Some apotheosis of film culture has been reached with Freddy Got Fingered‘s addition to the Criterion Channel. Three years after we interviewed Tom Green about his consummate film maudit, it’s appearing on the service’s Razzie-centered program that also includes the now-admired likes of Cruising, Heaven’s Gate, Querelle, and Ishtar; the still-due likes of Under the Cherry Moon; and the more-contested Gigli, Swept Away, and Nicolas Cage-led Wicker Man. In all cases it’s an opportunity to reconsider one of the lamest, thin-gruel entities in modern culture.
A Jane Russell retro features von Sternberg’s Macao, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, and Raoul Walsh’s The Tall Men and The Revolt of Mamie Stover; streaming premieres will be held for Yuen Woo-ping’s Dreadnaught, Claire Simon’s Our Body, Ellie Foumbi’s Our Father, the Devil, the recently restored Sepa: Our Lord of Miracles, and The Passion of Rememberance.
A Jane Russell retro features von Sternberg’s Macao, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, and Raoul Walsh’s The Tall Men and The Revolt of Mamie Stover; streaming premieres will be held for Yuen Woo-ping’s Dreadnaught, Claire Simon’s Our Body, Ellie Foumbi’s Our Father, the Devil, the recently restored Sepa: Our Lord of Miracles, and The Passion of Rememberance.
- 2/14/2024
- by Nick Newman
- The Film Stage
Sepa: Nuestro Señor de los milagros Review: A Long-Lost Film from Herzog Collaborator Finds New Life
After years of working with someone like Werner Herzog, it seems you deserve some rest—especially after films as spectacular as Aguirre: The Wrath of God and Fitzcarraldo, both shot in Peru with grueling backstage problems that can be felt onscreen. That was the case for Walter Saxer, a Swiss producer who started as unit production manager in Herzog’s debut Even Dwarves Started Small, then retired and took residency in Iquitos, Peru, buying the hotel where the main production for both films was settled on, and turning it into a bed-and-breakfast called La Casa Fitzcarraldo.
Walter Saxer obviously grew to love Peru and its people—the main inspiration behind his only directorial work, a 1986 documentary Sepa: Nuestro Señor de los milagros (translated to Sepa: Our Lord of Miracles) about an experimental, controversial criminal enclosure. But if it wasn’t for his bed-and-breakfast the now-restored film wouldn’t be available to us.
Walter Saxer obviously grew to love Peru and its people—the main inspiration behind his only directorial work, a 1986 documentary Sepa: Nuestro Señor de los milagros (translated to Sepa: Our Lord of Miracles) about an experimental, controversial criminal enclosure. But if it wasn’t for his bed-and-breakfast the now-restored film wouldn’t be available to us.
- 10/14/2022
- by Jaime Grijalba
- The Film Stage
A long-lost piece of film history has been uncovered. Walter Saxer, who produced such Werner Herzog classics as Aguirre, the Wrath of God, Fitzcarraldo, and Nosferatu, made his sole directorial effort with Sepa: Nuestro Señor de los Milagro (Sepa: Our Lord of Miracles), which observes the open-air penal colony of the same name, created in 1951 by the Peruvian government in the Amazonian jungle.
Completed in 1986 and having screened only once––on Swiss television in the late 1980s––Sepa then faded from cinema history, its sole print existing in a residential closet in Italy. After a chance encounter with Dekanalog’s George Schmalz and Lysa Le, who visited Saxer’s Peruvian bed and breakfast in 2017, a conversation was started about unearthing and restoring the film negative, allowing his picture the release it always deserved.
Dekanalog will now open Sepa in theaters on October 14 and we’re pleased to exclusively debut its first trailer.
Completed in 1986 and having screened only once––on Swiss television in the late 1980s––Sepa then faded from cinema history, its sole print existing in a residential closet in Italy. After a chance encounter with Dekanalog’s George Schmalz and Lysa Le, who visited Saxer’s Peruvian bed and breakfast in 2017, a conversation was started about unearthing and restoring the film negative, allowing his picture the release it always deserved.
Dekanalog will now open Sepa in theaters on October 14 and we’re pleased to exclusively debut its first trailer.
- 9/23/2022
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
Dekanalog To Release Long-Lost Doc
Exclusive: New York-based distributor Dekanalog has acquired a pair of features for release in 2022. The first is Walter Saxer’s long lost documentary Sepa: Our Lord Of Miracles. Shot in 1987, the film observes the open-air penal colony of the same name, created in 1951 by the Peruvian government in the Amazonian jungle. Having screened only once on Swiss TV in the 1980s, the film faded from history. After a chance encounter with Dekanalog’s George Schmalz and Lysa Le, who visited Saxer’s Peruvian bed and breakfast in 2017, a conversation was started about unearthing and restoring the film negative. The 4K restoration, handled by the Cinémathèque suisse and Cineteca di Bologna from the 16mm original negative camera and sound held at Yacumama Films, will be released in summer 2022. Separately, Dekanalog has also picked up Paul Negoescu’s A Month In Thailand, which will be released on...
Exclusive: New York-based distributor Dekanalog has acquired a pair of features for release in 2022. The first is Walter Saxer’s long lost documentary Sepa: Our Lord Of Miracles. Shot in 1987, the film observes the open-air penal colony of the same name, created in 1951 by the Peruvian government in the Amazonian jungle. Having screened only once on Swiss TV in the 1980s, the film faded from history. After a chance encounter with Dekanalog’s George Schmalz and Lysa Le, who visited Saxer’s Peruvian bed and breakfast in 2017, a conversation was started about unearthing and restoring the film negative. The 4K restoration, handled by the Cinémathèque suisse and Cineteca di Bologna from the 16mm original negative camera and sound held at Yacumama Films, will be released in summer 2022. Separately, Dekanalog has also picked up Paul Negoescu’s A Month In Thailand, which will be released on...
- 1/24/2022
- by Tom Grater
- Deadline Film + TV
When you begin exploring the work of director Werner Herzog some (if not most) will argue Aguirre, the Wrath of God is likely the best place to start. Though I don't think you get the full picture of this portion of Herzog's career without including Fitzcarraldo or the documentary My Best Fiend, which came another 12 years later, detailing Herzog's work with Aguirre star Klaus Kinski. Without Kinski, Aguirre, Fitzcarraldo and, most likely, Herzog would not be the same. With that in mind, know this is the first review in a coming triptych, meant to build off one another to the point an entire picture begins to form. History, in this case, cannot be ignored. Considered an entry in the West German New Wave, Aguirre is very loosely based on the accounts of Spanish Dominican monk Gaspar de Carvajal (played in the film by Del Negro) as well as the life...
- 4/30/2014
- by Brad Brevet
- Rope of Silicon
CHICAGO -- Viewers will find themselves between a rock and a hard place in Werner Herzog's latest opus, a high tale of man vs. the elements.
In this case, it's the quest to conquer the most treacherous mountain peak in the world, the Cere Torre in southern Patagonia, a needly, icy granite Argentine perch aptly described as a ''Scream of Stone.''
Winded by existential bellows and peaked with teutonic angst, ''Scream of Stone, '' screened here at the Chicago International Film Festival, is a ''Heart of Darkness''-like descent into man's inner demons, herein personified in two daredevil climbers -- the wizened, wordly Roccia (Vittorio Mezzogiorno) and the cocky, young Martin (Stefan Glowacz).
The two rock men are goaded into a duel by a manipulative sports journalist-promoter named Ivan (Donald Sutherland) who's a master of instigative journalism -- there's glory and big bucks in it for all.
Although Hans-Ulrich Klenner and Walter Saxer's screenplay ascends a philosophical altitude every bit as lofty as Sunday afternoon sports programs' reach in the off-seasons, the film's visual excitement rarely reaches the heights of most bowling shows.
Although there is some harrowing, upper-limit footage in the film's final scenes, most of the film's rock-climbing sequences could be duplicated this afternoon just as breathtakingly, say, if Roger Corman simply ordered a few bags of cement this morning and slabbed out a shooting ridge for a 3 p.m. shoot.
There is, admittedly, a dual-operatic dimension to this effort: the first is thundered out by some German symphony blasting away in Wagner-
There is, admittedly, a dual-operatic dimension to this effort: the first is thundered out by some German symphony blasting away in Wagner-ian, the second is mouthed out by the characters yowling away in soap-operatic woe. There is similarly grand stuff on the microcosmic level: not all is man vs. mountain.
Even between a climber and his mountain there's a woman and, not surprisingly, here it is a dazzlingly beautiful, enigmatic woman (Mathilda May) who has deluded herself into believing she's ''given up her studies'' for devotion to Roccia; but, of course she's torn when the younger model comes around.
Such complexity occasions Ivan to mutter ''Love is . . .'' and then before he can complete the thought, he waddles across a rope bridge, his orange scarf blowing in the breeze. Audiences, however, are not spared his ruminations on other topics.
Before one dismisses Herzog's bombast as straightforward stuff, mention must be made of the cryptic appearance of a red-eyed mountain man who calls himself Fingerless and who claims he has scaled the peak on numerous occasions; Fingerless has dedicated his climbs to Mae West, who, he believes, is still ''alive and running a beauty parlor.'' Fingerless is played by Brad Dourif, which further bolsters our contention that Herzog is poaching on Roger Corman terrain here.
Oh, and then there's an old Indian woman who lives alone in a shack on the mountainside and only speaks nonsense; her full-tonal yappings, however, offer wonderful commentary on the whole opus hocus: when she whails ''auckluooshirumodopaokadoooooroooseeyahdahyahwakehiaeedenawo, '' one concurs there isn't anything that can be said more comprehensibly about this production.
SCREAM OF STONE
Cine International
ProducersWalter Saxer, Henri Lange, Richard Sadler
Director Werner Herzog
Screenwriters Hans-Ulrich Klenner, Walter Saxer
Director of photography Rainer Klausmann
Production designer Juan Santiago
Costume designer Ann Poppel
Editor Suzanne Baron
Sound mixer Chris Price
Color/Stereo
Cast:
Roccia Vittorio Mezzogiorno
Katarina Mathilda May
Martin Stefan Glowacz
Ivan Donald Sutherland
Fingerless Brad Dourif
Running time -- 95 minutes
No MPAA rating
(c) The Hollywood Reporter...
In this case, it's the quest to conquer the most treacherous mountain peak in the world, the Cere Torre in southern Patagonia, a needly, icy granite Argentine perch aptly described as a ''Scream of Stone.''
Winded by existential bellows and peaked with teutonic angst, ''Scream of Stone, '' screened here at the Chicago International Film Festival, is a ''Heart of Darkness''-like descent into man's inner demons, herein personified in two daredevil climbers -- the wizened, wordly Roccia (Vittorio Mezzogiorno) and the cocky, young Martin (Stefan Glowacz).
The two rock men are goaded into a duel by a manipulative sports journalist-promoter named Ivan (Donald Sutherland) who's a master of instigative journalism -- there's glory and big bucks in it for all.
Although Hans-Ulrich Klenner and Walter Saxer's screenplay ascends a philosophical altitude every bit as lofty as Sunday afternoon sports programs' reach in the off-seasons, the film's visual excitement rarely reaches the heights of most bowling shows.
Although there is some harrowing, upper-limit footage in the film's final scenes, most of the film's rock-climbing sequences could be duplicated this afternoon just as breathtakingly, say, if Roger Corman simply ordered a few bags of cement this morning and slabbed out a shooting ridge for a 3 p.m. shoot.
There is, admittedly, a dual-operatic dimension to this effort: the first is thundered out by some German symphony blasting away in Wagner-
There is, admittedly, a dual-operatic dimension to this effort: the first is thundered out by some German symphony blasting away in Wagner-ian, the second is mouthed out by the characters yowling away in soap-operatic woe. There is similarly grand stuff on the microcosmic level: not all is man vs. mountain.
Even between a climber and his mountain there's a woman and, not surprisingly, here it is a dazzlingly beautiful, enigmatic woman (Mathilda May) who has deluded herself into believing she's ''given up her studies'' for devotion to Roccia; but, of course she's torn when the younger model comes around.
Such complexity occasions Ivan to mutter ''Love is . . .'' and then before he can complete the thought, he waddles across a rope bridge, his orange scarf blowing in the breeze. Audiences, however, are not spared his ruminations on other topics.
Before one dismisses Herzog's bombast as straightforward stuff, mention must be made of the cryptic appearance of a red-eyed mountain man who calls himself Fingerless and who claims he has scaled the peak on numerous occasions; Fingerless has dedicated his climbs to Mae West, who, he believes, is still ''alive and running a beauty parlor.'' Fingerless is played by Brad Dourif, which further bolsters our contention that Herzog is poaching on Roger Corman terrain here.
Oh, and then there's an old Indian woman who lives alone in a shack on the mountainside and only speaks nonsense; her full-tonal yappings, however, offer wonderful commentary on the whole opus hocus: when she whails ''auckluooshirumodopaokadoooooroooseeyahdahyahwakehiaeedenawo, '' one concurs there isn't anything that can be said more comprehensibly about this production.
SCREAM OF STONE
Cine International
ProducersWalter Saxer, Henri Lange, Richard Sadler
Director Werner Herzog
Screenwriters Hans-Ulrich Klenner, Walter Saxer
Director of photography Rainer Klausmann
Production designer Juan Santiago
Costume designer Ann Poppel
Editor Suzanne Baron
Sound mixer Chris Price
Color/Stereo
Cast:
Roccia Vittorio Mezzogiorno
Katarina Mathilda May
Martin Stefan Glowacz
Ivan Donald Sutherland
Fingerless Brad Dourif
Running time -- 95 minutes
No MPAA rating
(c) The Hollywood Reporter...
- 10/15/1991
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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