settima

@settima@zirk.us

Le vampire de Düsseldorf [The Vampire of Dusseldorf] (Robert Hossein, 1965)

Sep

5

Le vampire de Düsseldorf (1965)

Robert Hossein as Peter Kuerten [sic]. DP: Alain Levent.

海底から来た女 [Kaitei kara kita onna / Woman from the Sea] (Koreyoshi Kurahara, 1959)

Sep

4

Kaitei kara kita onna (1959)

The mysterious sea woman (Hisako Tsukuba, who under the name Chako van Leeuwen went on to produce the Jawsploitation franchise Piranha) and a bewitched Toshio (Tamio Kawachi). Note how the boat's sail resembles a shark's dorsal fin. DP: Yoshihiro Yamazaki.

It's this month's Bales Challenges' dad's VaderJaws' birthday! Celebrating with Vader, or sharks, or churches, or Chvrches. Erm… let's stick to sharks.

 

A strange woman appears in the life of a young man. He falls in love with her, but the fishermen know. She's the wife of a shark killed years ago. And she's out for revenge.

 

Doing Hooptober parallel to Bales. Expect some contamination of the September/October posts.

Petit à petit [Little by Little] (Jean Rouch, 1970)

Sep

3

Skyscraper Day

Petit à petit (1970)

Damouré (Damouré Zika) measures a Parisian with craniology callipers. No skyscraper in this still, but there's scaffolding. DP: Jean Rouch.

A skyscraper for Skyscraper Day (USA)

 

In the sequel to Rouch's Jaguar (1967), Damouré wants a high rise for his Niger business with “as many floors as he has wives”. He decides to travel to Paris to learn about the construction of such building, and what made Paris to the Paris of today. While there, he gets distracted by the peculiarities of the French natives. Worried about Damouré's increasingly puzzling postcards, his company sends out Lam (Lam Ibrahim Dia) to bring him home.

Flic Story [Cop Story] (Jacques Deray, 1975)

Sep

3

1947

Flic Story (1975)

A close-up of a man's feet hastily walking along a corridor. Superimposed it reads 3 SEPTEMBRE 1974. DP: Jean-Jacques Tarbès.

Corridor of Mirrors (Terence Young, 1948)

Sep

3

Corridor of Mirrors (1948)

Mifanwy (Edana Romney) anachronistically smoking a cigarette. DP: André Thomas.

Taxi zum Klo (Frank Ripploh, 1980)

Sep

2

Christa McAuliffe 1948 – 1986

Taxi zum Klo (1980)

Frank (Frank Ripploh) teaching kids about the human body on an anatomy dummy. DP: Horst Schier.

A teacher for what would have been Christa McAuliffe's birthday.

“Ich mag Männer, bin 30 Jahre alt, von Beruf Lehrer.”

– Frank Ripploh

Frank Ripploh is a sexual ethics and biology teacher by day, and hedonistic gay man and aspiring pornographer by night. When Frank Ripploh, the man, publicly came out in 1978 in the tabloid Stern, he lost his teaching job and did become that filmmaker. Taxi zum Klo – litt. taxi to the john/loo – is his story. A frank pre-AIDS pre-Internet pre-victimhood depiction of male gay culture in West Germany. Maybe raw, possibly misogynist, definitely true to life.

Red [The Red Half-Breed / Red the Half Breed] (Gilles Carle, 1970)

Sep

2

Red (1970)

A counter at a Québécois branch of the Banque de Montréal – oddly enough using its English-language name. A wall calender reads September 2. DP: Bernard Chentrier.

Endişe [Anxiety] (Yılmaz Güney + Şerif Gören, 1974)

Sep

1

Labor Day

Endişe (1974)

A Kurdish worker in the cotton fields. She looks straight into the camera while two others continue their work. DP: Kenan Ormanlar.

The Industrial Revolution, or unions, for Labor Day (USA)

 

Kurdish seasonal cotton pickers fear losing their job when mechanisation is preferred by their overseers. While unionising, Cevher, one of the workers – tries to stay out of the hands of his enemies, who want him because of a blood feud.

Человечка нарисовал я [Chelovechka narisoval ya / It Was I Who Drew the Little Man] (Valentin Lalayants, Zinaida Brumberg + Valentina Brumberg, 1960)

Sep

1

День знаний

Человечка нарисовал я (1960)

Mesmerised schoolboy Fedya holds up a huge bubble. DP: Elena Petrova.

On September 1, also known as Knowledge Day (День знаний) in Russia, an enthusiastic schoolboy draws a little man on the classroom wall, and causes a whole lot of trouble.

 

Happy End (Oldřich Lipský, 1967)

Sep

1

1889

Happy End (1967)

Butcher Bedřich Frydrych (Oldřich Lipský), born September 1, 1889 in Trumberk. DP: Vladimír Novotný.