La Passion de Jeanne d’Arc

par Carl Theodor Dreyer, 1928

Când vezi un film cu un subiect super-exploatat nu te mai aştepţi ca acţiunea să te mai surprindă în vreun fel. Astfel poate fi şi cu un film ca “La Passion de Jeanne d’Arc”. Aşa s-a şi întâmplat: ştiam fiecare pas, fiecare replică care urmează. Dar poate că e mai bine aşa, pentru că am reuşit să mă concentrez mai mult asupra imaginii şi a celor doi actori: Maria Falconetti şi Antonin Artaud. Mă gândeam… Uite, poate că pentru epoca noastră rolul Mariei poate fi prea dramatic, sau chiar patetic: o Jeanne care plânge tot timpul, dar pentru perioada respectivă mi se pare incredibil cum işi joacă rolul, iar gestica şi expresia feţei spun totul, mai că nu este nevoie nici de inserturile de text. Întreg filmul poate fi unul despre Maria Falconetti, un exerciţiu de actorie. Trece foarte uşor de la starea de extaz la cea de pace interioară, împăcare şi chiar resemnare. Jeanne este un Christ, care trece prin toate momentele patimilor… de la aşa-zisa judecată, la batjocură şi până la martiriul în sine. Mi-a plăcut foarte mult şi felul în care Dreyer a schiţat gloata de “judecători”, într-o manieră daumier-ească, foarte caricaturală, dar în acelaşi timp foarte caracteristică societăţii în structura ei instabilă. Antonin pare ca un copil care se află într-o situaţie confuză. Luminarea sa are loc în momentul martiriului Jeannei, când devine mai sigur pe situaţie. Cu toate acestea îşi joacă micul rol minunat, venind în completarea rolului Mariei.

Still Art

Portrait of an artist

    

 

Matthias Deumlich, a German artist, born in Berlin, was present in Romania for the project “Urban Ambient”, organized by Meta Cultural Foundation in Sibiu (22^nd – 24^th June), this year European Capital of Culture. The project included contemporary works made by Romanian and international artists: inflatable and sound sculpture, but also experimental film. Matthias Deumlich has a work called “Lighting City”, as homage to Brancusi. We know him from the Romanian Young Artists Biennial 2006, when he made some paper ships fly. Is one of the artists who make sculpture in a large sense of the word, using unconventional everything and rethinking the discourse of art, using modern symbols, like he did at Sibiu.

                         

 

 

I had a look into this artists work to discover more about him. His obsessions are the sound, the light, the water, the movement and the image. The sound is an important element in his work, this being the source of movement. His obsessions becomes part of the viewer, are contagious. The experimental / scientific dimension is very present and dominates the creation. Matthias plays with the viewer and is playing seriously. The material is used for its qualities in his favor, for his experiment. The space is transformed and the viewer is transposed in another dimension of reality, is about re-thinking the space and time. Space is the main subject of his works and is the origin of objects.

            

His works are like a ritual. “Lighting City” is placed in a sacred place, near an important church of the city and it fits very well the place, like the artist himself said.

There are no small projects for Matthias is a noisy artist, by his works, which are his way of communication and making him heard. His installations aren’t individual works, each one taking birth from a former one, but this doesn’t mean you can’t understand one single work, just that you’ll discover him better in the context of the whole creation. Is like a conceptual chain. Ideas take shape of small robots, who invades us physically and conceptual. The invisible becomes visible through creation, through image and sound.