Series: “The Last of Us” on Sky
One becomes curious when American cultural criticism overflows with praise. The third chapter of otherwise too very decent film adaptation of the zombie video game “Last of Us” (Sky and Wow) is one of the best series episodes in the history of television. Something like that creates unattainable expectations. And indeed, a very unusual love story unfolds, which you can watch in a short feature film length without the rest of the series. Right at the beginning of the plague, the Prepper Bill (Nick Offerman) barricaded himself in his town behind barbed wire and traps. Frank (Murray Bartlett) falls into one of these pits. How the right-wing prepper and the left-wing esthete then get closer and build a common idyll is really touching. And is making the right wing in America very angry right now. Male love in the post-apocalypse is not intended in the eternally yesterday’s world view. Andrian Kreye
Classic: “Femmes” by Raphaela Gromes
“Femmes”: The CD cover of Raphaela Gromes’ new record.
(Photo: Sony Classical)
Hildegard von Bingen (1098-1179) would certainly have been amazed that her antiphon “O virtus sapientiae” came to life around nine hundred years later as an arrangement (Julian Riem) for cello and strings, performed so elegantly and lightly by the Munich cellist Raphaela Gromes and the Festival Strings Lucerne. Arranged opera arias such as Henry Purcell’s “Dido’s Lament” or Wolfgang Amadé Mozart’s Susanna aria from “The Marriage of Figaro”, romantic cello pieces such as Clara Schumann’s Romance or Fanny Hensel’s G minor Fantasy, pieces from the 20th century by Rebecca Clarke, Amy Beach, Dolores White or Lera Auerbach, a Carmen fantasy based on Goerge Bizet by Julian Riem and various dance pieces – all this is offered on this double CD album that Raphaela Gromes and her piano partner and arranger Julian Riem offer to the “femmes”, the composing women have dedicated.
Certainly it sometimes seems as if only one short piece follows the other like a chain of encores. But Gromes plays the diversity of this unfortunate little-known music with elastic impetus, always mindful of vocal quality and broad perspectives, so that one not only listens curiously, but often with excitement and amazement. Clara Schumann’s gripping romance, Hensel’s elegiac fantasy or Rebecca Clarke’s haunting “Epilogue” are great cello pieces, as are the impressionistic pieces by the siblings Nadia and Lili Boulanger. The world premiere recording of “Tre momenti” by Matilde Capuis (1913-2017) is just as worthwhile as encountering so much music that is not only different from the epoch, but always original. This double album convincingly refutes the old-fashioned ramblings that even great minds like Friedrich Schlegel were not immune to (“Women give birth to people, men to works of art”) with a wealth of stimulating and varied music. It would be very desirable to tackle and discover more extensive, larger-format pieces by the composers, so that these embarrassing gaps in the history of music reception can finally be fundamentally closed. Harold Eggebrecht
Film: “Sorry Comrade” by Vera Brückner
Narrative documentaries often turn out to be conventional, but here it is the story and its creative resolution that surprises: Scene from “Sorry Comrade”.
(Photo: Screenshot: SZ)
Bucharest or Budapest? Such cities can be confused at times. At least in the German documentary “Sorry Comrade”, where the protagonists board the wrong train during a trip to Eastern Europe. What sounds like a funny holiday anecdote almost ended in fatality for these travellers. Because the Movie tells a not so funny story from the Cold War, it’s about espionage, Securitate and Stasi files. In the center is a German-German couple, he lives in the West, she in the East. Karl-Heinz and Hedi meet at a family celebration in Thuringia, the year is 1969. They fall in love, write letters, he regularly visits Leipzig or Jena. As the longing grows, Karl-Heinz even applies for naturalization in the GDR. But the gentlemen from the Ministry for State Security have other plans for the love-struck western student. And so the young couple comes up with the idea of fleeing to Romania, which is so crazy that it works despite proven dilettantism, forged passports and mixed-up trains.
Director Vera Maria Brückner completed her film studies in Munich with “Sorry Comrade” and was invited to the Berlinale in 2022. Formally, that sounds rather semi-exciting: Narrative documentaries often turn out to be conventional, with faded archive footage, talking heads and an already fixed end. Here, however, it is the story and its creative resolution that surprises: the director tells the story lovingly and playfully, uses accessories, animations or agent gimmicks. Her film keeps striking new tones, sometimes dramatic, sometimes tongue-in-cheek silly. Halfway through, he almost switches genres. It is a fresh look at Germany’s past, like that of a generation of female filmmakers who only knew the Iron Curtain from history class. Because of course there were already film stories about lovers and their escape from the GDR, German history has given the cinema rich gifts in this regard. But they should always come across a little differently so that the audience pays attention. Josef Gruebl
Poetry: “Portrait of a Spinning Top” by Yoko Tawada
Yoko Tawada: “Portrait of a Spinning Top”. Bankruptcy book, 12.50 euros.
(Photo: bankruptcy book)
The German literary scene is teeming with people who describe themselves on the big stages as marginalized outsiders. The Japanese writer Yoko Tawada, who lives in Berlin and writes in German, is the other way around: although she has been showered with prizes, grants and honorary doctorates for 20 years, her idiosyncratic independence seems untouchable. To this day she publishes her books in the small Tübingen bankruptcy book publishing house. Most recently, the small volume of poetry “Portrait of a Spinning Top” was published there, which contains everything that makes her an exceptional author: her ability to settle into cultural gaps, her unique treatment of language, her literary horizon, and last but not least her wit. The fact that this volume is more of a by-product of her work does not speak against the volume, but definitely in favor of the work. Felix Stephen
Movie: “The Man Who Hunted Himself” by Basil Dearden
Is that the real or the wrong Mr. Pelham? Regardless, both are played by Roger Moore.
(Photo: Courtesy Everett Collection/imago images)
My favorite 1970 film says Roger Moore, after that it became the new James Bond. Here he is Mr. Harold Pelham, the very British, so rather dried-up businessman, and he is being chased by an ominous doppelganger who appears when Pelham is in intensive care – and the doctors suddenly detect two heartbeats on him. Pelham had sped off in his car during the night in a spontaneous escape attempt. As he gropes back to his everyday life, his alter ego cheekily draws him into a game of rabbits and hedgehogs. The other Pelham was always there, in the office, playing billiards with colleagues, with his lover and also with his wife. The last film by the great filmmaker Basil Dearden, he died in a traffic accident in 1971, allegedly on the same route as Mr. Pelham. Fritz Goettler
