Film Fetish Friday: Company Orheim, Silent City, Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has To Travel

Oct 5, 2012 | by Anouk | Art, Event

About the author

As a freelance journalist, Anouk (26) usually writes about what other people do or like. In her precious spare time she watches arthouse films. Not a few. A lot, thanks to her trusted Cineville pass. Here she can finally share her film-fetish with the world.

To watch or not to watch? I will tour around Amsterdam’s cinemas and answer this crucial question every Friday. Without mercy, of course. Sucky films will be slaughtered, cinematographic pearls will be appreciated as such. Or the other way around. After all, good taste is in the eye of the beholder.

Company Orheim

Company Orheim is the last part of a Norwegian trilogy about the Orheim family: a father, a mother and a son. The weird thing is that the second part of this trilogy wasn’t in Dutch cinemas. I think that this film will be more interesting if you’ve seen the two others films as well. Anyway, Company Orheim tells the story of Jarle and his parents in the mid 1980s. We see how Jarle struggles with his alcoholic father and abused mother. He escapes in political activism, girls, booze and music. In the meantime his dad tries to keep up appearances by making ‘fun’ family trips to Second World War sights. He’s so full of war retoric, that he keeps calling the family ‘Kompani Orheim’ – yes, the irony.

The film is one big flashback of Jarle’s life in the eighties. The opening shot is that of him getting a phone call, hearing news about his father. At that point the viewer already knows how it ends. It makes the whole film a bit less interesting. Still, this film is worth watching, especially if you’re into the music of the ’80s.

Watch this film in Cineville’s Kriterion.

Silent City

Japan, and Tokyo in particular, will never stop fascinating us westerners. Dutch writer and film maker Threes Anna turned her own book into a film. Silent City tells the story of Rosa (Laurence Roothooft), a Belgian fish-cook who travels to Tokyo to learn from the very best master-chef. It’s not at all what she expected. The chef (Makoto Makita) isn’t interested in her by the very least and just sends her to a depressing kitchen where she has to clean fish. The other, Japanese, women don’t even talk to her. Rosa is getting more and more lonely (that’s what happens to most outsiders in Tokyo), but that all changes when she starts to understand the fish. Indeed, that’s a bit strange. On the other hand, director Anna knows how to make a story visually original. Like when she turns the city into a big fish tank.

On Monday October 8th, Threes Anna and actress Laurence Roothooft will be in Het Ketelhuis, answering questions after the 19.30 film.

Watch this film in Cineville’s Het Ketelhuis.

Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has To Travel

I never heard of Diana Vreeland before. That’s probably me, ’cause I’m not into fashion. Apparently she was the ‘first fashion editor’ that existed. For years Vreeland worked for Harper’s Bazaar and Vogue. She was a trendwatcher and an icon as well in the fashion world as in the world of magazines. Vreeland ‘discovered’ the famous model Twiggy for example and gave photographers like David Bailey and Richard Avedon a star status.

Enough with the name dropping. Lisa, Vreeland’s granddaughter, made as co-director a portrait of her grandmother (who died in 1989) which also show her less amiable sights. Diane loved her work and didn’t spend much time at home. Her life motto? ‘Don’t be boring.’ She definitely wasn’t, this colourful documentary shows clearly.

Watch this film in Cineville’s Cinecenter.