Joining Ji.hlava Intl. Documentary Film Festival‘s online audience on Friday from his hotel room in Spain, Hubert Sauper – behind Oscar-nominated “Darwin’s Nightmare” – discussed his career and latest film “Epicentro,” also shown at the Czech event following its Sundance premiere. Born in the Austrian Tyrol in 1966, he also addressed his past.
“I was growing up in a place where the Third Reich wasn’t over, surrounded by old Nazis. Nobody was shouting ‘Heil Hitler!’ anymore, but these demons were still alive. I had to run away,” he said. “To think that all this had happened within this décor of “The Sound of Music”… Maybe that’s why I am always interested in strong contrasts? Now, I love going back. I was in Austria two days ago, at Viennale, and I just got a call that I have to come back for the closing night. I kind of know why,...
“I was growing up in a place where the Third Reich wasn’t over, surrounded by old Nazis. Nobody was shouting ‘Heil Hitler!’ anymore, but these demons were still alive. I had to run away,” he said. “To think that all this had happened within this décor of “The Sound of Music”… Maybe that’s why I am always interested in strong contrasts? Now, I love going back. I was in Austria two days ago, at Viennale, and I just got a call that I have to come back for the closing night. I kind of know why,...
- 11/1/2020
- by Marta Balaga
- Variety Film + TV
CANNES -- A decade ago, veteran filmmaker Jean-Henri Meunier decamped with his family to settle in the remote hilltop village of Najac, in the Aveyron region of southwestern France. On his visits home between jobs, he would stroll around, talking to the local people, getting to know the way of life, and inevitably he began to take his camera with him.
From the hundreds of hours of footage that resulted, Meunier compiled the award-winning 2004 documentary La Vie comme elle va (As Life Goes By), a rich portrayal of country life and the characters who inhabit it. His new work, Ici Najac, a vous la Terre (Najac Calling, Over to You Earth), is a further mining of the same material for polemic purposes.
As the title suggests, Najac purports to be a call to arms against globalization. In fact it is a celebration rather than a manifesto, a wry shrug at the contradictions involved in living off the land in the digital age, and all the more enjoyable for that. The Cannes showcasing of Meunier's portrayal of a beleaguered community -- droll, affectionate but never condescending -- means it is certain to win a wide following in France and should please festival audiences everywhere.
Meunier follows the cycle of the seasons: The calving in spring followed by the lazy days of summer, the wine-making in autumn, the hunkering down in the frozen winter and the rebirth of the following year.
The same cast of villagers in the earlier film are present and in fine fettle. Meunier's favorite is the octogenarian mechanic and all-purpose Mr. Fix-it, Henri Sauzeau. He is ably supported by the village clown, Jacky Dejonghe, who usually is to be seen wearing a red plastic nose; station master Arnaud Barre, ingenious in his efforts to while away the long hours between trains; the sharp-tongued village wit Dominique Saouly; Irish folkie Christopher Gillard, who appears to have wandered in off the 1960s hippie trail and decided to stay put; the philosophizing farmworker Serge Itkine; and half a dozen others.
In Najac, everyone's a philosopher, each with his homespun take on the ills of the global economy. For one, what matters is to produce less but better; for another, the solution is to work for personal satisfaction rather than money. Food is bio by definition, chemical pesticides and additives are the devil's work, and a proposal to bury nuclear wastes in the region brings out the campaigning instincts in all of them. There is, however, no discussion of the European Union's common agricultural policy, which subsidizes Europe's farmers largely at the expense of producers in the Third World.
The movie, set in ravishingly beautiful countryside, presents life in Najac as a sun-drenched idyll. Admittedly, as Dominique notes, "There's nothing to do here -- it's a good place for depressives." But the closeness to nature and the solidarity among the villagers are seen as more than adequate compensation. Deftly edited by Yves Deschamps, Najac allows the images and cast to speak for themselves, leaving the spectator to draw his own conclusions.
NAJAC CALLING, OVER TO YOU EARTH
Little Bear, Artistic Images
Credits:
Director/Screenwriter/producer/director of photography: Jean-Henri Meunier
Executive producer: Katlene Delzant
Editor: Yves Deschamps
Running time -- 97 minutes
No MPAA rating...
From the hundreds of hours of footage that resulted, Meunier compiled the award-winning 2004 documentary La Vie comme elle va (As Life Goes By), a rich portrayal of country life and the characters who inhabit it. His new work, Ici Najac, a vous la Terre (Najac Calling, Over to You Earth), is a further mining of the same material for polemic purposes.
As the title suggests, Najac purports to be a call to arms against globalization. In fact it is a celebration rather than a manifesto, a wry shrug at the contradictions involved in living off the land in the digital age, and all the more enjoyable for that. The Cannes showcasing of Meunier's portrayal of a beleaguered community -- droll, affectionate but never condescending -- means it is certain to win a wide following in France and should please festival audiences everywhere.
Meunier follows the cycle of the seasons: The calving in spring followed by the lazy days of summer, the wine-making in autumn, the hunkering down in the frozen winter and the rebirth of the following year.
The same cast of villagers in the earlier film are present and in fine fettle. Meunier's favorite is the octogenarian mechanic and all-purpose Mr. Fix-it, Henri Sauzeau. He is ably supported by the village clown, Jacky Dejonghe, who usually is to be seen wearing a red plastic nose; station master Arnaud Barre, ingenious in his efforts to while away the long hours between trains; the sharp-tongued village wit Dominique Saouly; Irish folkie Christopher Gillard, who appears to have wandered in off the 1960s hippie trail and decided to stay put; the philosophizing farmworker Serge Itkine; and half a dozen others.
In Najac, everyone's a philosopher, each with his homespun take on the ills of the global economy. For one, what matters is to produce less but better; for another, the solution is to work for personal satisfaction rather than money. Food is bio by definition, chemical pesticides and additives are the devil's work, and a proposal to bury nuclear wastes in the region brings out the campaigning instincts in all of them. There is, however, no discussion of the European Union's common agricultural policy, which subsidizes Europe's farmers largely at the expense of producers in the Third World.
The movie, set in ravishingly beautiful countryside, presents life in Najac as a sun-drenched idyll. Admittedly, as Dominique notes, "There's nothing to do here -- it's a good place for depressives." But the closeness to nature and the solidarity among the villagers are seen as more than adequate compensation. Deftly edited by Yves Deschamps, Najac allows the images and cast to speak for themselves, leaving the spectator to draw his own conclusions.
NAJAC CALLING, OVER TO YOU EARTH
Little Bear, Artistic Images
Credits:
Director/Screenwriter/producer/director of photography: Jean-Henri Meunier
Executive producer: Katlene Delzant
Editor: Yves Deschamps
Running time -- 97 minutes
No MPAA rating...
- 5/17/2006
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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