Scarred Hearts - Scarred hearts

Movie
German title	Scarred Hearts - Scarred hearts
Original title	Inimi cicatrizate
Country of production	Romania , Germany
original language	Romanian , German
Publishing year	2016
length	141 minutes
Age rating	FSK 12
Rod
Director	Radu Jew
script	Radu Jew
production	Ada Solomon
camera	Marius Panduru
cut	Catalin Cristutiu
occupation
	Serban Pavlu : Dr. Ceafalan; Gabriel Spahiu : Zed; Alexandru Dabija : Mr. Lazar B.; Lucian Teodor Rus : Emanuel; Ilinca Harnut : Isa; Ivana Mladenović : Long; Bogdan Cotlet : Victor; Liliana Ghita : Tanti Leana; Marius Damian : Nelu; Gheorghe Lazar : Valentin; Dana Voicu : Mrs. Bella B.;

Scarred Hearts (Original title: Inimi cicatrizate ) is a biography of Radu Jude . The film premiered on August 7, 2016 at the Locarno International Film Festival . In Germany, the film was shown for the first time on October 4, 2016 as part of the Hamburg Film Festival . The film is inspired by the autobiographical novel Inimi cicatrizate by the Jewish-Romanian writer Max Blecher , published in 1937.

action

The early 20-year-old Emanuel, who suffers from bone tuberculosis , is a patient in a sanatorium on the Black Sea coast . It houses people whose bones simply dissolve, and plaster corsets keep them from breaking apart. But Emanuel has not lost his very own sense of humor, and he is often amused by his life situation and his environment. Despite the stiffening orthotic , he began affairs with two women who were also patients there. However, the possibilities for sex are so limited that it has to be canceled in principle.

Biographical background

In his novel Inimi cicatrizate , Blecher tells the patient Emanuel about his own time in Berck , here an interior view of the Grand Hôpital Maritime de Berck in the city on the Atlantic coast

The film is based on the autobiographical novel Inimi cicatrizate by the Jewish-Romanian writer Max Blecher , which was published in 1937 and published in 2006 by Suhrkamp-Verlag under the title Scarred Hearts in a German translation by Ernest Wichner . The novel, which contained a number of autobiographical elements, was hailed as a masterpiece in Romania. In the sanatorium novel, structured like a diary, Blecher tells of the French spa town of Berck in the early thirties. In it he lets his young protagonist, the patient Emanuel, visit this place of the sick for several years and talk about everyday life in the sanatorium.

A specialist clinic for bone healing can still be found today with the Calot Institute in Berck

Blecher suffered from bone tuberculosis and, despite his long hospital stays, never really recovered in his life. After a six-year stay in a center for tuberculosis treatment in the French coastal town of Berck-sur-Mer, he spent a time in a sanatorium in Leysin, Switzerland, and finally in the Romanian cities of Brașov and Techirghiol on the Black Sea. The long stay in the magic mountain of Berck-sur-Mer on the French Atlantic coast and his time in Leysin in Vaud made a lasting impression on him.

The city of Roman , where his father came from, became the last stage of Blecher's sick life, where he spent his last years in a simple house with a cerdac , a veranda, and a cherry orchard, writing on his knees and tormented by increasing unbearable suffering spent. At the same time, the house in Roman in what was then Strada Costache Mortun No. 4 on the outskirts of Roman, which his father had bought in 1935, was the scene of his agonizing agony and served the creation of his sensational prose works. Here Blecher also wrote his novel Inimi cicatrizate , which is almost entirely in Berck. Blecher died in 1938, a year after the novel was published, after a ten-year illness at the age of 29.

There is still a large specialist clinic in Berck that specializes in bone healing, the Institut Calot, named after the physician Jean-François Calot, where he worked around the turn of the century and developed a technique for treating tuberculosis of the spine, which is also described in Blecher's novel. Today, hospital beds and auxiliary equipment from bygone times are exhibited in the Calot Institute, which were specially developed in Berck for the needs of the sick.

“Only when Emanuel enters the dining room for the first time does he understand what hell he has gotten into here, a world of the eternally undead, a world of standstill and madness: 'In the dining room the dream elements and the reality elements were in such a simultaneity advised that for a few seconds Emanuel had the feeling that his consciousness had completely crumbled. It had become extraordinarily transparent, yet incredibly fragile and unsafe. What was going on here? '”

- Passage from Inimi cicatrizate by Max Blecher, quoted in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung

production

Staff and cast

The film was directed by Radu Jude , who was largely inspired by Blecher's novel. Jude describes Blecher, whom he sees not as a romantic but as an existentialist , a jewel for Romanian literature and forgotten for over 60 years, until he was rediscovered piece by piece and his works were translated worldwide. Jude was convinced by the book Inimi cicatrizate because it is autobiographical and he was impressed by the way Blecher reacted to something that could have happened to all of us. As with his film Aferim! One reason for the filming of Blechner's novel was his interest in the past, and Jude said in an interview with Deutschlandradio Kultur that he considers it a moral duty to research the dark spots of Romanian history because such an investigation is carried out on an official level does not take place. Like the main character in his film and the novel, Jude sees himself as a cynic, but he also discovers the contradictions that exist in all people, according to the director, especially when you fall in love.

The last sanatorium in which Blecher was housed was in Techirghiol on the Black Sea coast . The film was also shot on the Black Sea

The main role of Emanuel was cast with Lucian Teodor Rus .

Filming

Jude's film is not set in Berck, as described in the novel, but in Romania , where the film was shot on the Black Sea . Marius Panduru acted as cameraman . The film was shot with a static camera, long shots and the classic image format 4: 3 on 35 mm , which, according to the makers of the film, reflects the special character of this life, i.e. that of the sick in the sanatoriums.

Regarding the round corners in the footage, Jude said, on the one hand, the motif actually looks like this when you show the entire picture in its 35 mm film frame, and the output of the camera provides these round corners . Jude saw this as an advantage because it gives the viewer the idea of an artificial, recreated past, as is often seen in old silent films that have not been trimmed for television. Such round corners were very common at the beginning of the cinema, so Jude, and he wanted to empathize with this aesthetic a bit in his film.

publication

The film premiered on August 7, 2016 at the Locarno International Film Festival . In Germany, the film was shown for the first time on October 4, 2016 as part of the Hamburg Film Festival . The film was later shown at the Warsaw International Film Festival , the London Film Festival , the Mar del Plata Film Festival and the New York Jewish Film Festival, among others . In June 2017 the film will be shown in the section The Belt and Road as part of the Shanghai International Film Festival .

The film was released in Romanian cinemas on November 18, 2016 and in German cinemas on February 9, 2017. The film was released in selected US cinemas on July 27, 2018.

reception

Age rating

In Germany, the film is FSK 12. The statement of reasons for approval states: “Individual scenes that intensely depict the suffering of the sick , as well as an unusual sex scene, can irritate or frighten children under the age of 12. But 12-year-olds are able to put these moments into context and process them. The historical setting, far removed from their everyday reality, and the partly stylized, aesthetically demanding staging make it easier for them to distance themselves from the sad aspects of the story. "

Reviews

Ulrich Sonnenschein from epd Film compares the story with that of Der Zauberberg . The film leaves the stereotypes of a disease story very quickly, and almost from the beginning a tone that is as poetic as it is ironic prevails. Even if Sonnenschein thinks the film is a little bit cranky, the filming seems worthwhile to him, because you will rediscover an author who was virtually forgotten in Romania during the Nazi chaos of the late 1930s.

Hannah Pilarczyk from Spiegel Online describes the image level of the film, which largely dispenses with a moving camera, as almost in the square academy format. In addition, the film, interwoven with colors and reminiscent of the luminosity of Technicolor , is increasingly taking on the qualities of an old showcase: “You get a glimpse into a fascinating world and yet you cannot immerse yourself in it,” says Pilarczyk.

The jury's justification for the award of the Hamburg Producer Award for European Cinema Co-productions at the Hamburg Film Festival states: “A moving film on a topic that one would actually rather suppress. The film frees itself from this oppression and becomes a hymn to life and the joy of life. (...) He tells the moving story of a young man with ease and authenticity. Without concession to the taste of the times. (...) An authentic European story, told emotionally and without pathos. "