KINO! NYC ’16: Me and Kaminski

Sebastien Zöllner is no Boswell, that’s for sure. His prospective subject, Manuel Kaminski, was no Picasso either, but for a while it looked like he might come close. Time has since largely forgotten the contemporary of Matisse and company, but he is ripe for rediscovery. He just needs to die first. Zöllner is determined to have his definitive biography ready for exactly that moment. To do so, he must worm his way into the artist’s confidence. It is a rather ghoulish undertaking, but fortunately Zöllner completely lacks self-awareness. The art world elite will do their best to humble the impossibly self-centered twit in Wolfgang Becker’s Me and Kaminski (trailer here), which screens during KINO! 2016, the German Film Festival in New York.

Zöllner has alienated just about everyone he has ever met, including his long-suffering live-in girlfriend-meal ticket Elke, but somehow he thinks he can charm Kaminski and his protective grown daughter Miriam into allowing him exclusive access. There was a time when Kaminski’s celebrity rivaled that of Warhol. Frankly, it was not because the masses embraced his work, but because they found his progressive blindness so compelling. However, Zöllner believes he has the mother of all scoops to spring on the intelligentsia: Kaminski never went blind. He just has to prove it.

Miriam Kaminski considers Zöllner a potentially useful tool, but she is determined to tightly control his time with her father. Unfortunately, the pseudo-journalist is more tenacious and duplicitous than she bargained for. Much to her concern, Zöllner manages to whisk Kaminski away on an ill-conceived road trip to visit the lost love of his life. Of course, it will be greatly complicated by Zöllner’s clumsiness and gross negligence.

Based on Daniel Kehlmann’s novel, Me and K is cleverly conceived and often quite witty, but it features one of the most annoying and utterly loathsome protagonist you will ever find carrying a film. Everything about Zöllner makes you want to hurt him. In his perversely defiant performance, Daniel Brühl seems to go out of his way to emphasize his every cringe-inducing foible and flaw. Granted, it is rather impressive, but in an exhausting, good will-sapping kind of way.

Jesper Christensen’s work is far more predictable as the gruff but sensitive Kaminski. He is supposed to be an eccentric mystery man, but we pretty much know his story right from the start. However, there are some terrific supporting turns that give the film some real color and seasoning. Amira Casar’s Miriam Kaminski is wonderfully elegant and regally unamused, while the late Jacques Herlin is delightfully sly as Dominik Silva, Kaminski’s down-on-his-luck former patron. However, Geraldine Chaplin really delivers the film’s poignant kicker as Therese, the one that got away.

Throughout the film, Becker uses John Adams’ “The Chairman Dances” as a recurring motif, but this is probably a mistake, considering how closely many cineastes associate the composition with Luca Guadagnino’s infinitely more lush and passionate I Am Love. Becker also displays a distinctive visual sensibility, but he just cannot compete with the sweep and style of Guadagnino’s masterwork. Still, he manages to wrap it all up in a satisfyingly intelligent manner. Recommended despite some reservations (specifically, Brühl’s clammy performance as the unfathomably abrasive Zöllner), Me and Kaminski screens this afternoon (4/8) and the following Thursday (4/14) at the Cinema Village, as part of this year’s KINO! In New York.

The Music of John Adams: I Am Love

It is an Italian movie with a Russian protagonist played by a British actress, yet the tone of the film is set by the music of John Adams, arguably the preeminent American classical composer of the day. Though often considered part of the “minimalist” or ‘post-minimalist” movements, his compositions aptly underscore the sweeping, operatic style of Luca Guadagnino’s I Am Love. Though all of Adams’ music heard in the film was composed and recorded for previous commissions, it fits together seamlessly, sounding almost like a unified suite on the recently released IAL soundtrack CD.

Like the minimalists, Adams’ work is marked by frequent use of repeating figures, which is strikingly evident on the opening The Chairman Dances (Foxtrot for Orchestra). However, Adams uses these patterns to build into crescendos well befitting Guadagnino’s story of passion and tribulation. Written shortly after his opera Nixon in China, Adams has described it as an “outtake” from what is arguably his best known work, yet is has a big, full sound that kicks off the film and soundtrack quite effectively.

Very much an American composer, Adams’ work has been informed by composers like Charles Ives, as well as more colloquial forms, including rock & roll and jazz. Not especially pronounced on the IAL soundtrack, his jazz influences are probably best heard on Century Rolls: First Movement, a quiet, lilting piece derived from 1920’s piano rolls, composed for pianist Emanuel Ax, heard performing it with the Cleveland Orchestra.

Named for the ecstatic dancing of the nearly extinct Shaker religious movement, Shaker Loops II and III again nicely suits the on-screen drama, with its agitation resolving into a hypnotic trance. The centerpiece of the soundtrack is probably the selection from The Death of Klinghoffer. Unquestionably Adams’ most controversial work, it tells the story of the murder of wheel-chair bound Jewish American Leon Klinghoffer at the hands of Palestinian terrorists aboard the hijacked Achille Lauro. Klinghoffer’s family disavowed the opera, offended at the production’s apparent attempts to humanize the murderers and rationalize their motives. Regardless, when de-contextualized from its source production, it is powerful music, clearly portending tragedy through Adams’ choral arrangements and evocative use of synthesizers.

The concluding second two movements of Harmonielehre are at first elegiac than tumultuous, before segueing into the in-the-moment triumphalism that ultimately defines the spirit of the film. Indeed, Part III, Meister Eckhard and Quackie, inspired by a dream of his daughter (nick-named Quackie) with the German theologian who ran afoul of the inquisition, has a stirring emotional climax that frankly sounds cinematic.

Guadagnino married the music of John Adams to his dynamic visuals so perfectly, it is hard to imagine the film with a different soundtrack. Yet as a separate release, the IAL soundtrack holds up remarkably well, but also conjures visceral memories of the film for those who have seen it. Still, for those who have not caught up with the film (which is highly recommended), it serves as sort of a greatest hits compilation for the sort of contemporary classical composer who usually does not get such commercial packaging. A collection of some powerful music by an important voice in American music, the IAL soundtrack is now available at most major music retailers.

(Photo: Margaretta Mitchell)

Guadagnino’s I Am Love

For the opulently wealthy Recchi family, life in Milan truly is La Dolce Vita. However, it is also a life of quiet desperation for Emma Recchi, until a chance encounter awakens her deepest emotions in Luca Guadagnino’s exquisitely crafted I Am Love (trailer here), which opens in New York this Friday.

Emma Recchi married into her life of wealth and privilege. In the process, she has forsaken her Russian heritage, adopting a properly Italian identity as befitting a Recchi. She is a loving mother and a reasonably devoted wife, but as her grown children leave to pursue their lives, hers becomes increasingly empty. As Love opens, she is busy overseeing the caterers during the Recchis’ birthday celebration for their elderly patriarch, Edoardo Sr. To their collective shock, rather than naming his son (Emma’s husband) Tancredi as his sole successor, old man Edoardo stipulates a power-sharing arrangement between his long-time presumptive heir and grandson Edo Jr.

Obviously, this significantly changes their family dynamics, so when Emma Recchi meets Edo Jr’s friend Antonio in passing that night, she hardly suspects the important role he will play in her life. She certainly made an impression of him though. Planning to open his own restaurant with Edo Jr, the much younger chef happens to run into Emma in Sanremo, the picturesque town on the Italian Riviera. This time the attraction is mutual and overwhelming, but their affair will have consequences.

While Love consists of the thoroughly tangled intimate relationships one might expect from a Cassavetes film, stylistically it is the exact opposite. Visually it soars and sweeps, dazzling the audience with its grand panoramas and glossy sheen. It is bravura work from cinematographer Yorick Le Saux, but it has the effect of keeping the characters at arm’s length from the audience.

However, as a self-consciously operatic film, Guadagnino rather brilliantly uses the music of Pulitzer Prize winning composer John Adams to convey the tumultuous emotions buried beneath the Recchis’ icy reserve. Though often described as a minimalist, his excerpted themes have a pronounced romanticism that perfectly matches the film’s luxurious visual texture.

As the film’s emotional center, Tilda Swinton subtly expresses Emma’s longing and regrets, despite Guadagnino’s maelstrom of imagery. Indeed, she would well relate to The Bridges of Madison County, if it were not so tacky and middlebrow. It is a finely calibrated performance that holds the audience riveted, carrying the emotive load throughout the film.

Truly the work of a daring auteur, Love is the sort of film that needs time to sink in. Yet, the effect of Guadagnino’s artistry (with vital contributions from Le Saux and Adams) is so immediate and powerful, it inspires slack-jawed awe. A rich feast for the senses, the accomplished Love opens this Friday (6/18) in New York at the Lincoln Plaza and Sunshine Cinema.