Christian Petzold

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accatone
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Christian Petzold

#1 Post by accatone » Wed Apr 02, 2008 11:02 am

His films have already be mentioned in other threads - however i think Petzold deserves his own! The release of WOLFSBURG and YELLA made me post this thread. The latter is allready available in the UK but i am not sure if it contains NICHT OHNE RISIKO by Harun Farocki, an extra that will be on the German release - does anybody have the UK version? According to jpc the German release of YELLA will have English subs.

WOLFSBURG will have its DVD debut - as far as i know it just played on some festivals and on German TV (ZDF-Kleines Fernsehspiel). I hope WOLFSBURG will contain English subs so that it will get the opportunity of reaching a larger audience.

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sidehacker
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#2 Post by sidehacker » Wed Apr 02, 2008 3:43 pm

It's unfortunate that Yella will be the first Western-friendly DVD of Petzold's work. From what I've heard, it's just a standard thriller. Hopefully, Gespenster gets a legit release, that film is really great. In general, I'd like to see more from Petzold so yeah, good news.

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#3 Post by yoshimori » Wed Apr 02, 2008 8:29 pm

sidehacker wrote:It's unfortunate that Yella will be the first Western-friendly DVD of Petzold's work. From what I've heard, it's just a standard thriller. Hopefully, Gespenster gets a legit release, that film is really great. In general, I'd like to see more from Petzold so yeah, good news.
I'm not in the US now, but I'm 99.9% sure my r2de dvd of Gespenster has English subs. And I myself wouldn't call Yella a standard thriller. Both films fall in the large gray zone between strictly classical and art cinema, I'd think.

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#4 Post by accatone » Thu Apr 03, 2008 4:12 am

Official English friendly page of GESPENSTER.

GESPENSTER does indeed have engl. subs! I am with yoshimori - and even though i would like to see Petzold getting more into and beyond "Moving images + Sound" (like Farocki does) i can second what the latter said, that Petzold is in the large gray zone between "arthouse and art".

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#5 Post by accatone » Fri Apr 04, 2008 8:19 am

YELLA online. Unfortunatly i was not able to find an English friendly DVD of DIE INNERE SICHERHEIT - another good film from Petzold showing us a (terrorist?/RAF?) couple and their daughter being caught in their own situation i.e. living in the so called "Untergrund / underground". A remarkable film not about the security of the state (in danger of subversiv/political/terrorist forces) but the "state inside" of the "former terrorists" and their daughter. As a further note, nowhere in the film they talk about the past or any particular organisation - however, comparisons to the RAF are pretty obvious.

edit: do not skip the intro of the latter link - only after the intro you are able to go to the "English" page…

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#6 Post by accatone » Fri May 16, 2008 10:36 pm

…being totally up-side-down…uuurghhh…no subs. on WOLFSBURG!

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#7 Post by accatone » Thu Sep 11, 2008 3:41 pm

TOTER MANN

I suspect no subs at all.

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#8 Post by sidehacker » Thu Sep 11, 2008 9:56 pm

Looking at the glass half-full here: it's good that Petzold's films are getting some attention.

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#9 Post by justeleblanc » Tue Jan 06, 2009 12:30 pm

sidehacker wrote:Looking at the glass half-full here: it's good that Petzold's films are getting some attention.
I believe New Yorker owns the rights to more of his films. I'm guessing that since they don't need restorations, that means we might see another one in a year or two.

Lord Jim

Re: Christian Petzold on DVD

#10 Post by Lord Jim » Wed Jun 03, 2009 3:36 pm

Petzold's Gespenster (Ghosts) is readily available with German and English subtitles in Germany...and its a regioncode free DVD!

The superb "The state I'm in" / "Die Innere Sicherheit" exists with English subtitles but only on VHS in the holdings of the Goethe-Institute Los Angeles Media Lounge. ( Full disclosure- I work there...) And "Toter Mann"/ "Something to remind me" can be watched there with English st. but can't be borrowed.

Yella screens there June 22nd and a screening of Jerichow is being negotiated...

Petzold, A. Dresen, H.C. Schmidt and Fatih Akin are massive and very relevant talents. I'm just thrilled to see that there are so many appreciative minds catching on to the new German wave.

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Re: Christian Petzold on DVD

#11 Post by accatone » Mon Jun 29, 2009 1:53 pm

Looks like Jerichow is coming in September with French and English subtitles: http://www.goodmovies.de/einzelansicht. ... cts_id=339" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

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Re: Christian Petzold on DVD

#12 Post by accatone » Sun Aug 09, 2009 3:22 pm

Beaver on Die innere Sicherheit / The state i am in

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Re: Christian Petzold on DVD

#13 Post by colinr0380 » Tue Feb 23, 2010 9:29 pm

I saw Yella on a recent television showing and since I didn't see a thread dedicated specifically to the film, I thought this would perhaps be the best place to comment on it. I found it to be a quite effective film but there is one big influence hanging over it which I had an inkling of as soon as the main character was involved as a passenger in a car crashing from the side of a bridge into a river below.

To mention the film that this seems obviously inspired by is a bit difficult, as it very much ruins the surprise for the first time viewer - similar to the way that saying a particular film is similar to The Wicker Man automatically means 'an investigation in which the main character is duped and will likely die at the end as a human sacrifice' thereby draining the tension from the new film that this comparison is being made with! Anyway Yella is nothing like The Wicker Man - the film that it seems very obviously influenced by, and structured similarly to is instead:
SpoilerShow
Carnival of Souls
The film is actually very serviceable as a modern day remake, with the disconnection of a young woman leaving her home town and taking a new, slightly dubious, job in the city. The biggest difference is the way that both the religious aspects are eliminated through the job being based more in accountancy and board meetings, with there being a 'day to day' short term aspect towards her employment rather than anything more permanent. The threatening supernatural presences of the earlier film are also minimised to a few threatening visitations from an obsessed ex which helps to play on first viewing as a bit more normally sinister than spooky sinister!

The original aspect the film brings to the material seems to be a rather dark one about board meetings as a kind of purgatory, or of a possible romantic connection and achieving your goals in work being a form of delusion. There's also a nice contrast between an airless enclosed space and the ambient sounds of the natural world intruding at bizarre moments, though that was also one of the more fascinating aspects of the earlier film as well!

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Gespenster (Christian Petzold, 2005)

#14 Post by denti alligator » Thu Mar 04, 2010 11:08 am

I thought Gespenster was remarkable in every way. I interpreted the ending differently than my father, who also watched the film, did. I was wondering what you thought.
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I thought that Nina was not Marie, and that Francoise's husband was stating the facts when he said that Marie was dead.

My father, on the other hand, felt that Nina was indeed Marie (how else to explain the scar and the birthmark). Francoise's husband has dealt with the loss of Marie by convincing himself that she is dead. And he has convinced Francoise that her "finding" Marie is only another of the "episodes" of her illness. They are both ultimately unable to see that this is in fact the real Marie.
Thoughts?

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Re: Gespenster (Petzold, 2005)

#15 Post by accatone » Thu Mar 04, 2010 11:46 am

Sorry for not being able to give a more detailed thought - but on the bottom line the title Gespenster lays out everything for me i.e. a constellation in where relationships can only interact in a diffuse (ghostlike) way. This constellation is only a matrix/mold (i am looking for the word Matrize…you know) for a razor sharp psychological Kammerspiel or as Petzold himself refers to:
At the time, I was reading my daughter a Grimms’ fairy tale every evening. Many of them are brutal; they come from the time of the Thirty-Years’ War, a terrible, unprincipled world. The fairy tales are about that world, and they try to offer comfort. One tale is called The Shroud. A four or five year old girl has died, and the mother cannot bear her loss. She cries every day, every night. Suddenly, she hears noises in the house and sees her dead child, wearing a shroud, sitting at the little table where she always ate breakfast. She sees her daughter playing in the room, in her corner, which still hasn’t been touched. Several days pass. The mother speaks to her dead child. The girl is desperate.

gespenster-der-film.de

Indeed a wonderfull film - maybe my favourite Petzold.

ps: for whats worth it - i am with your Dad.

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Re: Christian Petzold on DVD

#16 Post by domino harvey » Wed Jun 30, 2010 12:49 am

Colin, I just watched Yella and actually thought the obvious point of reference was
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An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge

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Re: Gespenster (Christian Petzold, 2005)

#17 Post by domino harvey » Thu Oct 07, 2010 6:22 pm

Re: Gespenster:
Just saw this wonderful film and
SpoilerShow
I definitely agree with Dad as well: what's revealed by the unfolding of the paper from the wallet makes it pretty clear, doesn't it?

Image

Image

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Re: Gespenster (Christian Petzold, 2005)

#18 Post by denti alligator » Fri Oct 08, 2010 11:07 pm

Yes, but that's just a computer-generated image of a non-existent person. It could be coincidence that the similarity is so striking.

Haven't re-watched this, but I do tend to lean toward domino's and dad's reading.

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Re: Gespenster (Christian Petzold, 2005)

#19 Post by domino harvey » Sat Oct 09, 2010 12:46 pm

Gespenster is a curious film, and one that hasn't left my head much, but it seems like the question of parentage is the minor mystery here. For me, the film hinges on whether Nina's tremendous monologue at the audition is true or not. That haunting scene early in the film, where Petzold presents an assault with the aural markers of a rape, is made more disturbing by Nina's already troubling inaction in light of the new information gleaned in her monologue. Assuming she was telling the truth, she had long fantasized of coming across a woman, resembling if not actually Toni, being stripped, held down, and raped by several attackers. When she perhaps encounters such a scenario in real life, her pause is one of erotic voyeurism-- then Petzold shows us the reality, that she's being attacked, yes, but not sexually. However, shortly after, when Toni is running away from the sanitation workers, her blouse has now been torn open-- when did this occur? Is it self-inflicted? There is a beguiling disconnect between information we the audience have and information we gain, and it's what makes all that happens in such a small period of time so confounding in the most wonderful of ways

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Re: Gespenster (Christian Petzold, 2005)

#20 Post by denti alligator » Sun Oct 10, 2010 5:44 pm

Excellent remarks, domino. Yes, this is a film that doesn't leave you. Its simplicity is deceptive and beguiling (to borrow domino's double-edged word). The performances are among the finest I've seen in recent German cinema. Very impressive. I will be screening this as the last film in a survey of German cinema next semester. I think it is a near-perfect example of the state of art cinema in Germany today.

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Re: Christian Petzold on DVD

#21 Post by domino harvey » Mon Oct 18, 2010 9:53 am

Are there any good books/articles/etc on Petzold out there? I am completely over the moon for him right now and would love to delve deeper.

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Re: Christian Petzold on DVD

#22 Post by accatone » Mon Oct 18, 2010 10:01 am

"Berliner Schule" with related links.

I find it interesting that to this day there is no book on/about him even in German language.

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Re: Christian Petzold on DVD

#23 Post by domino harvey » Sat Sep 10, 2011 1:55 pm

Christian Petzold's new film is Dreileben, a Red Riding Trilogy-esque three part TV movie depicted a murder from three angles: victim, investigator, and killer, with each part helmed by a different director-- Petzold, Christoph Hochhäusler, and Dominik Graf. Since it aired on TV only a few days ago, there's circulating un-subbed copies in the murky internet waters, but unfortunately it appears that the German DVD and Blu releases of the trilogy are unsubbed, and I have been unable to find an English subbed version as of yet (if anyone wants to send me in the right direction via PMs, please please please do)

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Re: Christian Petzold on DVD

#24 Post by denti alligator » Sat Sep 10, 2011 8:23 pm

domino harvey wrote:Christian Petzold's new film is Dreileben, a Red Riding Trilogy-esque three part TV movie depicted a murder from three angles: victim, investigator, and killer, with each part helmed by a different director-- Petzold, Christoph Hochhäusler, and Dominik Graf. Since it aired on TV only a few days ago, there's circulating un-subbed copies in the murky internet waters, but unfortunately it appears that the German DVD and Blu releases of the trilogy are unsubbed, and I have been unable to find an English subbed version as of yet (if anyone wants to send me in the right direction via PMs, please please please do)
Hochhäusler and Graf are great directors, so this sounds fantastic. Will definitely check it out. Too bad no subs for now, domino. But they'll appear eventually.

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Re: Christian Petzold on DVD

#25 Post by accatone » Mon Sep 12, 2011 4:54 am

The "whole" story of Dreileben started with a conversation between the 3 directors that can (in parts) be read here:
http://www.berlinale.de/external/de/fil ... 113081.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
It comes in dual language german/english.

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