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"In Order to Shoot the Characters, You Must Love Them" | by Shmulik Duvdevani| February 2014 This assertion meant a great faith in a young filmmaker, director and cinematographer that has been anointed by the Great Priestess as one of the worldwide hopes for current artistic cinema. Things are made even more flattering if we take into account the fact that "Fate" has been Kelemen's first feature length film. A cinematic work of art directed in a rough realistic style and following the nocturnal journey of a man and a woman into the realms of humiliation and unhappiness. The Israeli cinematheques conclude this week a retrospective of the filmmaker who is also known to local cinephiles as the cinematographer of Béla Tarr's "The Man from London" and "The Turin Horse". The retrospective includes, in addition to "Fate" made in 1994, "Fallen" (2005), a film shot entirely in Riga, Latvia, and following the story of a man who happens to pass by a young woman who commits suicide by jumping off a bridge, and is obsessed by her identity, as well as "Nightfall" (1999), about two lovers in a nocturnal journey of separation and unification. This week, Kelemen's monumental work "Frost" (1998) will be screened, a 200 minutes odyssey following a mother and son who are fleeing their apartment and a violent husband and father. Kelemen – who also conducted master classes at the Film and Television Department at Tel-Aviv University – is just about to leave Israel when we get a chance to talk about his work and his long lasting friendship and collaboration with Béla Tarr, one of the last masters of the art of cinema. "My films deal with foreignness, alienation, and Europe as a place of many different cultures and languages", Kelemen characterizes his work. "Many countries in Europe fought each other, and what unites them is the experience of wars and pain. I use this diversity in order to tell stories about people from different places that struggle for better life, to realize their dreams and desires". The relationships depicted in his films are characterized by the cruelty inflicted by low lives, especially immigrants, on each other. In this sense, they are inspired by the early films of German director Rainer Werner Fassbinder ("Fear Eats the Soul"), which also dealt with desperate figures from the margins of society. "If you want to tell something about the world we are living in, it is almost necessary to look at the weakest parts of society", Kelemen explains his interest in these protagonists. "If you want to know about the quality of a society, you have to look at the edges. That shows you how the society really is. And if you want to know something about human beings – you have to look into their secret depths. There are gaps that open in moments of crisis, situations when cracks in the surface allow you to look deeper into the human being". Like in Tarr's films, one of the characteristics most identified with the films of Kelemen are the long takes. But these are defined by uniquely extreme emotional dynamism – something that distinguishes them from Tarr's contemplative camera movements. "I was very much influenced by music", explains Kelemen. "One of the first composers I really loved was Bartók. His compositions are based on a flow of time and modifications and small changes of movements that slowly grow from silence without harsh cuts or strong breaks. This encouraged me to make a flow of images. I find this similar idea in Tarkovsky's films and in the films of Béla Tarr". Kelemen and Tarr met accidentally in a Berlin café one afternoon and the connection continued in the film academy where Kelemen was a student and Tarr conducted a workshop. "A wonderful gift of destiny", Kelemen describes their collaboration. In 1995 Tarr invited him to shoot his middle-long film "Journey on the Plain". Nowadays, Kelemen is one of the staff members of the film school Tarr has recently founded in Sarajevo, after announcing his retirement from filmmaking. "The school continues a certain uncompromising attitude to filmmaking, requiring that you remain very faithful to your vision which should not be spoilt by commercial ideas", Kelemen characterizes the new institution. "It's a place that defends the idea of cinema as an art. That's the attitude Béla always had. Making films in a free and artistic way". Most recently, Kelemen shot an Israeli film, Joseph Pitchhadze's "Sweets" ("Sukaryot"), and has very fond memories. "I chose not to shoot 'Sweets' as an Israeli film, but as a film about human beings with human questions and problems. The film circles around very universal themes", he says. "I have to love the characters I shoot, otherwise I wouldn't be able to shoot (kill) them", he laughs. "Shooting them is not photographing the surface. It's like revealing something, finding a way to something hidden. It is only possible to catch if there's a connection and affection. That's exactly how it went with 'Sweets'. I tried to love the characters, to understand them. I never prefer one or the other. They're OK even if they create a lot of trouble. But I'm not against them. There's no difference for me whether I'm shooting a film as a director or only as a cinematographer". .............................................................................................................................................................. |