turn me over / magazine by Birute

Juergen Teller www.vivienNewestwood.com

Leonard Peltier is innocent

10 / Editor’S LetteR

unparalleled technique and extraordinary flair for invigorating Western ballets with vivid Cuban passion.

14 / PhotographY

Annie Leibovitz, Life through a lens: American photographer Annie Leibovitz is her very pictures. In the most exact inflection of the Romantic concept that art and life are one same thing, the most notorious celebrity photographer in the world has often stated that she lived just one life, where her personal story has merged her professional one and the two cannot be separated one from the other.

22 / DesigN

Labels Clothes Shop: Heavenly symbolism - Steel trees form a reference to the Garden of Eden; white refers to virginal innocence; black is for the lost paradise: a subtle feel for mythology and the mystical is seen in all the work of interior designer Maurice Mentjens. He combined three small spaces and then divided them again into yin and yang. Back to the origins of fashion: “the mother of all the arts”.

33 / ExhibitioN

The renowned Finnish film and video artist Eija-Liisa Ahtila presents a major solo exhibition including three important moving image installations never before seen in England.

34 / BOOKS

The Impossible Collection, The 100 Most Coveted Artworks of the Modern Era by Philippe Segalot and Franck Giraud.

36 / FilM

A little peek into the art-house cinema and ‘Turn me Over’ favourite movies: I am love, The father of my children, MicMacs, The Desert Flower, A Single Man.

40 / FashioN 30 / DancE

Rambert Dance Company, A Triple Celebration brings an outstanding performances with a lot of energy and heavy-duty percussion exciting the blood followed by a dramatic lighting effect painting an incredible picture right there on the stage. The Spring Dance, Ballet Nacional de Cuba comes to the London Coliseum, presenting two programmes, which showcase the company’s

The Power of Simplicity Influences Make Us

A.P.C.

London 35 / Dover Street W1 T 020 7409 0121

Chiara Mastroianni

M/M (Paris) and Inez van Lamsweerde & Vinoodh Matadin

INFLUENCES MAKE US. For good and ill we are shaped and made by the influence that the world exerts upon us. With the coming of the postmodern age we have declared that we now choose our influences, rather than the other way about. Deluded and driven, we break free and develop into autonomous, original characters ready to save the world. Turn me over is the result of passion, aspiration, the artistic essence and hard work. In the process of putting the magazine together selecting the appropriate content with the right artistic attributes was of critical importance so as to project the right and influential statement, this is most essential for the identity of the magazine. The concept driving this magazine is not simply to review whatever is happening in the world of art, but to focus on the aesthetic dimension of this world as oppose to its commercial and mass produced side, to provide a guide through the chaotic and unselective art world, the principle of quality over quantity is a dictating force of this magazine. Our first issue brings you dance and photography in its best sense. The art that inspires, that feeds the soul, that makes the difference.The magazine is about the change, the change that is created by the power, diversity and beauty of art. Turn me over is aimed to turn your routine over and encoun-

editorsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s letter

ter the world with all it can offer.

www. carven.fr

Editor and creative director

Raminta Budreckyte FeaturE Writers

Manuela Mesco (‘Life through a lens’) Cécile Dornseiffen (‘Labels’) Carlos Ospina (‘Art’s Impossible Collection’) ‘Labels’ Photographer

Leon Abraas FashioN StorY Photographer

Pablo Goikoetxea DesigN AnD Illustration

Birute Mockute HaiR AnD Make-uP Artist

Bita Jalali FashioN Designer

Rasa Abramaviciute

Printed and bound by S. Jokuzio printing-publishing house. Turn me over welcomes all contributions, which must be accompanied by a SAE if they are to be returned. Turn me over will not be held responsible for loss or damage in the post. All images © the image-makers as listed. The right of all persons so listed to be identified as the authors of their work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and patents act of 1988. 2010 © Turn me over Publications Ltd. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in retrieval systems, or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopied, recorded or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the copyright owner. All releases are responsibility of the contributor. Turn me over in no way responsible or liable neither for the accuracy of the information contained herein nor for any consequences arising from its interpretation. All of the above activities shall be subject to English law.

Artists: Stephen j Shanabrook & Veronika Georgieva London

Dover Street Market 17/18 Dover Street W1 doverstreetmarket.com

text : Manuela Mesco

photography

Images : from the book â&#x20AC;&#x153;Annie Leibovitz at Workâ&#x20AC;? /Johnathan Cape London, 2008/

photography

...In the most exact inflection of the Romantic concept that art and life are one same thing, the most notorious celebrity photographer in the world has often stated that she lived just one life, where her personal story has merged her professional one and the two cannot be separated one from the other.

I will look in all the time, and every direction I look I am framing. American photographer Annie Leibovitz is her very pictures...

During her two-inone life, she has seen almost everything: from drug addiction to peace rallies, from rock-bands to US presidents, from celebrity to bankrupt, passing by motherhood, passionate love relationships, success, scandals and controversy. All with a camera in her hands.

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“She would see things that I can’t”. Talking about Annie Leibovitz, Rolling Stones’ guitarist Keith Richards remembers her non-intrusive, intimate way of taking pictures, which allowed her to see beyond the images in front of the camera and get a symbolic representation out of them.

Originally inspired by Henry CartierBresson and Robert Frank, now one of the most famous photographers in the world, Annie Leibovitz got her ability to capture people either from an innate talent or from a perception of reality she had since she was a child. Her family moved from place to place for years, as her father was a US Air Force officer. “It was easy to become an artist – Annie’s sister Susan said – we saw the world through a ready-made picture frame, which was the frame of the car window”. And from that perspective Annie started her second life or, as she called it later on, her ‘life through a lens’ that joined all the rest of her existence in a unique set. It might have been where Annie got that amazing ability to get the right angle from, to shoot a picture representing a specific part of people’s personality meaning a

whole world and to use people giving them a symbolic value that would perfectly fit in a broader picture she devised. Asked where the ideas for pictures came from, she said they come from people. There it is. That’s how she captured the quintessence of photography and became one of the biggest portrait photographers of our times: by getting inspired by the very people she was taking pictures of. Her career started by a pure chance as often happens to big talents. She was meant to be an art teacher and, with this idea, she went to the San Francisco Art Institute in the late 1960’s. The first thing she learned there was that you can’t be an art teacher without being an artist first. Easy to say and, for Annie, also to achieve: one day she went out to a peace rally in San Francisco to take some pictures to be showed at school that same night. Those images reached the newly-born Rolling Stone magazine. The editor there didn’t waste time and offered her a job. So while she was still a student she got a job as a photographer in what was to turn into one of the biggest music magazines of all time. Together with her talent she was lucky enough to live in a changing world: it was the 1970’s, in a swing of antiwar demonstrations, rock ‘n’ roll revolution, a young woman who started taking pictures just few years before and wanted to be an art teacher, launched her career making the covers of the Rolling Stone magazine. It was an environment of young people, nothing ‘super-professional’, as Jann Wenner, co-founder and Editor in chief, remembered years later. She was a photojournalist going after reportage and documentary pictures but also having an awful lot of fun. Annie stayed there for thirteen years, and produced nearly 150 covers, she travelled the world, met and photographed big names of the music and entertainment industry, the likes of John Lennon and Yoko Ono, Mick Jagger, Bob Dylan and Elton John. She was immediately recognised as a great talent, able to shoot simple images capturing the essence of who was in front of the camera. At that time, Annie recalls, she didn’t direct people, she just spent time on the road with the bands, achieving a level of understanding which was essential

photography

to produce pictures that were “intimate and revealing”, as they were sometimes described. That’s what she did also when she went on tour with the Rolling Stones in 1975, taking pictures on stage but also in social occasions. The guys and Annie achieved such a level of intimacy that none in the band felt she was an intruder and nearly realised she was actually taking pictures of them. “I thought: let’s see how long she lasts – Keith Richards confessed years later in the documentary Life through a lens – she actually hung in. And that was a big surprise”.

“Annie Leibovitz at Work” / Johnathan Cape London, 2008/

Her prolific years at Rolling Stone magazine were not just about music. She raised quite an interest with her photo coverage of Richard Nixon’s resignation in 1974, when she pictured the helicopter on which the President was leaving, representing Nixon leaving the White House. The President himself was in the picture – as he was in the helicopter – but he could not be seen in the photograph. The very absence of Nixon from the image was the symbol of his resignation: it turned into an iconic image for years to come. “It wasn’t the kind of picture that most magazines would want to run or had room to run then, but a lot can be said in those moments in between the main moments”, Leibovitz writes in her book, Annie Leibovitz: At Work. An absence to say it all. That’s Annie’s style as it grew and shaped over the years. Still ready to learn, it was then Bea Feitler, an established designer, who took her under her wing when the Rolling Stone magazine couldn’t teach her anything more. Annie moved to New York, still working for the magazine. New York was not San Francisco. Everything was bigger and more interesting. She got tremendously inspired by the work of photographer Richard Avedon with whom she established a relationship of mutual esteem. At her next career level, she started thinking not only at photography as portraiture but also as a more complex artistic set. The new era started with the picture she took of Bette Midler on a bed or roses: when Avedon saw it, he wrote a letter to Rolling Stone’s editor, saying that it was ‘the best solution for a magazine cover in 30 years’. Annie had entered a new world,

she was not just a photographer any longer, she turned into an artist. She wanted to create a whole imagery to be included in a single snapshot, and was able to achieve that: it was people – famous most of the times – turning into symbols. That was when vivid colours blasted into her photographs, when visual effects completed her work or art. Then the blind fate again: Annie took a picture of Yoko Ono and John Lennon where Lennon is naked and holding on to Yoko. A wonderful photograph taken just hours before Lennon was shot dead. At the news of John’s death, the picture turned into the perfect cover for the magazine, with no other word, no headlines, no description just the image speaking volumes. That was probably Annie’s definite launch in the art stardom. It was then time to move on after thirteen years, capturing the music world and beyond. It was 1983 when she joined Vanity Fair after a rehab session to get clean from drugs – that she started experiencing particularly during the Rolling Stones’ tour in 1975. From that moment, it was all a big round-up of wonderful pictures, real works of art, bright and gloomy, meaningful and powerful at the same time. Annie took them using the biggest celebrities in the world both on the covers and inside the pages of Vanity Fair and Vogue. It was for the former that Leibovitz realised the shocking picture of Demi Moore not just pregnant but also naked. Work and life completely mixed together. As Annie confessed sometimes, beginning working so young and keeping always doing the same thing over the years, meant no room to understand anything that didn’t involve her work any longer. It was the case also when she started a very special relationship that was to last nearly 20 years and that deeply marked her two-in-one life. She met leading American intellectual and writer Susan Sontag, and they never parted, sharing a world based on admiration, affection, but also collaboration. “I went into this relationship thinking I wanted to be close to this greatness. How could she be into something like me?”, kept on wondering Annie. Yet Susan page 20

Rolling Stones, Philadelphia, 1975

Mick Jagger, Buffalo, New York, 1975

Barack Obama, Raleigh County Convention Center, Beckley, West Virginia, 2008

Kate Blanchet, Los Angeles, 2004

Rolling Stones fans, Cleveland, Ohio, 1975

Whoopi Goldberg, Berkeley, California, 1984

Keith Haring, New York City, 1986

Charles Austin, Atlanta, Georgia, 1996 John Cleese, London, 1990

Ben Stiller, Paris, 2001

Mick Jagger, Andy Warhol, and Fred Huges, Montauk, New York, 1975

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Demi Moore, Culver City, California, 1991

Ella Fitzgerald, Beverly Hills, 1988

Elizabeth II, Buckingham Palace, London, 2007

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Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisco 1977

Kirsten Dunst, Versailles, 2006 Steve Martin, Beverly Hills, 1981

Nicole Kidman, Charleston, East Sussex, England, 1997

Meryl Streep, New York City, 1981

Appolo 17, the last moon shot, Cape Kennedy, Florida, 1972

Sarajevo, 1993

Tom Wolfe, Florida, 1972

Sarah Cameron Leibovitz, New York City, 2002

Mikhail Baryshnikov, New York City, 1989

Helen Mirren and Kate Winslet, New York City, 2006

Asked where the ideas for pictures came from, she said they come from people. There it is.

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page 17

and Annie complemented each other. Susan helped Annie improve some parts of her personality at work and fulfilled her professionally, offering her more stimulus. Not only Sontag filled up her emotional life, but also led her to another career level. In 1993 they went together to Sarajevo, where Leibovitz took pictures documenting the war. That was, for Annie coming back to her first passion and where her career started: photojournalism. No big crews but just the photographer, the camera and the subject. And that helped her put all the rest of her work again in the right perspective. The images from Sarajevo are revealing as well as the celebrities ones, yet in a totally different sense. Back in the US, Annie and Susan were back in the real world and kept working together, which in a two-in-one life means also feeding an emotional relationship. After an exhibition in Washington about portraits of American women, the pair published the catalogue Women where Sontag completed the pictures with her words. Susan Sontag wrote: “Just as photography has done so much to confirm these stereotypes [about women in the past], it can engage in complicating and undermining them”. That is exactly what Annie tried to do with her pictures. “It’s for us to decide what to make of these pictures – goes on Sontag – After all, a photograph is not an opinion. Or is it?”. An extremely touching, revealing and emotional work. In 2004 Susan Sontag died of cancer. The last days of her life are documented by Leibovitz’ pictures, images of her companion dying, images of her corpse, images that Annie needed in order to put her loss into focus. It was the end of a bond lasted nearly 20 years that marked Annie’s life. And just as her hero Avedon did with pictures of his ailing dad, Annie did the same and exhibited pictures of Susan dying in one of her exhibitions, A photographer’s life. Bad luck, this time. It was also because of Sontag’s heritage left to Annie that the photographer asked for that loan from Art Capital Group that some years later

would have almost led to bankruptcy, a question that apparently is not yet totally solved. Susan has left almost everything she owned to Annie but in order to get it, Leibovitz needed to pay quite an expensive tax. She used the rights on her pictures as a guarantee to get a $24 millions loan. As a consequence, in 2009 she was about to lose all the rights from her pictures not being able to repay the loan, when she was sued by Art Capital Group. Back to her two-in-one life, after her loss she was taken again by her world made of celebrities and photo-shoots for prominent fashion houses. Recently she made the 2009 Lavazza calendar: a set of amazing pictures aiming to represent the quintessence of Italy, that are suggestive and powerful, graciously studied and performed. Moreover, the 2008 Luis Vuitton campaign with Keith Richards, the photo set with the Queen Elisabeth II to launch her first visit in the US in 16 years or Barack Obama at the White House. All pictures that you can’t stop watching, that have a sort of magnetic power that keeps your eyes hung on them. All her career has converged into an exhibition last year at the National Portrait Gallery in London, Annie Leibovitz: A Photographer’s life, 1990 – 2005, where her family pictures and her magazine ones were all together representing her story. The twoin-one life continues and we all can’t wait to see what it will produce next.

John Lennon and Yoko Ono, New York City, December 8, 1980

design

text : Cecile Dornseiffen images : Leon Abraas

HeavenlY SymbolisM

Steel trees form a reference to the Garden of Eden; white refers to virginal innocence; black is for the lost paradise: a subtle feel for mythology and the mystical is seen in all the work of interior designer Maurice Mentjens. He combined three small spaces and then divided them again into yin and yang. Back to the origins of fashion: “the mother of all the arts”. Labels in Sittard offers an impressive collection of youthful, trendy fashion brands. A selection of the brands on offer: Frankie Morello, Dondup, PRPS, Moncler, Diesel Black Gold, True Religion, Evisu, Blue Blood, By Malene Birger, K-Karl Lagerfeld, See by Chloe. The existing shop soon proved to be too small, and was extended last year with the addition of a neighbouring premises. The long, narrow garden in between the buildings was given a glass roof. By breaking through windows and doors in the side walls, three interconnected spaces were created with seven passageways. Mentjens created a division between the women’s and men’s sections precisely in the middle of the central glass-roofed page 28

design

The long, narrow garden in between the buildings was given a glass roof

design

eye catchers in the design are the steel trained trees in the glass-roofed space. They make handy clothes racks, but are primarily a reference to the lost paradise

One half of the floor is pure white, the other jet black: colours representing yin and yang, the feminine and the masculine. Elegant versus rugged, like the intangible, graceful world of Venus and the earthy, black smithy of Vulcan, her husband, in Roman mythology

design

The circular forms are seen again in the striking wall features - niches in various diameters

A virginal white fairytale-like space characterises the domain of Venus

Fall, when they had eaten of the forbidden fruits from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, and become aware of their nakedness. They first clothed themselves with fig leaves and later with clothes made for them by God from animal skins. In this regard, you could see the design of clothes as the first creative deed in humanity and thus as the mother of all the arts.” So says an impassioned Mentjens, who sees fashion as a fully-fledged art form. WHITE

A virginal white fairytale-like space characterises the domain of Venus. All around are vertical and slightly inclined tubes that are reminiscent of swaying reeds. They act as supports for stainless steel clothes racks and frivolous plexiglass plateaus. Halogen lamps have been built into the ceiling in circles, alternating with circular fluorescent light fittings. Together, they depict a sky filled with geometric star systems and radiant halos. The circular forms are seen again in the striking wall features – niches in various diameters. These can be used to display bags and shoes. The supporting pins are clicked onto the steel back wall using magnets. Thanks to this ingenious system, the items on display seem to be defying gravity. At the front end of the space is a narrow display window concealed by two changing rooms with mirror doors, which seem to double the length of the long room. The same vertical, white tubes serve as door handles. The design of the changing cubicles therefore merges into the complete picture. Next to them is a block-shaped element where shoes can be tried on. This block shape cleverly conceals the cove containing the stairway to the first floor. BLACK

page 23

space, starting with the floor. One half of the floor is pure white, the other jet black: colours representing yin and yang, the feminine and the masculine. Elegant versus rugged, like the intangible, graceful world of Venus and the earthy, black smithy of Vulcan, her husband, in Roman mythology. The connection between the spaces is made by two sales counters, half protruding into the glass-roofed space and half into the white or black areas. Thanks to an ingenious anchoring system in the wall, the blocks are almost magically suspended in the spaces. Only the very ends are subtly supported by a plexiglass foot.

design

GARDEN OF EDEN

Particular eye catchers in the design are the steel trained trees in the glass-roofed space. They make handy clothes racks, but are primarily a reference to the lost paradise. The former inner courtyard immediately conjured up associations with the Garden of Eden in the mind of Maurice Mentjens. “It’s the biblical story of creation, in which Adam and Eve are free of sin in the beginning in the Garden of Eden. They only start to clothe themselves after their

Rugged, strong and linear, and covered with a heavy beam construction, the men’s section is reminiscent of a mine gallery or – more dramatically – the smithy of the mythical Vulcan. Wooden beams in various sizes have been arranged in a neat lattice. Horizontal beams are suspended along the long wall, with clothes racks underneath. On the other side of the room, the beams are used to display sweaters, shoes and accessories. The lighting is deliberately subdued to create a mysterious atmosphere. Built-in strip lights illuminate the clothing on hangers from above; halogen spotlights between the ceiling beams add a few accents. Here, the former display window has been completely sacrificed to create changing cubicles. On the street side, there is only an LCD screen visible, showing fashion shows. As in the white section, the doors here are also camouflaged within the design of the walls. There are no individual furnishings or seats anywhere in the design. A simple, multifunctional block serves as both a seat and a table. As specific as Mentjens’ interior designs may seem at first glance, ultimately nothing distracts from the most important thing: in this case, the fashion itself.

design

Rugged, strong and linear, and covered with a heavy beam construction, the menâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s section is reminiscent of a mine gallery or - more dramatically - the smithy of the mythical Vulcan. Wooden beams in various sizes have been arranged in a neat lattice

Finnish film and video artist, Elja-Liisa Ahtila, best known for works that concentrate on narratives in human life together with the relationships and primal emotion that underlie them. She describes her films as ‘human dramas’ because they play on the central themes of our existence, such as love, death, sexuality, the difficulty of communication, and individual identity – both its formation and disintegration. Her fictional stories emerge from interviews and extensive research, her own observation and memory. As Ahtila’s films are often shown on multiple screens or within complex installations, her stories unfold simultaneously within time and space, thereby creating a multi-layered experience that engages the viewer both physically and emotionally. Her masterfully crafted narratives, striking portrayal of characters and highly individual mode of expression have captured public interest and won much critical acclaim.

exhibition

The exhibition consists of three installations: Where is Where?, The Hour of Prayer and Fishermen/Études No. 1, and is accompanied by a new publication.

Where is Where? (2008) is a haunting and layered consideration of how the interpretation of history affects our perception of reality. It tells of a dramatic event that occurred during the Algerian War, when two young Algerian boys killed their French

playmate in a colonialist conflict. Fifty years on, a European poet seeks to understand that act. Space and time fall away in the experiences and existentialist writings of the poet, as do notions of morality, religion, guilt and forgiveness. The Hour of Prayer (2005) is a short tale about human nature, renunciation and death, which marks a watershed in the artist’s production. Via the events surrounding the demise of a dog, it tells the story of death entering a house and the process of dealing with grief. The material is shown in four simultaneous projections, the intention being to explore the possibilities of disrupting the traditional causal logic, structure and space for perception in screen narrative, while still being able to follow the events. Filmed in West Africa in an area where locals frequently attempt illegal immigration to Europe in the hope of a better future, Fishermen/Études No. 1 (2007) is the first work in a series of five one-channel video installations called Études.1 It recounts the tale of a group of men who repeatedly and frantically attempt to get out to sea in the face of strong winds and heavy seas, in a vain hope to earn their daily food.

text : Carlos Ospina

art’s impossible collection

books

Encapsulating the work of art of the 20th century in a single volume can be seen as an impossible task; this is for two obvious reasons, first of all the sheer volume of art produced in the 20th century would make such a collection a never ending one, secondly, the practical remedy to the first issue, selecting what to include and excluded inevitably would lead to controversy as the selection of art is perpetually sentence to human subjectivity, nonetheless Franck Giraud and Philippe Ségalot of the New York and Paris based art consultancy have attempted such impossible task in their book The Impossible Collection.

Set in a chronological structure The Impossible Collection is opening with Picasso’s 1901 self-portrait and closing with Rudolf Stingel’s 2000 relief Untitled. In total the

book is composed by what the authors considered to be the most ‘coveted’ and influential hundred pieces of art of the 20th century, of course this collection includes the grand figures of art such as Matisse, Bacon, Picasso, Warhol and many others making it a convenient snapshot of the works of art of that dominated the our previous century. Great care has been put in the physical and material composition of the book with traditional technique and color-tipped on art quality paper, the quality of the book and its texture really does justice to the works of art it sets to exhibit, not surprisingly though this is reflected on its price selling at around $500 USD (£350). The ambition of the The Impossible Collection needs to be taken and consume critically and not passively, as the title of the book suggests capturing a century of works of art practically and subjectively is an impossible mission, thus this collection

should be seen as what Franck Giraud and Philippe Ségalot consider in their view as an ideal collection of art and not as the ultimate universal collection of art, as there are many omissions worth considering such Fernando Botero whom is considered by many as the Picasso of our time. Other omissions that have been contested include photography pioneers such Henri CartierBresson, Walker Evans, and Man Ray as well as Edgar Degas, Amedeo Modigliani, Balthus, Giorgio Morandi, and Edward Hoppe. All in all this is an important collection to have for those whom are passionate about art, however it is not a collection that can nor should stand alone as an encyclopaedia of art of the 20th century, due to the diversity and vast volume of art created during that era such collection in one single volume is destine to be an impossible one.

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MicmacS – FroM ThE DirectoR OF AmeliE

Amélie director Jean-Pierre Jeunet has been off the radar for a good five years, returning with a surreal tale, which sees a motley Paris gang, take on the world’s arms-dealers.

I AM LovE

film

In every sense, “I Am Love” is a stunning achievement of Luca Guadagnino and does more than expertly craft space. He exposes the world of a wealthy Milanese family with astonishing accuracy, recalling Visconti in his ability to analyze upper-class way of life and make them feel vital. The movie is marked by flawless art direction and casting, this is the sort of film that sends viewers racing back to the helmer’s earlier pictures, asking “What did I miss?” While not populist enough to become a hit, “I Am Love” is the kind of exceptional Euro arthouse film that will generate buzz worldwide.

Every camera angle is interesting and confident without being showy, just like the family itself, while small, quick details beautifully underline emotions. Yorick Le Saux’s quietly brilliant lensing reinforces the necessary integration between the superb set design and the actors, and John Adams’ music, including excerpts from his operas, are exquisitely chosen.

Micmacs translates as “Suspect Activities”, and its full French title means “Lots of Suspect Activities”. “Tire-Larigot” is also the name of the bizarre underground headquarters where the main characters live, and the title applies both to the honourable activities of the heroes and the wicked business of the villains. In the manner of a comedy of humours, each has a name that suggests their particular skills – Elastic Girl, for instance, is a contortionist, Remington; a black ethnographer, types up speeches and does impersonations; Buster (Dominique Pinon, the wonderfully grotesque Jeunet regular) is an indestructible human cannonball. The den is run by Mama Chow, whose daughters disappeared in a fairground hall of mirrors. Micmacs links Keaton, Chaplin and Tati to the surreal, stylised worlds of Lynch, Burton and Gilliam and draws on everything from film noir to Sergio Leone. It is lit in a hallucinatory fashion, golden by day, dreamy by night, shot with lenses that happily disconcert the viewer.

film

ThE FatheR OF MY ChildreN

A warning about spoilers is necessary before rehearsing the question at the heart of this deeply intelligent film: why do people commit suicide? Is our catch-all diagnosis of “depression” a glib, quasiclinical alibi which masks our incomprehension? Is suicide a spasm of despair, or rather something calmly envisioned years or even decades before the act itself, like emigration or retirement, and in fact the neurotically comforting option which has been the sole foundation for carrying on with the business of life? Mia Hanson-Løve has made an outstanding, undemonstrative family drama based on troubled film producer Humbert Balsan, who took his own life in 2005.

A SinglE MaN

A sorrowful beauty infuses every frame of this remarkable debut feature from fashion designer Tom Ford. Loosely based on the novel by Christopher Isherwood, A Single Man visits a single day in the life of gay Brit expat George Falconer (Colin Firth), a teacher at a Los Angeles college who plans on suicide to end his pain over the death of his lover, Jim (Matthew Goode). The film is stunningly visualized, with Ford achieving a feeling for light and texture to rival Wong Kar-wai’s. Life with Jim is seen in black-and-white flashbacks that contrast vividly with the rich color palette of his present encounters, notably with Kenny, beautifully played by Nicholas Hoult (About a Boy), a student whose interests exceed the academic, and his British friend Charley (Julianne Moore), a divorcee who fantasizes that George will marry her. Moore is explosively good, especially in her drunk scene. But the film belongs to Firth.

Uncanny at showing the heart crumbling under George’s elegant exterior, he gives the performance of his career. Ford is a true visionary, but it’s his humanity that gives the love story a ravishing, bruised grandeur.

ThE DeserT FloweR

Desert Flower tells the incredible journey based on the autobiographical novel by Somali migrant turned supermodel/celebrity activist Waris Dirie. Director and screenwriter Sherry Hormann did her story justice in the Desert Flower and premiered the movie at the Venice Film Festival. With Hormann sitting next to her in Venice, Dirie does not hold back with her first reaction to seeing the film. “This woman destroyed me,” she says. She felt destroyed, she felt sad, and she felt angry. However, she agreed the movie to be what she expected, to have the message, and if no one could feel this movie, then she doesn’t know what will move the hearts of the world. Although Dirie’s story is full of drama – escaping an arranged marriage at the age of 13 and eventually finding herself in London - it is the revelation that she was circumcised as a very young girl that gives the film its emotional centre.

film

While based on her autobiography, the movie has taken a degree of artistic licence,

becoming a strange blend of drama and comedy, with star turns from Sally Hawkins, Timothy Spall and Juliet Stevenson. But the central message is harrowing. It is difficult to absorb that female circumcision is a practice that continues in great numbers in Africa, and around the rest of the world. The whole project was not about documentary it was aimed to create a feeling. Waris Dirie went a long way until she began her campaign to highlight the brutality of female genital mutilation. However, she quickly fell out with the organization, getting frustrated with its total size and lack of pressure on female issues. So it was left to the director of Desert Flower Sherry Hormann to give advice on what the average person can do build awareness of the problem.

fashion

PhotographY Pablo Goikoetxea model Irma Adinda hair and Make-up Bita Jalali STYLING Raminta Budreckyte FashioN designer Rasa Abramaviciute

fashion

photography

fashion

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