Recycling Medea

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Movie
German title Recycling Medea
Original title Recycling Medea
Country of production Germany
original language Greek , German
Publishing year 2013
length 75 minutes
Rod
Director Asteris Kutulas
script Asteris Kutulas, Ina Koutoulas
production Asteris Kutulas, Klaus Salge
music Mikis Theodorakis
camera Mike Geranios , Asteris Kutulas, James Chryssanthes
cut Babette Rosenbaum
occupation

Recycling Medea is a German - Greek essay film by Asteris Kutulas from 2013. The film is a hybrid of music film , ballet film , documentary recordings and political commentary on the crisis situation in Greece, from which Kutulas weaves an associative "film poem". The film is based on the opera music by Mikis Theodorakis to Euripides' tragedy Medea and uses the ballet version choreographed by Renato Zanella to cinematically retell this mythological story. The film celebrated its world premiere on June 20, 2013 in Athens , Greece. The final version of the film (Final Cut) premiered on June 7, 2014 in New York.

action

The film is based on the play “Medea” by Euripides and the opera music of the same name by Mikis Theodorakis and their ballet version by the choreographer Renato Zanella. It tells the story of a betrayed woman (danced by Maria Kousouni) who kills their children in order to get revenge on her husband. The film interweaves the ballet performance with documentary recordings of the rehearsals and of violent demonstrations in Greece, but also with fictional scenes, which are underlaid with voice-over texts from Anne Frank's diary. This results in an associative structure. On the website of "Recycling Medea" it says about the content of the film:

"Medea, Jason, Bella and Anne Frank, the composer and protester Theodorakis, the dancers, the rebellious, hooded youths, advancing police officers, the choreographer Renato Zanella, the cameraman - they are all actors, voluntary and involuntary, in this complex, cross-time tragedy 'Medea'. A lyrical film collage, dedicated to the betrayed youth and the parents who have sacrificed the dreams and the future of their children to a merciless egoism. "

The storyline of Renato Zanella's ballet (and thus also of Asteris Kutulas 'film) basically follows Euripides' "Medea" version. However, it has been modified in some points, so that the following plot results for the ballet performance - and for the main strand of the film:

Medea learns from her husband Jason that he wants to separate from her in order to marry Glauke, the daughter of Creon (King of Corinth) . Medea, who once betrayed her home for Jason, fled with him and killed her brother in the process, is shocked because Jason now wants to leave her; she feels humiliated, betrayed, and rejected. Jason tries to calm Medea down and assures her that he will continue to take care of her and their two sons.

King Creon, meanwhile, fears the vengeance of the magical Medea and expels her and the children of the land. Medea asks Creon to give her one more day so that she can prepare for her departure, but she actually wants to carry out her plan of revenge. On the evening of the same day, Jason's and Glauke's wedding takes place. Medea sends Glauke (Creon's daughter) a splendid scarf as a "present". As soon as the bride puts on the poison-soaked scarf, a terrible agony begins. When King Creon tries to save his daughter, he too comes into contact with the poisoned scarf and dies shortly afterwards.

Jason, who has just witnessed his bride and father-in-law being carried away, is beside himself. He rushes to Medea to confront her and has to watch as she is killing their sons. Jason wants to save the children, but is prevented by Medea's friend Aigeus .

In the final scene of the ballet and the film, Medea tries to wash herself clean, but her children's blood sticks to her hands. Medea strides towards the audience, collapsing several times and getting up again and again. Proud, her head held high, she sits down on a boat, the only prop on the stage that is supposed to remind of the Argo.

Kutulas mixes this - borrowed from Euripides - ballet-film level with a second level, with what he calls "another ballet", namely that of the street fight between hooded police officers and hooded youths in downtown Athens, than the Medea production was rehearsed and performed (2011–2012). Kutulas notes, “I pointed my camera from the theater to the street where a similar“ dance ”was taking place. A mother kills her children on the theater stage, a society kills her "children" on the street. The idea of ​​relating these two levels to one another and viewing both realities as “dance”, as a “choreography of violent conflicts” came from Ina Kutulas, the film's co-author. "

The film begins with a kiss between a girl and a young man. In this third, fictional level of the film, this girl, who Kutulas calls the “lost one”, appears again and again, first with herself, then in nature and finally with other young people in a dance club. Kutulas chose an actress - fifteen-year-old Bella Oelmann - who embodies an almost magical glossy journal vision for the character of the "lost" . "A figure who wants to disturb with beauty", as the authors of the film write. However, they underlay these scenes with the words of a girl (off-sound), which are only revealed to the viewer in the credits as quotes from Anne Frank's diary .

background

The film belongs to a concept tetralogy by Asteris Kutulas , the "Thanatos-Film-Tetralogy", which consists of three tragedies based on the music of the Theodorakis operas "Elektra", "Medea" and "Antigone", as well as the model of the ancient satyr play following work " Dance Fight Love Die " will exist. After “Recycling Medea” from 2014, “Dance Fight Love Die” was created in 2017 as the second film in this tetralogy.

In the director's statement on the film's website, Kutulas noted what his intention was with regard to the idiosyncratic approach and interpretation of the Medea material:

“I wanted to make a very emotional 'music video clip', an homage to my pessimism, a film poem that radically portrayed the longing for 'freedom' and 'love' of a desperate wife and the longing for 'freedom' and 'love' become a teenager. Both betrayed and sold. Both isolated and at war with society. Suddenly I met 15-year-old Bella, a 'lost one' who found herself in my film, aloof, 'striking', 'quoting' everyone who were important to me for Medea recycling: Nikos Koundouros , Pier Paolo Pasolini , Lars von Trier , Carlos Saura , Theo Angelopoulos . And then actually Anne Frank, whose words I remembered, bridging a historical gap of about 70 years, at the same age as Bella, exposed to the circumstances of complete isolation in a rear building in Amsterdam, a young person on the threshold of growing up who was closed to the future . "

For the choreographer of the film, Renato Zanella, the music of Mikis Theodorakis was particularly important in order to develop his choreography on its basis. In an interview with the filmmaker Asteris Kutulas, Zanella emphasizes the importance of Theodorakis music for his inspiration in the creation of his choreography:

“The body moves as if by itself. This work is enormously poetic. Gigantic - this Theodorakis. His music allows you all the freedom you need to grasp this material, work with it, decipher and convey the message it contains. I don't remember how many hours I listened to this music, but every time it reached me. It transported something, triggered something in me and carried me away. This composition gave me the green light, I felt free enough to be able to go in any direction I wanted to take. I got the impulse and knew: this has to be done. "

Reviews

The film was received very positively in various magazines and online magazines. Andreas Thamm from the Süddeutsche Zeitung was particularly fascinated by the unusual approach and interlinking of various elements through Kutulas and writes that “Recycling Medea” was “not a documentary, but rather a cinematic essay, a visually stunning collage, the protest marches and a ballet staging of the Medea pulls together ”. Even the Südwestrundfunk praised the film for its exciting cinematic hybrid and describes him as a "film-collage that magnificently combines the music of Mikis Theodorakis, the ballet, choreographed by Renato Zanella with the crisis situation in Greece". On July 4, 2013, Hansgeorg Hermann emphasized in his premiere review in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung : “Kutulas' achievement, that of his team, is the seamless merging of the dance and street scenes. The almost wordless narration of the story of the suffering murderess carried by Theodorakis' powerful music, the pictorial appearance of Medea from her horrific past, the viewer's getting into the hideous present of the everyday war between generations in front of the dazzling facade of the parliament building on Syntagma Square ... "

Awards

  • Cinema for Peace Award for the Most Valuable Documentary of the Year 2014

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ German | Recycling Medea. Retrieved March 12, 2019 .
  2. ↑ About the film | Recycling Medea. Retrieved March 12, 2019 .
  3. ↑ "Collage, Art & Emotion" - Interview with Asteris Kutulas by Eva Kekou | Dance Fight Love Die. Retrieved March 22, 2020 .
  4. ↑ About the film | Recycling Medea. Retrieved March 22, 2020 .
  5. ↑ Ron Jäger: A unique film collage: "Dance Fight Love Die - On the way with Mikis Theodorakis". In: BEnow. September 6, 2018, accessed on March 12, 2019 (German).
  6. ↑ Statement from the director | Recycling Medea. Retrieved March 12, 2019 .
  7. ↑ The choreography | Recycling Medea. Retrieved March 12, 2019 .
  8. ↑ Press & Statements | Recycling Medea. Retrieved March 30, 2020 .
  9. ^ "Recycling Medea" | Home | SWR International. March 18, 2015, accessed March 30, 2020 .
  10. ↑ Press & Statements | Recycling Medea. Retrieved March 30, 2020 .
  11. ↑ Cinema For Peace 2014 in the Konzerthaus. berliner filmfestivals, accessed on March 12, 2019 (German).