Grief makes you sick

Grief makes you sad

Grief makes you so filled with sorrow that there’s no room to breathe.

Grief makes you yearn

Grief makes you bewildered

Grief makes you different –

Grief makes you difficult to be around.

Grief makes you kinder

Grief makes you forgiving

Grief makes you understand that there is life and

Nothing but.

Grief makes you listen

Grief makes you see

Grief makes you feel

Everything, all at once, all the time.

Grief makes you laugh

Grief makes you cry

Cry

Grief makes you cry like there’s no tomorrow.

Grief makes you wiser

Grief makes you new friends

Pushes away old ones

And makes you rekindle old relationships.

Grief is a tangled love affair with

The person who is gone

The new life without them

And those you still need to bear.

Grief makes you take refuge

Grief makes you astonished

Grief leaves you breathless

Grief makes you want to stop

And surrender.

Grief makes you go on when it is impossible to do so

Grief makes you love when it is impossible to do so

Grief makes you love when it was impossible to do so.

Grief makes you addicted

To memory, to get by

Without.

Grief makes you cherish old plastic containers

Send text messages to ghosts

And cry a river to old ABBA songs.

Grief makes you age and resemble your Victorian great-grandmother

Grief makes you slower and gives you eye floaters

Grief makes you realize that what you thought was

is no longer.

Grief gives you magical powers

To be in the past while you’re experiencing the present

At the same time.

Grief makes you fat

Grief makes you drink

Grief makes you heavy

Grief makes you light

Grief makes you yearn for light, especially the sun.

And the sea.

And home.

Even if it’s not there anymore.

Grief makes you ugly

Grief makes you beautiful

Grief makes others ugly and beautiful.

Grief makes you wonder when it will ever be over when you know it will never be –

Just different, over time.

Grief makes you live

Grief makes you love

Grief makes you love deeper than you ever thought possible.

Grief makes you.

* * *

Categories: grief, Personal Essay, photography

Tagged: essay, grief

Blood Crystals: Kris Keogh

“The crystals may be obtained for examination by covering a minute drop of blood with a glass slide, and after adding water, alcohol, or ether, to permit a gradual evaporation to ensue.” – ‘A Text-Book on Physiology’, John William Draper, M.D., 1866.

The cover art from Kris Keogh‘s new record is taken from a centuries-old old medical journal. It’s the sketch of a microscopic view of ‘crystallized’ blood cells.

Ornate, fragile, and frozen in time, the illustration distills the process of life and death. The blood crystals, inert and no longer living, reveal in delicate, minute detail, the miracle of life – the very blood that supplies our bodies with oxygen, the breath of life.

It’s the perfect visual metaphor for Processed Harp Works Vol. 2, inspired as Kris tells it, by “two, simultaneous life-changing events”: the birth of his daughter and the death of his father, in 2013.

It’s always fascinating to see how artists express loss: think David Bowie mourning his own passing with Blackstar; filmmaker Mike Mills’ funny, moving requiem for his dying dad, Beginners, and Philip Toledarno’s heart-wrenching photography essays, Days With My Father and When I Was Six, meditations both on the loss of close family members.

Enter Kris’s ‘Processed Harp Works Vol. 2’. Equal parts melancholic and ethereal, joy and grief are comfortable bedfellows – you can hear them wrapped around each other, resonating together. Deep cavernous rumbles and spacious, sorrowful drones ebb and flow between liquid harp sweeps and uplifting melodies. It’s an album vibrating with ambivalence and hope. Impossible not to be affected by it, sonically it’s as exquisite as its cover art.

To make Processed Harp Works Vol. 1 (2011), Kris purpose-built Invert The Universe, a Reaktor software ensemble – also the foundation for Processed, the “setup” for the sonic exploration and musical meditations of Vol. 2. It creates a space for “processing” both disparate sounds and intense disparate feelings. Gradual evaporation ensues…

“Everything I make is about juxtaposition, about creating something unexpectedly cohesive from seemingly opposing sources, from polar extremes,” he says. “These extremes are ingrained at nearly every level of this album.”

Classically-trained and pop-inspired, musically Kris cites influences as diverse Prince and Debussy, to German click-music-maestro Oval and Atari Teenage Riot. Splitting his time between hometown Nhulunbuy in the Northern Territory and Japan, Kris is prolific. In bands (Red Plum and Snow) and a solo electronic artist (Blastcorp, Laptop Destroyer), he’s been a fixture on – and a driving force behind – the Territory music scene for years, on stage and off.

Innately creative, Kris is an in-demand artist, producer, musician, designer, music label owner, community builder, and now a dad, which, with his partner Deb (also a creative force-of-nature!), might just be his – and their – most rewarding collaboration yet!

Kris Keogh spoke to me from his “second home”, Osaka.

Cover art for ‘Processed Harp Works, Vol. 2’. Image restoration: Nico Liengme.

Circus Folk: First of all Kris, the cover artwork for this album: it’s exquisite. What is the story behind it, and why did you choose it for this release?

Kris Keogh: It’s a woodcut from a medical textbook from the 1800’s of the blood cells of a squirrel under a microscope, of all things! I found it on archive.org, somewhere among the millions of out-of-print books digitzed and stored there. All you need is the time to go hunting, that site is a goldmine.

I love that image ’cause it looks organic and random, but also really intricate and structured. That’s kind of how I think the album sounds, so it’s a good fit. The web scan was pretty lo-res so I got a proper graphic designer (thanks Nico!) to restore it. He worked his magic and somehow remade it all hi-res.

Kris’s cover art for New Weird Australia #5.

CF: To the story of this album: you say that two simultaneous “life-changing” events inspired the album and its sound: the birth of your daughter and the death of your father. Compositionally, how did you go about ‘integrating’ these events, their ensuing emotional effects, and the ‘weight’ associated with both, into your music? Such as the extremes of joy, and extreme grief, I would imagine?

Kris: I wasn’t really consciously thinking about joy or grief or anything specific when I sat down to make this album. It was only once I finished recording that I kind of realized that was what it had made me reflect on: that that’s what I needed to get out.

As I’ve gotten older I feel like I’ve amassed all these life experiences which now include births and deaths of the people closest to me. My thinking is now hard-wired through those experiences; I can’t escape them, and wouldn’t ever want to.

They make me ‘me’, you know? So when I sit down and make harp music, I just let my hands and brain do what feels honest. Intimate and honest, with absolutely no showmanship.

All of my history is inside me, and when I play like that, I feel like the music that comes out is filtered though those experiences.

Kris’s “processed” Reaktor processing software. Image: supplied.

ZZAAPP Records artwork by Kris Keogh.

CF: And ‘Processed’, the “self-made Reaktor ensemble designed by trial and error” you made “over the last ten years” – what did that teach you? It must have been very frustrating at times and gleeful at others: why did you want to create your own software? And what were some of the challenges you faced making it?

Kris: Finding your own voice in music is a really hard thing to do. Reaktor is the thing that has gotten me on the path to finding mine. I’ve been using it since 2001, to experiment and then refine those experiments. It’s just like having a music shop with an endless supply of effects, which you can take home and experiment with until you have a setup you really like.

I want to make music that sounds new, beautiful and alien, so it’s great for that. It’s also a good setup considering the nearest music store is 1000kms by road from Nhulunbuy!

The learning curve is long and steep though; I still feel like a total beginner. It’s a weird combination of having to use really rigid and structured thinking processes to bring to life really loose and fluid musical ideas. Having both sides of your brain in full effect doesn’t come naturally to me, so it can feel like work sometimes.

But it’s well worth it. And I love that there’s an online community of people building with Reaktor, all sharing things they’ve built for free. And you can pull everyone else’s work apart and borrow bits and pieces as you see fit. It’s also a really nice feeling to be able to make creative tools that you can share with other people.

I uploaded my setup for this album to the Reaktor User Library a few weeks ago. It’s called Processed, so hopefully other people are making cool stuff with it too!

Kris playing night golf, Osaka, Photo: Deb Hudson

Kris’s home studio. Photo: Kris Keogh

Kris Keogh, Osaka 2017. Photo: Deb Hudson

CF: You spend a lot of time in Japan: it sounds as if the geographical, cultural and physical landscape there also finds its way into your work, perhaps even more noticeably in this album than the previous. Living in two cultures as you do – the Northeast Arnhem Land community of Nhulunbuy and with yearly visits to Japan – has this movement between the two changed your relationship with place, and perhaps even home? And is this somehow reflected in PHWV.2, given that you recorded this album in your home studio in Nhulunbuy?

Kris: I feel like a misfit in both places to be honest: I’m not Yolngu and I’m not Japanese. Living around two cultures that are very different from my own means I’m never really in my comfort zone. I understand so little of what’s going on around me in both places that I think I end up in my own head a lot.

It is really great to be around people with different perspectives though. That constant reminder that my culture isn’t the only thing going on in the world is a good for me as a person.

As for music, I don’t try and consciously work in elements of either culture into my music, but I’m sure the influences do seep in… I’ve definitely got lots of love for all aspects of Japanese music, from traditional koto music through to all the crazy underground electronic stuff. The same goes for living in Arnhem Land: Yolngu music, new and old, is so inspiring.

‘Just Before Forever’ video by Deb Hudson.

Those traditional descending manikay vocal lines are so raw and unbelievably gorgeous. I feel it’s rude to just take specific things I like and use them in my own music directly, but I’m sure the influences do seep in subconsciously.

Circus Folk: When you sit down to compose, are working from a “blank page”, or are you the type of composer who has melodies and ideas bubbling away just below the surface all the time? And when is it the “right time” to sit down and compose: do a set of specific ‘conditions’ need to arise before you start a project such as this one?

Kris: I don’t really pre-plan anything. I’ll just choose a key, set the pedals on the harp and just play. I’ll play for ages and something will start to develop and I’ll go with that. I record it all and then I’ll often write the melodies (and even chord sequences sometimes) by editing the actual audio, cutting, pasting and moving individual notes around in the computer until it all sounds right to me.

I feel like if I can capture the vibe and the sound in the moment, I can then go back and edit the notes into something more concise and musical later. With this album the sound and feeling were more important to me than the actual notes when making it.

I don’t know if it’s just me, but the harp just has the saddest, most melancholy tone of any instrument I’ve ever touched. It’s heartbreaking; it sounds so sad, yet so beautiful, all at once. If you mute a string you played a few seconds earlier, the note doesn’t stop, instead you realise that the note has continued on as all these sympathetic vibrations in all the other strings. It’s so inspiring to play a single note on an instrument and have it do that and feel like that. Writing music in that kinda situation is so easy, it just falls out.

I wish it was more romantic than it is, but writing music is just work for me. If I waited for inspiration to line up with my free time, the house being quiet, my tech setup working smoothly and my harp being in tune, I’d never make anything. I have to schedule life so those things line up and then just get to work. Once I’m in the sound, luckily I get the vibe pretty quickly.

CF: There is so much ‘space’ in this record. What is your relationship to – and/or view of – the use of space and spaciousness, in music? Is it an essential factor in the composition process, and the sound of your music, in particular? I also remember tangibly noticing it when you were making music in Red Plum and Snow…

Kris: Space is super important. The act of adding even a simple reverb to a sound makes it go from lifeless to existing in some kind of (simulated) physical space.

People relate to spaces; they become attached to memories of feelings, people and places. A lot of what I do involves heavily processing the space that sounds exists in, and then layering and cutting between different spatial setups.

Glitches and cuts between drastically different spatial setups don’t happen to us in everyday life, and I think all the spatial edits help give this album that otherworldly kinda feeling.

So in short, yeah, space is really important to my music.

CF: You seem very excited by the release of this album: as someone who has made music your entire life – in bands, collaborations, and solo – what excites and compels you to make music?

Kris: To be honest, creating things and sending them off into the world just makes me really happy. Getting up and making something new and beautiful out of thin air is an amazing feeling. It’s a sense of achievement; making an album is like winning a really long and drawn battle against all your inner creative insecurities. If I stop making things, I start to question who and what I am, and that’s not pretty.

I’m also just a total music fan. I love music so, so much. Making music and being amazed by new music is the best thing ever; it’s like my one addiction, one I have no plans of giving up.

CF: Some feel that music is the most direct contact with the ‘spiritual’ side of life, especially when it comes to harp music! Do you agree with that idea? Do you think the harp – and music in general – has the capacity to moves us on some ‘deeper’ level?

Kris: Music moves me, for sure. This album is designed to do exactly that. It’s a 40-minute chance to zone out and be somewhere else. Hopefully that’s somewhere deeper, calmer and more relaxed. I’m not at all spiritually minded, but I feel music is a far more subtle and transformative medium than, say, language to express how I feel.

As for the harp, those sympathetic resonances that give it its tone, just move people.

I can imagine the sound of the harp in previous centuries having the same effect as walking into a big cathedral; there’s a humbling sense of wonder in both.

CF: Who are your biggest influences for this album in particular?

Kris: Musically, I’d say Bows’ sampled harp and guitar sounds, Oval’s glitches and the consonance and slowness of the solo piano work of people like Arvo Part and Nils Frahm. Conceptually, its just opening myself up to let the music come out.

CF: Six years have passed since ‘Processed Harp Works Vol. I’ (2011): how different are you now in 2017 as an artist and composer, from when you made the first record? Can you hear it in the music?

Kris: I’ve matured, ha ha! I’ve gotten over the need to try and use distortion to make everything sound intense.

Musically though, I had heaps more time and freedom to make this new album. The first one was made with my sneaking into the uni in Darwin, playing and recording the harp that was kept in the storeroom in the concert hall, then sneaking out. I wasn’t a student and wasn’t a teacher, so I was in some kind of weird “you shouldn’t really be here” kinda situation. So I’d take those recordings home and put them through my computer and process them.

Kris with his daughter in Himeji, 2017. Photo: Deb Hudson

This time though, I’ve since saved up and bought a harp of my own, so I could play the harp and computer at the same time. This meant I could do all the processing and then add extra notes and sounds, get things just right, rather than be restricted to only sampling what I’d recorded. The new album is definitely more melodic because I had the option to refine things and add notes as needed.

CF: You have a little girl now, Peach. I’m guessing she might be into music like her dad – and uber-creative like her mum! Is she showing signs of being interested in music yet?

Kris: She likes music, but she mainly listens to J-pop star Kyary Pamyu Pamyu on repeat, although she had a Sophie phase a while back. She makes up little songs on my drum machines; she’s got about a dozen little beats and tunes she’s made. She likes twinkly princess sounds, so I think the harp influence has seeped in a bit there.

I actually wrote this album to function as her bedtime music. She puts it on every single night to go to sleep to, without fail. It works really well in that context, I know, because I’ve spent every evening of the last six months laying there listening to it and trying like mad not to fall asleep at 7pm!

Many thanks to Kris Keogh for the interview and Deb Hudson for the images!

* * *

Interview & cover photo: Kris Keogh
Words/edit: Megan Spencer
Photos: Deb Hudson
Listen/download: Processed Harp Works Vol. 2 (Provenance Records)
Listen/download: Processed Harp Works Vol. 1 (New Weird Australia)
Visit: Kris’s website
Discover: Happy Yess, the music venue in Darwin co-founded by Kris
Note: Kris Keogh and Deb Hudson and have been in my friend circle since 2008.
Correction: Text amended: Kris used Reaktor software to create his own processing setups for both Volumes of his Processed Harp Works (he didn’t create Reaktor – my mistake!)

Categories: art, bands, culture, interview, Music

Tagged: blastcorp, darwin music, happy yess, harp, kris keogh, laptop destoyer, new weird australia, northern territory, osaka, procesed harp, provenance records, reaktor, red plum and snow

A Podcast about Precious Objects

Megan Spencer

Posted on May 15, 2017

“Objects should not ‘touch’ [us] because they are not alive. You use them, put them back in place, you live among them: they are useful, nothing more. But they touch me, it is unbearable. I am afraid of being in contact with them as though they were living beasts.”

– Jean-Paul Sartre

Auspicious Plastic is a monthly podcast about ‘things’ that bring meaning to our lives, and even make us happy.

When using my Mum’s old Tupperware containers as “grief therapy” after she passed away, I discovered how such simple ‘pieces of plastic’ could hold so much meaning – and emotion. And how these objects touched me so profoundly, as if animated by something deeply mystical…

I wondered how my use of her beloved Tupperware – and other kitchen implements too – could be so powerful and therapeutic. And why we invest so much in ‘things’? How could a basic plastic container, a mere tool, make someone so happy? Help someone to grieve?

To quote Sartre again, don’t we become “possessed by the things we possess”? And Tupperware – it’s just a bunch of crappy old plastic containers bound for land-fill, right?

Or, might it be possible that they could be containers of fascinating, inter-generational stories? Something that connects us on a more profound level?

With my own experience as a starting point, I decided to find out, creating a podcast where I can talk to other people about their experiences with such “auspicious objects”. Through this world of dearly held things, I’m discovering a a plethora of stories about us: women, men, people, community, food, family, friendship, empowerment, and more. Sartre was right: objects aren’t just objects…

EPISODE ONE

Delma & Katherine Calcagno

This is an interview with my lovely Aunty Delma and her daughter, my dear cousin Katherine. The former is a quinti-decade “obsessed” Tupperware user, collector and “party holder”; the latter a lifelong “Tupper-kid”, now a demonstrator and freelance employee with the Australian branch of the company. They talk candidly about how Tupperware has deeply touched their lives – and provide me with some answers as to why why it might have touched mine… (Dur. 18:30 | Tx 07. 02. 2017)

Listen here.

EPISODE TWO

Anna Brownfield

Next an interview sitting around the kitchen table of my old friend Anna Brownfield. A feminist erotic filmmaker and a ‘gun’ crafter, we’ve known each other since 1995, working on each other’s films, knitting on couches far and wide, and occasionally following each to the other side of the world. Anna’s always amazed and inspired me with her resourcefulness, dedication to craft, DIY and making. In addition to the odd bit of Tupperware she owns, anywhere she goes she puts her sizeable plastic container collection to good use, especially now that she’s a mum. We began our chat marveling at her “magic” blue and white icy pole makers, which she bought at her very first Tupperware party ‘back in the day’. (Dur. 14:00 | Tx 16. 03. 2017)

Listen here.

EPISODE THREE

Michael Pieracci

In Episode Three you’ll meet Michael Pieracci, an American “installed” in Berlin. A talented and creative project manager, “photographer, presenter, traveller and drinker of tea”, I had previously listened to Michael give a moving and engaging talk about ‘tools’ at Creative Mornings Berlin. Inspired by his philosophy towards ‘things’ (and left-handed scissors!), I invited him to reveal more, and to share some of his favorite objects with me for Auspicious Plastic. (Dur. 18:35 | Tx 09. 04. 2017)

Listen here.

EPISODE FOUR

Robyn Overell

Robyn Overell and my Mum lived next door to each other for 35 years. Over the fence and around the kitchen table they shared a special friendship, many cups of tea, laughter and an appreciation for Tupperware – one of Mum’s passions. They also shared many stories, one of which involved Robyn’s only piece (a singular blue plastic bowl from the 1970s) and how it came to be ‘lone’ and ‘lidless’. It used to tickle Mum pink, and has to be heard to be believed… (Dur: 16:25 | Tx 20.05.2017)

Listen here.

Like the Facebook page for new episode notifications!

Listen on Soundcloud.

CREDITS

Producer/interviewer: Megan Spencer
Original music: Jeremy Conlon/Cooperblack
Photos: Megan Spencer (c) 2017.
Logo: Studio Ink
Thank you: to my guests and to Massimo Maio for the equipment loan!

Categories: craft, culture, interview, People, photography, podcast, Uncategorized

Tagged: community, family, grief, objects, tupperware

Close To You: Lucy & Molly Dyson

Megan Spencer

Posted on May 9, 2017

History is littered with creative siblings, often in music, sometimes in film, occasionally in literature…

See the Sisters Bronte and Arquette; the Brothers Grimm and Gibb; the Coen Brothers, Baldwins, Wachowskis and Gershwins; soft-pop super-duo The Carpenters, hard-rock guitar heroes Malcolm and Angus. The families Corr, Barrymore, Boyd and Mora.

Then there are my personal faves, Ann and Nancy Wilson from Heart. Seventies AM rock would have been nothing without these sisters, nor their songs Barracuda and Crazy On You. Nothing.

It’s come time to add a pair of visual artist sisters to the list: Lucy Dyson and Molly Dyson. Both are from Australia. Both live in Berlin. And both are starting to leave their mark in a serious way.

Landing in Berlin as a Neu wohnhaft in April 2015, Lucy’s was a name I kept coming across. Sounding terribly familiar I didn’t connect the dots until we finally met a year later, first at an exhibition opening and later at a mutual friend’s ‘going away’. She reminded me we’d first crossed paths in 2003: Lucy was 21 and just out of art school (we also share the same alma mater, RMIT Media Arts), and I was several years into a decade-long adventure as film critic for triple j.

‘Laika – Space Dog’ by Lucy Dyson

I’d seen her beautiful animated short, Laika – Space Dog. It melted my heart and burned itself into my memory, as had the little booklet she’d made to go with it, which I still have to this day.

I’d invited Lucy to do a radio interview with me and later to be a judge on a national shorts showcase and competition I was programming.

Since, Lucy has made a slew of music videos, album covers, prints and animations, now perhaps most well-known for her work in collagism, a form she is passionate about – both moving and still. She’s seriously in-demand as a filmmaker for some of Australia’s (and the world’s) biggest music artists: from Beyoncé, Sarah Blasko and Paul Kelly, to John Spencer Blues Explosion, Goyte, and most recently, former Powderfinger singer, Bernard Fanning.

Finding Lucy in Berlin was a happy accident – so was finding out she had a sister here! One humid Berlin summer’s night we literally bumped into each other at a huge open studio event at a labyrinthine former light factory, now re-purposed as an artists compound. Sweating in the crowd – and having been there for some time – I was about to go. Then there was Lucy. And Molly, who she quickly introduced me to. I lingered and learned she too was an artist equally immersed in her work, only an illustrator…

Poetry Is Dead cover by Molly Dyson.

Proficient in German and studying at one of Berlin’s best art schools (plus a Fine Arts graduate from VCA), Molly’s also becoming sought after – as an illustrator, exhibitor and poster artist.

Favoring “simplicity over realism”, she’s had illustrations featured in Yen and Frankie magazines, poster commissions from Mona Lisa Disco and Rhythm Machine, a book cover for Poetry Is Dead, a tea towel for Five Boroughs Melbourne and Covo Sportivo Coffee Lounge in East Brunswick sports her gorgeous custom-design on their coffee cups.

While their formats and methods might differ, both women love their work and the process of working. And while they do miss home they love living in Berlin, counting their blessings to have both 100% family support to be here and to live in a city that, while presenting distinct ‘challenges’ (eg. crap weather for 8 months of the year, gruff natives and an incredibly Orwellian bureaucracy), upholds and supports art and artistic practice in such a vociferous way.

For artists are its lifeblood. Especially if you contribute generous of mind and wild at heart…

Circus Folk: Both your dad Chris and mum Ann are artists, and your aunty, Cath Dyson, is a documentary maker and writer. Is it fair to say that creativity might be a ‘family trait’? And when did you both realise that creativity was a driving force in your lives?

Lucy: Ha, perhaps there is a sensitivity that has been passed down. I see it on both my mum and dad’s sides of the family – an appreciation for music, film, writing and visual arts – which has led to various [family] creative outputs. I also see it expressed through both extended sides of the family in other ways, be it in personal style, in the home, the children, and just the general feeling when everyone gets together. Cousins will get up to perform, there might be a sing-along… We’re just a big bunch of art lovers!

A far back as I can remember I have been making things. As a child I was always absorbed in drawing or writing stories, or building fun-park extensions for my “Guinea Pig World” corner of the back garden. I was given a lot of freedom and encouragement to express my interests, and a lot of free time come to think of it.

My older sister Marita and I would get really obsessed with our self-initiated projects – some would say nothing’s changed!

Molly: Like most kids I was always drawing. Mum has a good one I did when I was two or three, a completely scribbled mess with the title Molly Saving A Spider From A Fire. (I don’t remember drawing it but I like my sense of narrative – and kindness to spiders!) I also remember drawing naked people and then being embarrassed and scrunching them up when I was about 5 or 6. Then of course I went through a stage of only drawing people with Simpsons’ style eyes!

I think it was always something I felt that I was good at; I had trouble with maths and spelling and sport and learning the piano. So drawing and making things fitted best.

CF: Molly, what ‘draws’ (sorry!) you to illustration? Is it an enjoyable process for you?

Molly: As a teenager I made a lot of ‘zines and always tried to make comics, but found it hard to finish a page of sequential drawings. I still do. I studied art and found it hard to make things without a connection to narrative (the way illustration can have). I also love taking someone else’s story or idea, and bringing it into a visual realm or interpreting it.

I love making posters too, it’s exciting for me: they get to go out there into the world and be connected to an event or an idea. I like illustration maybe because each project has a definitive end point most of the time, where as I felt artwork sort of goes on and on and has a life of its own after you make it or install it. I think I get satisfaction out of making things that have some definite purpose: that ‘sense of purpose’ is probably the most enjoyable part of the illustrative process. I’m not saying that art “has no purpose”; it’s just not that often defined by a brief or specific job request.

CF: Lucy, you and I first met when you were an animator just out of art school. We ‘communed’ over your beautiful, sweet short film, Laika, Space Dog. How and when did you move from animation to collagism? Or was it the other way around?

Lucy: Ever since I was a child I have always made collages, cutting up old encyclopedias – and family photographs! So when I started at Media Arts I was interested in animating these collages. The Laika film was an exercise in how to use Flash software, so part of that learning meant I used my own sketches.

I never consciously decided on animation or collage; they have always gone hand-in-hand for me. The subversive nature of collage has always appealed to my sense of humour: making new worlds, escapism, being left alone to work out ideas that fail when I try to put them down in words…

Also developing a sense of self through my work, as I often feel unsure about where I fit. I don’t make commercials or commercial music videos or short films, so I don’t entirely fit into the animation world or the big budget music video/commercial world. Or the design world – something that’s always very obvious to me when I attend film festivals or design conferences!

I also don’t really belong in the contemporary art world; I’ve somehow ended up carving out own very independent thing. In animation it’s very satisfying being able to control very specific elements, when in life there is so much one can’t control…

CF: Molly – what do you like to draw? And how would you describe your ‘relationship’ with drawing?

Molly: I like to draw people but also find it hard to settle on a particular thing. It’s still hard sometimes to think of “what-to-draw”, that’s why I do quite like having requests and specific jobs.

I would describe my work as some kind of quest to make a line work in a really particular way. I guess I’m on a quest to perfect that feeling of a single line doing its thing and making a shape. I really like effortless-looking doodles that sum up an object or space in swift movements, reductive impressions of things. I don’t have much interest in figuratively representing things.

I like to work some “personality” in there, but I guess I am always reducing my style. I also love printing, probably for that similar “reductive” element. I like working within some restrictions – such as colour and material – because it forces me to focus on one idea rather than being overwhelmed by too much choice.

I prefer drawing on paper to working digitally, and have been completely sucked into the Instagram cycle of making something: posting it and waiting for the ‘likes’, which has changed the way I work.

CF: Sisters in art, now sisters in Berlin: could you please give us a snapshot as to how you both came to be living and working in Berlin?

Lucy: I moved to Berlin in 2011 after two fun but kind of difficult years living in London. I met some great people there and made music videos while also working in a bookstore. When I had to leave London (because my visa was up) I was annoyed: it had taken two years to feel that I had just about adjusted to the city, and then it was time to go!

So, with my boyfriend at the time, and everything still packed up in Melbourne, I headed to Berlin. While I was in London I had visited friends living there and I had thought it was such a great city. Molly came to visit me a year later and got sucked in too!

Molly: I came here on holiday with the vague intention of staying for a year or so since Lucy was already there, and I had heard all about how fantastic Berlin was. So I did stay. I met a European boy, and went back and forth between Melbourne and Berlin for a few years.

Initially I tried to make it work as a freelance illustrator (while also working several jobs, as a nanny, in cafes, the usual…) Eventually I got a full time job which had its ‘positives’ (regular income and health insurance) and ‘negatives’ (40 hours a week standing in a 7×5 metre store selling notebooks to people…) Now, thank goodness, I am a student, which is a 1000% improvement on being a full time employee. I’m still working part time though!

CF: What do you like about being here in Berlin? Does it afford you opportunities that staying in Australia might not? And do you feel lucky and/or inspired to be here?

Lucy: As a self-employed artist the fact that I can support myself and live comfortably on my own in a lovely apartment and have a studio space feels lucky: it allows me time and space for the work that is most important to me. And the fact that I can so easily obtain a visa to live and work here makes me feel extremely lucky.

It goes without saying that the museums and galleries are great, that there is always something interesting to attend – endless art and film lectures, events and festivals, on all levels, on all subjects, happening everywhere. It is so inspiring.

I also think being based in the northern hemisphere has been good for work opportunities. I still do work for Australian clients but I also get a lot of inquiries from the UK, Europe and the USA. I think being here makes me more accessible as it’s only one hour ahead of London, or six hours ahead of New York.

Berlin is full of incredibly talented people from all over the world. The creative network is broad and far-reaching, and it’s approachable. And if you participate in it you become available to many different people who might want to collaborate or support your practice in some way. I feel incredibly lucky to be here.

Molly: I feel super lucky to be here too! I know so many people who have struggled, whose countries don’t afford them the same privilege of movement and travel as Australians have, and I feel very aware of my of privilege in Germany as a white educated Anglo-Saxon. Even though my German is still improving – and I am balancing work and study by supporting myself financially – I do feel better off here than I would in Australia. I couldn’t afford to do another undergraduate [degree] in Australia. The thought of ending up with a European university degree in design just makes me go “Wow!” – I can’t believe its happening! It’s great.

Also as a design student in Europe there are so many more design agencies to intern or work for – and some amazing competitions and scholarships to apply for too. I have friends from all over the world at uni, and opportunities for projects keep presenting themselves, which just keeps blowing my mind.

Lucy: The city is wonderful, I love it: I think Berlin is the best city in the world.

Molly: The city does inspire my work. Mostly friends who live here inspire me because I know so many people making such fantastic stuff, it’s motivating to be around them.

CF: Are there any downsides for you?

Lucy: Being away from family and friends! Also, I don’t speak German terribly well (I practice everyday, but it’s taking forever). So some days that gets me down, but I’ve managed so far. Berlin is a very accommodating, accepting and forgiving city.

Molly: I get homesick! Speaking German is hard. I feel so far way from Australia and financially getting back there is really hard. Financially in general things are probably harder than they would be in Australia, but it’s also fine. I have everything I need – bread, butter, a warm house, friends and internet!

CF: Is there anything in particular, that you have learned from your parents about being creative that you have never forgotten – that you have carried into your artistic practice and work?

Lucy: My Dad taught me to take as many opportunities as possible as they might not appear again, and this way you can work out what you’re really interested in. And to be resilient and humble, and to accept that not everything turns out as planned but that doesn’t mean you quit. You have to get over it, and practice everyday to improve and develop the skills – to hone in on something just the right way so that it works!

More recently my Mum told me not to “overthink things” or let my perfectionist tendencies take over, “as you probably don’t realise how good the work is”. Which was very nice of her – and a good reminder that it’s difficult to judge your own work.

Molly: I think self-belief is probably the key. When I tried to be a freelancer I just didn’t have the confidence, discipline or the skills to get it off the ground. I had some successes and made great work that I am totally proud of, but I didn’t have that particular drive that you really need if you’re going to make it work (like Lucy is!)

I feel way more confident now, and know that is something Mum and Dad always reminded all of the kids in the family to be. They totally support us and praise what we do whilst also giving very good critical advice and reality checks from time to time.

I know I am so lucky to have parents who don’t ask when I’m going to “buy a house” or “get married”. They are totally supportive of our decision to be creative even though they know how hard it is.

CF: Molly, you’re studying here in Berlin at Weißensee Kunsthochschule (art school.) Why did you choose to study here? What kind of experience are you having, say in contrast to studying in Australia?

Molly: I’m studying Graphic Design (Visuelle Kommunikation). Luckily I have been able to go straight into the second year because of the Bachelor of Fine Art I have from VCA in Melbourne. It was a more intense experience to apply [to get in] here than in Australia. Since German universities take a lot of international students, it’s more competitive, so the standards are pretty high!

There was a three-day-long ‘creative exam’ after the folios were selected, and that was super stressful. Not only because it (and the interview) was in German, but also because it was in a hall of about 30 people crafting away from nine-to-five for three days! I was sure I’d blown it, but I got in and I am very, very happy. The university is very self-oriented which suits me well since I had the learning curve of a freelance life. The uni has excellent workshops for printing, ceramics and woodwork, and has departments in Fine Art, Design, Fashion Design and Textiles.

The contrast to Australia is probably that Design and Fine Art feel more connected in Europe, whereas in Australia the worlds seem more separate. I know a lot of illustrators in Berlin who have practices that are very art-based, but they still work and refer to themselves as illustrators. Weißensee has this sort of mentality: that creative practice crosses many borders.

CF: What do you hope the degree at Kunsthochschule will give you in terms of opportunity? What is your “dream job”?

Molly: I hope to find a way to take what I do “to the next level”, in that I guess I’m just super-focused on getting more skills because part of the “failure” of my freelance illustration career (ha!) was my lack of skills to be able to refine what I was doing. That means refining my approach and becoming very aware – as a good designer should be – of all the elements of the project and pushing it all through to a super-high level of realisation.

As I said, being connected to an international community of creative people is amazing: watching what friends who are already pretty established designers and illustrators do is the best source of inspiration. I hope also to intern more and take advantage of the European student-bounty.

My “dream job” is probably in art direction. I am learning more and more how much I love working with other people and not so much alone at my computer (which is the lonely reality for most illustrators and designers). Seeing a project come together with a bunch of people is the best lesson I have learned in the last few years. So establishing an agency or working in a team of designers to produce large-scale projects is essentially “the dream”. I used to want to be a children’s book illustrator and I still do want to do that too! So I’m attracted to both huge and tiny projects.

CF: Lucy – you and I recently talked about the concept of “flow”, being “in the zone” when you’re an artist. And you mentioned to me how elusive you feel it can be sometimes – that when it comes, you try to submerge yourself in it and stay there as long as you can, especially when you’re working on an animation project.

Would you explain that a bit further – and what your approach is to making animations?

Lucy: Sometimes when I’m completely absorbed in what I’m animating, it can feel like a weird jolt being brought back into the ‘real world’; I might need a moment to recall where I am. It’s very satisfying to experience, however I don’t find it so easy to achieve. I’m still a massive procrastinator and am easily distracted by the most stupid things.

I suppose it takes a lot of discipline which is also why if I am up against a deadline I can’t be taking social breaks that disturb that sense of flow and progress. To maintain momentum can sometimes mean working in solitude, dead-focused, for several days. My animation approach for music videos is to try to find the right pieces, as if I am putting together a jigsaw puzzle of images I see in my head when I hear the music. Sometimes I can’t see the images clearly and can only feel them as colours/shapes/movement. The puzzle pieces can be scattered across hundreds of different pages in stacks of books and piles of magazines and I usually don’t know what I’m looking for until I see it.

I try not to ‘over plan’ my projects as things tend to develop intuitively while I’m playing around with various elements.

CF: Where do you find your materials for making collages?

Lucy: Flea markets, secondhand book stores, rubbish bins, things I pick up off the footpath… I was recently late meeting Molly for a coffee as I found lots of things out on my street that I thought would be useful for a project, which I then had to carry back to my apartment before meeting her! It wasn’t the first time it’s happened; she is very forgiving of this habit of mine, as was my ex-boyfriend.

CF: Molly – what kind of an approach to do you have towards “making”?

Molly: My method is also constantly changing but basically I just sketch and refine and repeat. And then, depending on the project, I end up digitally adjusting elements of the drawing.

CF: Who are your personal art heroes – who inspires each of you? And do you inspire each other?

Lucy: The pop artist Marisol Escobar, the German artist Hannah Hoch, the Paris-based Canadian writer Mavis Gallant; all the female animators from the last 70 years (Mary Ellen Bute, Sally Cruikshank, Lotte Reineger, Faith Hubley); my good friend Isobel Knowles, and so many remarkable women turning out exquisite work as independent animators and experimental film makers, who are relentlessly doing their thing!

Also my good friend Gemma Ray; she is a Berlin musician. We often discuss and share where we are at with our work and actually have similar approaches to creativity, and understand if the other has to isolate herself in the studio to make some headway on a project.

Of course Molly inspires me, not only for her brilliant artistic skills and the sense of humour in her work, but her German is so good (which makes me feel very lazy). And the fact she got into art school here – no easy accomplishment!

Molly: Yes, Lucy totally inspires me… I’m also inspired by other illustrators I have met in Berlin: Maren Karlson, Lasse Wandschneider and Aisha Franz are huge inspirations. I constantly refer back to Herve Leger’s paintings, Thomi Ungerer for his children’s books, and [Moomintroll author and illustrator] Tove Janson‘s artwork and writing.

CF: Lucy – last year you “got the call” from Beyoncé (well, her people I’m guessing!), who wanted to commission an animated collage projection from you, for her Formation world tour. You’ve also worked with big names in Australia like Paul Kelly, Goyte, The Drones… When those calls finally come – after years of perhaps working isolation, wondering if anyone is even out there or taking notice – how does it feel?

Lucy: It’s validating. I work alone and without an agent. I can be quite passive about seeking out work (unless I discover something and it’s so on my wavelength I’m compelled to reach out.) I’m usually working on projects that come to me, so it is remarkable that simply by having my work online has brought in some of these opportunities.

I feel satisfaction, gratefulness and relief! But the moment I actually start working on whatever the brief is, or whatever I have proposed to do, I think “Hmmm, I wonder what we’ll actually end up with…” There is always the risk I could mess something up, and as the only person responsible – it can be a lot of pressure!

Photo from beyonce.com of Lucy’s projection work for the The Formation World Tour, Tampa, FL.

CF: What are some of your favourite projects you have done so far?

Lucy: In terms of scale obviously Beyoncé was my favourite. I would like to do more ‘monolithic world tour’ animations, and working with her huge creative team was exciting. Otherwise – all my projects! I love them all. They each remind me of what was going on in my life while making them: what was going wrong and right, what I didn’t know then that I know now, how one project led to something else…

For these reasons I don’t have a “favourite”: I’m still waiting to produce something that I think works perfectly and looks effortless. Ideally it will take the form of a short film.

CF: As sisters, how do you support each other in your artistic endeavours? Do you talk about your practice and work much?

Lucy: We talk about our practice, offer practical advice and sometimes aesthetic feedback. It’s useful to have a fresh pair of eyes take in your work. Molly and I know where each other is coming from, and while I don’t think it would be in either of our natures to say if we thought the other’s work was looking like rubbish, we can offer each other respectful and useful feedback. We’re nice to each other and supportive.

Molly: Yes, we often give each other advice and feedback, and we are always very excited to share our projects and progress with each other. Usually one of us can pick up on something the other one hadn’t noticed or thought about. So there is a lot of support.

CF: Have you worked together before – or thought about working together? If so, what project might you make together? What might – if I can call it – say, a ‘Dyson & Dyson’ exhibition look like here in Berlin?!

Lucy: No! I think we have considered it, but I think it’s also good that we are forging our own paths. I think it would be fun to collaborate with Molly on some collages and an animation.

I am intrigued by sibling collaborations, like The Beach Boys and animators The Brothers Quay. But I’m not sure Molly and I see it as a marketing angle that we would employ!

Sometimes it’s fun to not say anything and let people work out the sibling connection themselves, especially if they then ask who is older or younger…

Thank you Molly and Lucy for such an interesting interview, a generous, graceful shoot and the Saturday morning Vegemite on toast : )

* * *

Interviews: Lucy Dyson, Molly Dyson
Words/edit/photos: Megan Spencer
Visit: Lucy’s website to see her collages, videos and portfolio.
Visit: Molly’s website to her illustrations, projects and portfolio.
Follow: Lucy on Instagram
Follow: Molly on Instagram
Read an interview with Molly on Grilling Me Softly
Watch: Lucy’s music video for Bernard Fanning and her short Laika – Space Dog.
View: my full photo essay on SmugMug
Watch: this video by The Carpenters
Read: my interview with Australian collage artist Karen Lynch.

Categories: art, berlin, craft, culture, interview, Music Video, People, Photo Essay

Tagged: berlin, berlin artists, bernard fanning, beyonce, collagsim, franke magazine, illustration, lucy dyson, melbourne artists, molly dyson, music video

The Iceman Cometh: Cooperblack

Megan Spencer

Posted on April 3, 2017

The last time I interviewed Yuendemu-based musician Jeremy Conlon, he was about to release Return To The Big Eyes.

His ninth as Cooperblack – the “plug n’ play” personal music project he began in the 90s – EP ‘Big Eyes (2015) was an intimate journey through fat bass lines, intensely danceable beats and a relationship that had not long fallen through the ice…

Two years on, while the prolific musician, producer and composer’s heart has healed somewhat, his sense of reflection and musical exploration is as open and raw as ever.

2017 sees him back with No. 10, Capsule, a darker, sparser offering influenced as much by a second sojourn to Berlin as the soundscapes he discovered walking the icy climes of the northern hemisphere.

Working alone except for track ‘Suomenlinna’ (on which Finnish artist Heli Valkama plays piano), and the EP’s haunting cover photo (taken in the Paris catacombs by Zoe Curren), 6-track release Capsule sees Jeremy combine dark, synth-driven songs with “found sounds” he enthusiastically recorded underground and overground as Berlin and Helsinki sank deeper into their respective winters.

After returning home with his sonic ‘spoils’, the artist swiftly set about combining these brittle, frozen atmospheres with the music he’d been previously brewing under the hot tin roof of his Central Desert studio.

While Jeremy’s signature fat bass lines are still prominent – and his inimitable sense of playful lyricism – the songs are tempered by a sense of spaciousness and patience not quite found in previous offerings.

The resulting Capsule is delicious, getting into that space just behind your eyes.

It’s a melancholic journey through sonic counterpoint, rhythm, poetic atmospheres and the scar tissue that comes with loss.

Circus Folk: What was your process for making Capsule?

Cooperblack: I have an archive of tracks, about 50 or so that are constantly buzzing away at some level of ‘completeness’. Some of these were hauled from that, and some were new.

Overall there was no specific “process” for Capsule, except to sustain a feel and sound that keeps the tracks together as one release. That sound and feel is the ultimate decision maker.

CF: What inspired the name of this release?

CB: Perhaps a “capsule” as it is small and easy to swallow?!

I feel like it is a release that really looks back at influences and feelings I have for music, emotion and aesthetic.

I also think of it as a ‘time capsule’. When I was at primary school we kids filled a time capsule with drawings and stories. But no one could find it in the building in which it was placed – by the stairs in the 3 Level red brick building at Antonio Primary in Adelaide!

I think maybe it’s a “time capsule” – meaning really me, now, yeah, a ‘time stamp’ of what I am into right now.

“Lovely lilting vocals, whispering regrets over snappy drums and super synth leads”.

Capsule cover photo by Zoe Curren

CF: Did you always want to have “found sounds” on this record?

CB: Lately I have really gotten into stereo environment recordings. I love the random nature of listening to those in different places, and the same places in which they were recorded.

Such as: the accidental sounds that pop out and make you feel like someone is in a room with you, or there is a dog barking outside, a train coming, or just people talking. I love how even the smallest sample of a place or atmosphere can bring up emotion, or make connections that were not intended.

With Capsule, as it was coming together, I spent a fair bit of time on the U-Bahn [underground railway system] in Berlin, recording the sounds underground.

I have this fantasy that all the people wearing headphones on the U-Bahn might hear tracks on Capsule and stand up for the train with there being nothing there, or hearing people in the cavernous underground while they are alone.

So many people were wearing headphones and travelling on the trains in a disconnected sonic state, it surprised me! When I wore them I felt vulnerable.

CF: Did you have a preconceived idea of the kinds of sounds you wanted to incorporate into the music? Or was it more a matter of turn up in Berlin, and see what took your fancy when you got here?

CB: No, no preconceived ideas really: I just wanted to capture sounds that I might like to hear later.

The flags waving in the wind were very intense: I was cold at the time and there felt some urgency about watching flags being pulled by the wind… Ultimately the words in that song ‘And The Flags Will Fall’ are partially about how I feel about borders and nationalism.

The bells in ‘You’re So Sure’ fell into place and sounded right: it was only afterwards I found a connection between the topic of a ‘failed marriage’ and the church bells I recorded and included in that song.

CF: What do you enjoy about sound recording in the field?

CB: The immersive nature of sound, the striving for better quality recording, the relaxing (or not relaxing!) sounds that we may listen to for a length of time…

I find field recording like swimming – or flying as I often do in dreams, where I run, trip and take off!

CF: John Cage and Brian Eno are two of your musical influences: both of those artists also worked with “found sounds” and “accidents” in their music, as you do… Specifically, what or who influenced your choice to include soundscape as part of Capsule?

CB: I feel like the found sounds or extended samples give an individual feel and flavour to the release. I love artists who mash up found sounds with electronic sounds – Christian Vogel and Adam Lamb for example.

So making a dense background similar to a large black heavy curtain, that places the music somewhere apart from where you are. And the fact that loads of people wear headphones nowadays: I feel as if I want to creep some of ‘the outside’ back in!

I feel as if soundscapes and ‘real sounds’ mixed with music add a level of ‘confusion’ for the listener. It also sets a place that the music is happening and possibly being performed in.

CF: You live in what many Europeans might consider an “alien landscape”, in a desert area of the Northern Territory. Then you travelled to Helsinki, a place that many Australians might consider “alien” with its icy landscape! What was that trip to Finland like for you? And could you draw any parallels between where you live in the desert (Yuendumu) and the ice (Helsinki)?

CB: I visited a friend in Helsinki so it was great to see how she lives, her house, what she eats and all the things that make her Finnish… The cold was even more of a shock than Berlin: deep snow and silence.

It was easier for me to find live music happening in Helsinki than Berlin, as there seemed to be a fair few rock n’ roll or punk bars with bands and loud music. There was also a piano at my friend’s – the artist Heli Valkama’s house. We pulled it apart and made it a live and responsive machine, sensitive to a sneeze or cough. That was great.

One day was spent travelling to an old fort just outside of Helsinki called Suomenlinna. The journey there was on a ferry; the gearing and engine noise was very interesting. I set up my recorder and through the headphones I could hear this sound, like concrete being smashed. I had never heard this before. I looked out the ferry window and it was ploughing through a frozen ocean – fantastic. On returning to Heli’s house, I composed a piece for “2 Humans and 1 Piano” (myself, Heli and the responsive machine). This dark piano piece and the sounds of the ferry seem to sum up the day.

The colour of Finland is so white; the desert of Yuendumu is so red (though right at the moment it’s rather green from all the rain). I would love to visit Lapland in the north of Finland one day. So the found sounds may sound “wintery”, but perhaps not to everyone. For people who hear them first on Capsule, they may think they are something totally unrelated. I enjoyed laying them in the compositions and creating space for the songs to live in.

CF: When it came to making the music for Capsule, you kind of went ‘dark’. What is this EP inspired by in particular? What if any themes might be running through it, or emotions are you mining, especially with reference to sound and lyrics?

CB: Right up into the final weeks of finishing the release, I was still writing lyrics. I tend to scat or ad lib nonsense in a song and carve out meaning from what I may be hearing.

I am mining past emotions that I thought had disappeared many years ago; they are not necessarily my own, but of those close to me.

I am mining the need to be ‘present’ and real to myself, and others.

Some songs lyrics are deeply emotional for me (‘You’re So Sure’) and some are a really free form about me at that particular moment in time – how I am physically and mentally (for example ‘When I’m Gone’).

Lately I have been delving into The Cure’s back catalogue: I really appreciate the songwriting and production, namely the albums Disintegration and Faith. This has also been an inspiration.

CF: You’ve been fascinated with – and drawn to – Berlin, its culture and music for some time. Since when did it kind of come across your radar? Do you recall that moment? (I’m guessing it might have been through music?!)

CB: Yes, through music: a lot of the musicians I love and have been influenced by, have worked or lived in Berlin and Germany: David Bowie, Iggy Pop, Nick Cave, Kaftwerk, Nina Hagen, Planningtorock, to name just a few…

I really appreciate the way the city influences new electronic music by having so many places for electronic musicians and DJs to perform. Plus an awesome, receptive audience who appreciates it, as well as some great music labels based there.

Berlin feels as if it’s in a state of flux: a new city coming of age in an old city with an insane history. I have to stop travelling there in only winter though – I want to see the sunny side!

CF: You’ve been to Berlin twice: can you articulate why it is you are so attracted to the city and culture here, especially given that your most recent trip was spent working on your new EP in Berlin?

CB: I feel like with the second journey I looked closer at the people, met people outside of my great friends already there, and took a few more risks by being adventurous.

I also saw more poverty, more extremes of classes of people.

I looked at the history and variations of buildings, and got lost in the streets. For some reason I feel navigationally confident in Berlin; this in turn made me feel more creative.

The many voices and many accents you listen to there make the soundscape in the city unique. I just find getting to know a city fascinating, and Berlin is a city that I have dreamed about getting to know since I listened to [David Bowie’s] Low as a teenager.

Berlin seems to ‘own’ artists too, and recognise their influence and importance to the artistic character of the place. I feel as if I have only scratched the surface of the Berlin I want to – and hope to – discover. I think visiting again in the spring or summer will change that a bit.

CF: In the music of Capsule, I really enjoyed hearing resonances of “Berlin” artists, from Depeche Mode and Lou Reed to David Bowie and Brian Eno. All of them worked in Berlin, were influenced by the city, and left their mark here. But you’re also a fan of many women musicians and artists, some of whom live and work in Berlin – or have. Can you tell us a bit about your “female canon” of artists, particularly the ones who have a Berlin or European connection? And also why you love their music?

CB: I find voice manipulation fascinating, and there are some great women producers who I love for that reason.

Planningtorock is based in Berlin, and her music is spacious, questioning and totally interesting. The Knife (and their offside projects) often perform in Berlin; I find them a great influence, for their sound, voice manipulation, their political stance on gender and social issues.

And Chinawoman is fantastic, once again for the same reasons as the other artists I mentioned. She also delves deep into relationships, and has a particularly awesome bass guitar sound that I melt over.

CF: Do you find making music a healing or therapeutic process?

CB: Totally therapeutic – and totally necessary! Music is a massive tool for me, a way to process and contextualize what is happening to me, and the world. It doesn’t necessarily matter whether anyone likes it, hears it or whatever… It’s what I need to do.

* * *

Declaration: This is paid content.

Many thanks to Jeremy Conlon for the interview!

Interview: Jeremy Conlon
Words/edit/photos: Megan Spencer
Listen/download Capsule on Bandcamp and iTunes
Visit: Cooperblack on Bandcamp.
Read the Circus Folk interview with Jeremy about Return To The Big Eyes and the essay about losing David Bowie.
Note: Megan Spencer has been friends with Jeremy Conlon since 2008 and produced & directed Cooperblack’s ‘Salted’ music video.

Categories: bands, berlin, interview, Music

Tagged: berlin, capsule, cooperblack, depeche mode, finland, jeremy conlon, music

Gang of Film Berlin

Megan Spencer

Posted on March 16, 2017

Ninety-nine films, four per day, one month on your butt and no end in sight…

Film festivals are fun. Invigorating. Inspiring. But it has to be said, they are also hazardous to your health – especially if you’re a film critic covering one of the biggest in the world.

Marathon swathes of time are spent away from sunlight. You spend so much time sitting in the dark you worry about turning into a vampire and getting deep vein thrombosis. Kind of insane when you think about it…

I was comprehensively reminded at the recent 2017 Berlinale, the above being the ‘statistical’ outcome from my own ’embedded’ experience there. I covered the festival for three Australian media outlets: ABC Local Radio (Overnights with Rod Quinn: 3 x sprawling chats and tons of fun); ABC Radio National (film program ‘The Final Cut‘ with Jason Di Rosso. Great to ‘talk festivals’ with possibly the last remaining cinephile on Australian radio); and Guardian Australia (a feature about compassionate, Australian-made game changer, Casting JonBenét.)

True, I got to see a gigantic, excellent swag of films (Competition selection aside, the Berlinale programmers excelled themselves in Panorama, Generation, Forum, Retrospective and Shorts). And, after a “hiatus”, to re-inhabit one of the great passions of my life: cinema.

But that wasn’t the best bit. I also got to meet some lovely folk. Lovely film critic folk.

They became my community.

It’s been a while ‘between drinks’ for me at Berlinale: twelve years to be precise. (Eleven really – last year I dipped a toe back in, covering genre-blending Aboriginal TV series ‘Cleverman’ for Guardian Australia. Directed by Wayne Blair, it world premiered in ‘Berlinale Special Series’.)

The first time I hit the ground running at Potsdamer Platz – sampling my first curry wurst in sub-zero icy climes – was in 2005.

I was a critic and presenter for Australian TV program, ‘The Movie Show’. I got lucky: it was the year The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou was in Competition – a dream come true to interview not only Wes Anderson but Angelica Huston *swoon*. (She had a cold and I told her about echinacea).

Ken Loach was there with film ‘compendium’ Tickets. (We chatted atop the not-long-completed, highly contentious Renzo Piano glass triangle, “Potsdamer Platz 11“.) I interviewed George Michael (vale) at the Adlon Hotel about documentary George Michael: A Different Story. (He was super lovely. We talked about the “difficulties of being Cancerian”.) Plus it was the season of mighty films Paradise Now, Thumbsucker, Sophie Scholl and The Beat That My Heart Skipped, blitzing at the festival awards all.

Two talented Aboriginal Australian filmmakers were also recognised: Warwick Thornton’s Green Bush took home the Panorama Best Short Film prize, and Wayne Blair’s The Djarn Djarns won the Kplus Crystal Bear for the Best Short Film.

Both starting out in their careers, we met for the first time in Berlin. I remember standing in the middle of the (then) AFC Festival party, the three of us a bit dazed and confused from jet lag and the crazy energy of the night. Desert-hued snowflakes sprinkled down outside the window, tinged by the Festspiele‘s orange lights shining on from the platz below. It was a bit special.

It was a bit special again when I interviewed Wayne at Berlinale 2016, now years on with a smash hit under his belt (The Sapphires), not to mention an LA agent. Grinning back at me, he thought so too.

To paraphrase an old Deutsch theologian, nothing like “the magic of beginnings”…

* * *

Too many hours in the dark.. L-R: Yun-hua Chen, David Mouriquand & Teresa Vena.

2017 rolls around. I’m living in Berlin. I’m still a freelancer. And when it comes to festivals, Berlinale’s one of the “big three”. I’d be silly not to cover it again, right? In my adopted home town? This is where I live. Doubts arise.

Can I still do this? Cover a festival? This isn’t what I do now – well not often, anyway. Do I still love film enough to watch four movies – FOUR! – a day, and surrender my life to it for an entire month?

Moreover, does film still love me?

The answer – like most things as I’m learning – lay in ‘finding community’. Enter three sweet souls: firstly David Mouriquand, “half-French, half-English” he tells me within moments of meeting, which we do by chance on Day Two of the pre-festival press screenings, waiting in the cold outside of the big-arse multiplex where films are being previewed.

Asking “whether the doors are open yet”, I apologise for assuming he speaks English and not German. He tells me he doesn’t speak German “just French and English”. Oh yeah, “and Spanish”. Whereupon I blush with the shame of my Antipodean mono-lingual upbringing.

He writes for English-language Berlin pop-culture mag EXBERLINER, and is steeling himself to blog daily once the Festival begins (read tight turnarounds between snatched snacks and three daily Competition screenings.) Within seconds he offers up his love for Tom Waits and helpful advice on how to navigate this freaking behemoth of a Festival. I sigh audibly in relief and watch the breath from my lungs freeze mid-air.

Out on the streets: Ava Gardner & Gregory Peck, ‘On The Beach’ (1959).

Day Three and David introduces me to Yun-hua Chen. From Taiwan and Berlin-based, she speaks Chinese, German, French and English (possibly even some Greek), writes reviews in all four, and works for the Goethe Institute’s international critic program. She’s a hardcore cinephile. I quiver in admiration.

Day Four, and anticipating a massive dose of home-sickness, I see On The Beach (1959), a movie set in and around the beaches of Melbourne, my home town. The titular “beach” – Canadian Bay on the Mornington Peninsula – and the suburbs in which many of its dramatic scenes play out, feel so close. This beach was one of the the places my parents swam, socialised and formed the narrative of their early life together, in their 20s.

It’s at Arsenal, the cinema for cinephiles. Covered in classic posters (Herzog’s 70s masterpiece Stroszek among them, original creasefolds still visible), I bump into Yun-hua. She introduces me to Teresa Vena. Teresa’s Swiss, speaks German, English and French (and most-probably Italian.) She writes in all three, and for online magazine Berliner Filmfestivals. I wind up seeing snippets of her reviews on my daily U-Bahn ride to and from the Festival. Playing to the sleep-deprived commuters, they cyclically flash onto the TV screens inside the crowded train carriages.

Teresa spots me after On The Beach: I’m a teary mess. Not just because I’ve just seen my home town (and the beaches where I grew up) rendered empty and soulless by an eerily-imagined atomic apocalypse, but grief has reared its familiar head. The fifth anniversary of my Mum’s passing was only days before. The sadness is still near. The film returns to me a memory of hers: the time she got to shake the hand of Gregory Peck when he was shooting the film in situ. It was the year before she and Dad married and she was working at the city’s iconic department store, Myer. The actor was paraded through the grand building as a token of goodwill towards the city of Melbourne for being so “hospitable” to the production (and it was.) So the story goes, the “ladies of the office”, of whom she was one, lined up to meet the 40-something Hollywood star.

Mum also proudly told me that one of her girlfriends was an extra at Canadian Bay, for the key scene where Ava Gardner and Peck get their romance on. It prompted one of the film’s best lines, uttered by Fred Astaire, who, watching the lovers cavort in the water with binoculars from the shore, declares “It’s like looking at a French movie!”

No matter: I think Teresa was impressed that I could feel so much in a movie. In a world that shuns vulnerability, perhaps that’s the currency cinephiles share, and value: an appreciation for the possibility of being moved to tears in the communal privacy of a darkened cinema.

Deeply inspired by film and energised at the prospect of Berlinale starting – I’d found my people. A Whats App group formed. So did this “gang of film”. With three weeks of previews over, we saddled up and rode into the sunset of the Festival proper: ten days including Competition.

Still from ‘Skins’ by Eduardo Casanova.

A month after meeting, the four of us emerge from the dark. We’ve spent countless hours together, watching countless films – also working, sharing stories, information and snacks, celeb spotting and ‘communing’ at screenings, a few parties, nightly knock-off drinks, and press conferences.

This caravan of critics attracts others. The community ebbs and flows as does the icy weather and occasional sunshine. We laugh stacks, argue kindly and listen deeply.

I’m astonished such a disparate group of people can share so much, so quickly. I’m not used to groups being so functional. Especially not in ‘the workplace’. At odds with today’s competitive click-bait eco-system, these were folk who took themselves lightly but the responsibility of reviewing films seriously. A dying breed.

Between the four of us we see close to five hundred films. Expats all, the diversity of opinions is as fascinating as it is instructive. Listening to Yun-hua’s perspective on the Taiwanese and Chinese films was illuminating, especially around the nuances involved in the narratives (The Foolish Bird, Mr. Long, Almost Heaven, A Taste of Betel Nut.) Teresa takes no prisoners when it comes to attacking the cliched tropes of French cinema (see Strange Birds, Final Portrait), and recalling the ‘best of British’, David’s merciless take down of conceits, Return To Montauk and The Dinner, was nothing short of hilarious.

The culture of consensus – and nepotism – that so often riddles Australian criticism is mercifully absent. Taste-pusher Skins divides us. So does Golden Bear Winner On Body And Soul, and out-of-competition studio entry Logan, its central ten year-old ‘killing machine’ character racking up double-figures in grisly, bloody kills.

It’s the first time I really feel ‘close’ to European cinema, in all of its complicated, ancient, fraught, sprawling, borderless glory, now somehow less distant, less ‘other’. I kind of get it now. I have Berlin, Berlinale and the Gang Of Film to thank.

* * *

The last film I see at Berlinale is a lavish, big-budget popcorn flick, as happily high-camp as it is high-action. On the advice of David (thank you) I watch The Fifth Element (1997) on a massive screen with a massive sound system. It was so pleasurable: a great way to finish what had been, frankly, a marathon that had deprived me of the natural world, and the company of loved ones who I’m sure believed I’d joined witness protection.

Jammed into a packed cinema with five hundred ‘civilians’, intoxicated by its excesses, aesthetics and craziness, together we giggled, marveled and swooned as one giant hive-mind, happily under the influence of 1990s Luc Besson. He was so on fire with that film.

I was moved to tears again, this time feeling a palpable sense of community, as we sat there, strangers, connected by such an intense experience and not wanting the credits to end.

Either that, or Chris Tucker made me cry from laughing so much. He’s sooo funny (and “Lovesexy” in TFE). All hail.

‘Chris Tucker does Prince’. Still from ‘The Fifth Element’.

So. I ask the Gang Of Film if they’d like to commemorate our Berlinale ‘moment’ by making a podcast. So that we can ruminate over the great art we got to appreciate, consider, and write about – Top Tens. Bests. Worsts. Parties. Awards. And argue – especially over whether a) Aki Kaurismaki was in fact drunk when he won the Silver Bear for Best Director, b) His film The Other Side Of Hope was sorely ripped off by not winning the Golden Bear for Best Film, and c) The national drink of Finland is in fact Lakka or Mesimarja.

They say yes.

A quote to end this rant, by the aforementioned Herra Kaurismaki, one of Europe’s greatest filmmakers, chain smokers, lovers of Lakka and and riotous destroyers of vapid award ceremonies:

“When I was young, I would sit in the bath and ideas would come to me. But I’m not young any more, so now I just sit in the bath.”

* * *

Read: David Mouriquand‘s Top Ten Best Films from Berlinale 2017
Read: Yun-hua Chen‘s Top Ten Best Films from Berlinale 2017
Read: Teresa Vena‘s Top Ten Best Films from Berlinale 2017
Read: Megan Spencer‘s Top Ten Best Films from Berlinale 2017
Listen: to the Gang Of Film podcast
View: my Berlinale ‘Awards’ gallery
Big thanks to the others who saddled up: Paul, Mohamed, Sarah, Stephanie, Wellington, Susanne and Nathaneal.
And to the helpful team at Berlinale.

Categories: festival, film

Tagged: berlinale, casting jonbenet, cleverman, film criticim, guardian australia

Still from 'Honeygiver Among The Dogs' by Dechen Roder

Top Ten Films From Berlinale: Megan Spencer

Megan Spencer

Posted on March 15, 2017

Megan Spencer, Guardian Australia, Radio National

1. Honeygiver Among The Dogs (Dechen Roder, BHUTAN)

Called the first ever “Buddhist film noir”, this is a breathtaking film set in the mountains of Bhutan. A policeman is sent to investigate the disappearance of a Buddhist nun, presumed murdered. Tailing the suspect – an impossibly beautiful woman deemed a “demon-ness” by the village bigots – the film becomes an ethereal treatise about the nature of reality – and our relationship to what we ‘think’ we know. The natural and ‘sacred’ worlds crisscross at every opportunity. A profound, unpredictable, and thrilling cinematic achievement. (Panorama)

2. Those Who Make Revolution Halfway Only Dig Their Own Graves (Mathieu Denis Simon Lavoie, CANADA)

An uncompromising, confronting and beautifully cinematic imagining on how a Baader-Meinhof-esque terrorist cell might develop out of Neo-Liberal, capitalist society. Straight-to-camera set pieces, political quotes and extended instrumental ‘interludes’ arrogantly punctuate this searing, 3-hour French-Canadian production. (Generation 14+)

3. Casting JonBenét (Kitty Green, AUSTRALIA)

A compassionate, innovative ‘documentary hybrid’ about a 20-year-old, unsolved child murder which gripped the world. Funny, moving and a decidedly kind take on the very human instinct to distract ourselves from our own pain and trauma, by focusing on the tragedies that befall others. Disrupting the documentary form by combining interviews with “camera confessional” and re-enactment, Panorama programmer Wieland Speck tells me, “By offering many different approaches to ‘the truth’, the complex.. non-calculable ways our remembrance works become transparent… We bear witness to something like the creation of a ‘swarm’ truth – which is not leading to new horizons, but sharpens and enriches our ability to be critical. More important than ever in times of – you name it – fake truths and alternative facts.” What he said. (Panorama)

4.On Body And Soul (Ildikó Enyedi, HUNGARY)

A deserving winner of the Golden Bear, with some of the most beautiful images ever put to screen. An ethereal, strangely moving and sweetly funny romantic ‘dramedy’ about a pair of office workers who can only find connection and intimacy through sharing dreams. Set against the backdrop of a slaughterhouse, it speaks volumes about work, the divide between ‘that which is man-made’ and ‘the natural world’, and what might become of us if we remove ourselves from caring about either. (Competition)

5. Requiem For Mrs J. (Bojan Vuletić, SERBIA)

A knockout of a film about a woman struggling to continue after the death of her husband. Everyone around her is hateful, nothing holds meaning any more and she is rendered numb, furthered also by an Orwellian, post-war bureaucracy with little time for empathy. At times drolly funny, it’s an unpredictable, redemptive and powerful portrait of contemporary life in a possible post-EU Europe. (Panorama Special)

6. The Other Side Of Hope (Aki Kaurismaki, FINLAND)

Director Aki Kaurismaki burst into song at the post-Competition-screening press conference for his film. He had a lot to sing about: this is a touching, deadpan funny and deadly serious look at the plight of of asylum seekers in ‘post-refugee crisis’ Europe. The second in Kaurismaki’s planned “refugee trilogy”, I loved it from start to finish. And the music. Silver Bear winner for ‘Best Director’. (Competition)

7. Wilde Maus (Josef Hader, AUSTRIA)

A beautifully-written, satirical comedy about the chattering classes, “polite society” and a mid-life crisis, talented Austrian cabaret artist and actor Josef Hader reportedly “gave” himself this film to direct as a 50th birthday present. He’s a brilliant clown. Not what you think, it’s one of the funniest films in the festival. Wilde Maus should have won a major award, plain and simple. (Competition)

8. Loving Pia (Daniel Borgman, DENMARK)

Casting mostly ‘non-actors’, and shot on 16mm, Borgman tells the story of Pia, an aging, intellectually disabled woman, yearning for romance and living in rural Denmark. Based on the central actress’s own life story, the film blossoms into an incredibly moving, sweet romantic comedy, with a pet goose stealing the show at every opportunity. A brave and compassionate portrait, courtesy of a unique collaboration between the actors and director. (Forum)

9. Untitled (Michael Glawogger, Monica Willi, AUSTRIA)

A big fan of Workingman’s Death, I was saddened to hear of iconoclast documentary maker Michael Glawogger’s own in 2014. Longtime editor Monica Willi took it upon herself to finish his final project, left unedited at the time of his demise, brought about by an infection while travelling.

Glawogger’s gaze upon the world is unique. Here he sets out to make a film with no premise other than to aimlessly, “intuitively”, wander the world in search of beauty and meaning. Willi helps him posthumously achieve his vision, fashioning a stark and poetic observation of a world simultaneously falling apart and resurrecting, courtesy of ‘man’ and nature. (Panorama)

10. Ghost Hunting (Raed Andoni, PALESTINE)

A controversial, courageous and at times tough to watch film, that, like Casting JonBenét, combines re-enactment and “role play” with documentary footage. Palestinian former inmates of an Israeli detention centre are invited to collaborate on a film about their incarceration. The director invites them to build a replica of the prison and ‘interrogates’ them about their experiences.

At times appearing cruel and at others cathartic, the film is poetic statement about human rights and the need to live in peace and with dignity. Winner of the Glasshutte Original Documentary Award. (Panorama Documentary)

Honor Roll: Call Me By Your Name, Poi E: The Story of Our Song, I Am Not Your Negro, Dream Boat, Somnilioquies, My Entire High School Sinking Into The Sea, Emo The Musical, Have A Nice Day, The Wound, Insyriated, A Fantastic Woman, Beuys, Bones Of Contention, Joaquim, Wolfe (short).

Back to Main Article

Categories: festival, film

Tagged: berlinale, megan spencer

Top Ten Films From Berlinale: Teresa Vena

Megan Spencer

Posted on March 15, 2017

Guest Post: Teresa Vena, Berliner Filmfestivals.

Honeygiver Among The Dogs by Dechen Roder

This is the first film completely shot in Bhutan, with all actors native from Bhutan. Female director Dechen Roder is able to show an intriguing story in beautiful pictures, with perfect rhythm. The plot is very intelligent evoking a constant menacing atmosphere, suggesting a crime that finally never happened.

Centaur by Aktan Aryum Kubat

The second film by this director from Kyrgyzstan tells in an authentic way about the loss of connection between ‘man’ and ‘nature’. The main character is played by the director himself; he has a great charisma.

Tiere (Animals) by Greg Zglinski

An intriguing roller coaster ride around the topics love, trust and jealousy. Reality and fiction are mixed up and the spectator needs to stay focused. At the end however, there is no explicit interpretation: it’s up to the spectator to find their own.

ORG (1979) by Fernando Birri

A 177 minute film with more than 26,000 cuts! A kaleidoscope of pictures, text and sound loosely linked to the short story by Thomas Mann “Die vertauschten Köpfe”.

The project of this still-living, now 91-year-old Argentinian director was created between 1967 and 1978, and supported by Mario Girotti, better known as “Terence Hill”, who also plays one of the main characters.

An highly suggestive experiment, it’s a film with the ambition to invent a new film language and aesthetic. Birri himself said that it’s a “nightmare movie”, but definitely an unforgettable and enriching experience.

El Bar (The Bar) by Alex de la Iglesia

Spain’s enfant terrible shot a horror comedy with great protagonists and a good sense of timing. While the last third gets a bit repetitive, the first part of the film is hilarious. Perfectly designed opening and closing titles.

Obaltan by Yu Hyun-mok

A Korean film from 1961 in black and white reminiscent of Italian Neorealism. The film depicts a North Korean family left in the South after the war, struggling with unemployment and poverty. Emotions are shown coldly and laconically except in the the closing scene, where the main character, suffering from a tenacious toothache, drives a cab around the city losing his orientation. It’s a scene that reminds of Fellini’s closing scene from Roma.

The Party by Sally Potter

A black comedy with perfect timing and great sense of humor. A tremendous cast.

Untitled by Michael Glawogger and Monika Willi

The footage of this documentary was been shot by Austrian director Michael Glawogger on a trip around the world – a film he was unable to finish, as he died from malaria in 2014. [The job went to his longtime editor, Monica Willi]. Untitled shows his sensitivity and great curiosity about what surrounds him. His view is not one of a superior foreigner, but of a compassionate observer.

Avanti Popolo by Rafi Bukaee

An Israeli film from 1986 about the Gaza war between Arabs and Israelis. The first film from Israel in which Arabs actually were personified by real Arab actors. It tells the story of a friendship between supposed enemies who share the same dreams, hopes and fears about misunderstandings and the absurdity of war.

Last Witness by Lee Doo-yong

This film was restored by the Korean Film Archive and shown at the Berlinale Forum section at the full length of 155 minutes. Released in 1980, it is considered to be a precursor to all Korean gangster movies, which represent one of the biggest aspects of Korean film production.

The censors back then cut nearly an hour of the film, considering it too violent, and because the story sympathizes “too much” with North Koreans.

Despite its length, the film is really captivating, proposing an unusual morally upright and highly empathic policeman. There are strong pictures of rural Korea that evoke, through constant rain and muddy landscapes, a particular atmosphere.

Back to Main Article

Categories: festival, film

Tagged: berlinale, teresa vena

Top Ten Films From Berlinale: Yun-hua Chen

Megan Spencer

Posted on March 15, 2017

Guest Post: Yun-hua Chen, Goethe Institute, Mosaic Space And Mosaic Auteurs.

Qiu / Inmates

Audacious, sensitive, contemplative, non-judgmental, gentle and very humane, it has definitely brought new perspectives and thoughts which will stay with me for a very long time.

Small Talk

The most brutally candid conversation with oneself and love letter to one’s mother that I have ever seen. I truly admire the filmmaker’s remarkable courage, tenderness and strength. Tissues needed!

Close-Knit

It’s such a sweet and heart-warming film, and beautifully acted by the trio. Tissues needed – again!

Insyriated

An incredibly powerful chamber piece that shows as much the outside world in turmoil as the internal state of the distressed family, stranded somewhere in Syria. It left me breathless.

The Bomb

Mind-blowing. Beauty in cruelty to the extreme. A must-watch for every human being on earth.

Ghost in the Mountains

I love its cleverly orchestrated labyrinthine and trance-like narrative, intentionally eye-deceiving camerawork, and meditative mise-en-scène.

Animals

A very powerful film. A lot of the scenes still haunt me now.

Almost Heaven

A seemingly simple and straightforward film on the surface, it delves deep into issues of life and death, the transition in-between, and what living actually means.

Somnilioques

A sublime journey across the boundaries of dim light and darkness, consciousness and subconsciousness, sound and silence

Newton

In a humorous way the film exposes the absurdity ingrained in the democratic system, and asks some important, thought-provoking questions which cannot be easily answered.

Back to Main Article

Categories: festival, film

Tagged: berlinale, yun-hua chen

Still from Raoul Peck's 'I Am Not Your Negro'.

Top Ten Films From Berlinale: David Mouriquand

Megan Spencer

Posted on March 15, 2017

Guest Post: David Mouriquand, EXBERLINER, Before The Bombs Fall.

1) I AM NOT YOUR NEGRO

An unmissable offering in this year’s Panorama selection was Raoul Peck’s timely, Oscar-nominated documentary I Am Not Your Negro. The filmmaker takes the words of the late novelist and social critic James Baldwin, who wanted the lives of Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jr and Medgar Evers “to bang up against each other”, and stylishly laces his prose with archival footage and modern clips.

The result is a concise, articulate and non-hectoring chronicle of black activism during the civil rights movement, which contains eerily prophetic aspects, and comes to life through the director’s status as a cinephile.

Peck uses a great number of film clips in order to create a fascinating correlation between the history of cinema and America’s race and class struggle. Hollywood here is essentially the eagle wounded by an arrow. It’s a riveting watch.

2) THE BOMB

Conceived as “an art installation with live music” for a soundtrack by the band The Acid, The Bomb transfers surprisingly well to the big screen. Screening in the Berlinale Special selection, it clocks in at 1 hour and features footage of the atomic bomb, from its inception to its use. Disturbing, insightful and immensely powerful, directors Kevin Ford, Smriti Keshari and Eric Schlosser show how truly terrifying it is that mankind is capable of the being the architects of our own worst fears and possibly, demise.

3) UNTITLED

This posthumous documentary by Michael Glawogger, edited by his longstanding collaborator Monika Willi, is a mesmeric cinematic experience. Composed of the Austrian director’s last footage, filmed in the Balkans, Italy, North and West Africa, it offers a contemplative journey that is as transportive as it is eye-opening.

4) ON BODY AND SOUL

Ildikó Enyedi’s return to the silver screen after an 18-year sabbatical proved to be successful: the writer/director scooped up the Golden Bear. Her film focuses on the nascent relationship between two lonely souls who work in an abattoir. Inhabiting a harsh world unconducive to tenderness, they forge an empathic connection in somnolence.

The affecting performances and the melancholic tone make it a weirdly inspired choice for this year’s top prize. It also clashes with last year’s rather obvious winner Fire At Sea, which was Berlinale-tailored. Not that aspects of On Body And Soul aren’t timely: maybe we need an unusual love story to see us through the strange times in which we currently live…

5) THE PARTY

Chameleonic British director Sally Potter’s eighth feature was the comedic highlight of this year’s Competition. It was also the streamlined and effective antidote to Oren Moverman’s bloated The Dinner, also selected in Competition.

This monochromatic chamber piece, dubbed by the director as “a light and loving look at a broken England”, is a lean, mean and wickedly mordant black comedy which frequently echoes the work of Yasmina Reza and John Boynton Priestly. The zingers land, the mystery works and the eye-watering cast have a blast, making this dysfunctional game of Cluedo a one-act play that happily stakes its claim in the pantheon of parties-gone-wrong films.

6) CASTING JONBENET

Kitty Green’s documentary about the unsolved murder of the titular 6-year old beauty queen is an excellent genre-bending hybrid, the thought-provoking antics of which echo Robert Greene’s Kate Plays Christine, screening at last year’s Berlinale. It is a compelling and darkly humorous look at our culture’s obsession with the sensational, as well as a study on our tendency towards schadenfreude, and the morbid fascination we all have when it comes to tragedy.

7) THE OTHER SIDE OF HOPE

Aki Kaurismaki’s droll take on the immigration crisis is the surreal ‘yin’ to last year’s Golden Bear-winning ‘yang’, Fire At Sea. Beautifully acted and cinematically lush, this unpredictable film has heart to spare, deftly meshing deadpan humour with sincerity. Arguably this year’s Competition selection’s strongest offering.

8) EL PACTO DE ADRIANA (ADRIANA’S PACT)

This incredibly impactful and truly engrossing documentary is the Panorama selection’s gem. Lissette Orozco’s feature film debut tells the story of a revelation which causes a deep fracture within a family: the director’s favourite aunt, Adriana, is suddenly detained while visiting her family in Chile. She is accused of having worked for the DINA, Pinochet’s notorious secret police and faces horrifying charges of torture, which she denies.

Armed with a camera, her young niece takes it upon herself to uncover the truth about Adriana: a truth that could exonerate or incriminate her beloved aunt. Imagine if Sarah Polley’s Stories We Tell had taken a more troubling turn, and you gauge the tone of this haunting documentary, the intrigue of which rivals the most immersive of conspiratorial spy dramas.

9) INSYRIATED

Belgian director Philippe Van Leew helms an incredibly tense chamber piece set in Damascus. As the world crumbles around a small group of people holed up in an apartment, one matriarch desperately tries to salvage her family and neighbours’ humanity.

It is one of the Panorama selection’s most thrilling offerings, boasting a superb and complex central performance from Israeli Arab actress Hiam Abbass, previously seen in Steven Spielberg’s Munich and recent Netflix hit, The OA.

10) SOMNILOQUIES

This experimental dreamscape from directors Verena Paravel and Lucien Castaing-Taylor screened in the Forum selection, is ideal for those who like their films destabilizing and hypnotic. It focuses on the late American songwriter Dion McGregor who made the history books as the world’s most prolific sleep-talker. Over the years his roommate and fellow songwriter Mike Barr would record his friend’s nocturnal diatribes, all at conversational volume. They oscillate between the surreally funny, impressively coherent and the poetically disturbing.

The filmmakers curated and compiled selections of his dream-speech recordings, and play them over the blurred exploration of naked bodies belonging to sleepers. The result is a lysergic mood poem that often feels like being in a sensory deprivation tank.

Honourable Mentions: God’s Own Country, Close-Knit, Pokot, El Bar, Call Me By Your Name.

Back to Main Article

Categories: festival, film

Tagged: berlinale, david Mouriquand

Stories from inside life’s big top.

Musca Volitans

Megan Spencer

Posted on June 8, 2017

Blood Crystals: Kris Keogh

Megan Spencer

Posted on May 26, 2017

A Podcast about Precious Objects

Megan Spencer

Posted on May 15, 2017

Close To You: Lucy & Molly Dyson

Megan Spencer

Posted on May 9, 2017

The Iceman Cometh: Cooperblack

Megan Spencer

Posted on April 3, 2017

“Lovely lilting vocals, whispering regrets over snappy drums and super synth leads”.

Declaration: This is paid content.

Gang of Film Berlin

Megan Spencer

Posted on March 16, 2017

Top Ten Films From Berlinale: Megan Spencer

Megan Spencer

Posted on March 15, 2017

Top Ten Films From Berlinale: Teresa Vena

Megan Spencer

Posted on March 15, 2017

Top Ten Films From Berlinale: Yun-hua Chen

Megan Spencer

Posted on March 15, 2017

Top Ten Films From Berlinale: David Mouriquand

Megan Spencer

Posted on March 15, 2017