me and be enthusiastic at me and tell me why they like it so much and be patient when I pause and go "wait, is this brown-haired white dude #72 or number #56?"

So much this. (When I was a kid I couldn't do it at all. It was cartoons or nothing - live action was simply too hard to parse.) I find having subtitles/captions turned on helps me a little bit, by making the auditory processing not as bad and also giving me something to read.

It's frustrating: there's so much good stuff out there to watch.

In this context: the last general-release German film I saw was Das Leben Der Anderen, and I adore it. I adore it sufficient that I have it on DVD; the only reason I don't show it to more friends is that my mum observed that it was cheaper from amazon.de including shipping than it would've been from amazon.co.uk, and failed to realise that this was because the .de version didn't have English subs. (Why haven't I seen more? Because it's harder, in this country, for me to find people who are willing to enthusiastically rec me German-language media and then watch it with me.)

*makes a note of title* (The other German thing I've been meaning to get hold of is Raumpatrouille Orion.)

[birke]

I liked Das Leben der Anderen, too. :-) It was slow and thoughtful and not as grim as I was led to believe.