Gerald Kargl - Angst (1983)

This is an intense, poetic and unfairly critizised experimental masterpiece on all levels. The images of a child going down a slide and of a surviving dachshund (Is he crying? For us?) are emblematic for the film as a whole. 

They are documents of the director's heartbreaking tenderness and his compassion for both the perpetrator and his victims. We (as the powerless audience) have to witness this nightmare of atrocities, delusions, the loneliness and desperation.

The weightless camera work (Zbigniew Rybczyński), the music by Klaus Schulze, the editing and the voice-over are flawless. Not to speak of the ultra nuanced acting by Erwin Leder. 

If you allow some comparisons to this uniqueness it would be: Robert Bresson's "L'argent" (1983), Gaspard Noé's "Seul contre tous"(1988) and maybe Krzysztof Kieslowski's "A Short Film About Killing"(1988).

It is at times hard to watch, but it is a deeply rewarding experience since it uses its medium on breathtakingly daring levels of virtuosity. Keep in mind that this is a first feature film.

Michael Chaves - The Conjuring. Last Rites (2025)

Now, this one is a really funny one. A really good mixture of senile Christian fundamentalism and good old horror slapstick that scares maybe demonic gold hamsters. The more appropriate title would have been rather: 

The Conjuring. Yikes, my mirror is possessed.

The good thing first: this film is only four hours long. Or at least it feels like this.  A good length for little a cinematic nap. Don't be afraid to miss something. This film was conceived for wooden posts. And have the handkerchiefs ready. The chief excorcists are retiring. But relax: there is a super cute couple ready to take over. The nearly stillborn daughter and now a supergirl medium and her Ex-cop husband are there to inherit mummy and daddy's business. Thanks heaven, that we still have the Holy christian family.

When will The Conjuring. The Revenge of the demonic Tomatoes be released. The Idea: maybe this time tomatos are possessed and they are about to infiltrate the Burger and French Fries Industry. Where is the Holy Mustard to save us?

And of course everything is based on true storys.

 

My Reading Traces - Jacques Derrida - Voyous

Mike Tyson talks ...

“I don’t believe in legacy. It’s just another word for ego. I’m just passing through. I’m gonna die, and it’s gonna be over. Who cares about legacy after that? We’re nothing. We’re just dead. We’re just dust. We’re absolutely nothing. Our legacy is nothing. Who the fuck cares about me when I’m gone?”

- Mike Tyson (2024)

in an admirably good mood.

Alex Garland, Ray Mendoza - Warfare (2025)

Do yourself a favour and leave out this film. And put it on your black list. It is a really despicable film.It is the all too transparent attempt to generate compassion for the agents of black ops. But at the same time it is a hymnic and tearful praise of toxic masculinity. Just watch the first three minutes and you knew in what misogynous world the films wants to force you in.

Next major flaw: There is not even an explanation given for the context of the Irak-War. There is only a pseudo-authentic background since one of the soldiers was co-author of the script. Hence the military slang you are forced to listen too. What was again the idea and the purpose of this mission? Close to zero informations in this film either. But enjoy your time with the civil hostages. 

The film erases its maybe sincere motives by using the trite formulas of action and or western cinema say of John Carpenter's "Assault on Precinct 13"(1976). The film also reproduces the simple military friend/enemy dualism and invests severly into the dehumanization of the foes.

The celebrated sound design is only the mean and brutal attempt to force the audience into a war like atmosphere. Oh, how cute!

My Reading Traces - Jacques Derrida - Voyous

 

My Reading Traces - Jacques Derrida - Voyous

 

Clive Barker - Hellraiser (1987)

 

No, it is not the newest Rubik's Cube! You must have recognized it already. Yes, it is - now after nearly 40 years - an uncut Hellraiser. This is already very funny, since all the knife cuts and all the other charming mutilations are still there. I remembered the main gadget as some kind of super silly Rubik's Cube, the BDSM Edition. 

But surprise surprise - it was not a cube but a box called "The Lament Configuration". A brilliant commentary in the bonus material reads the film as an essay about the desire of "unboxing".

That's more interesting than the film itself. Since Hellraiser remains one of the cornerstones of an ultra cruel cinema conceived by and for misogyne psychopaths. The motto of this kind of cinema that is still working (until "John Wick" down to "Dune 1 and 2"): "Go away woman, I have some killings to do". And there is (how wonder) a strictly male self destructive chain of box owners.

It is also the film with the silliest hairstyles. Pinhead, really? And a film with the most gifted short legged Charlotte Rampling impersonator. But also one with a poorly talented impersonator of Jennifer Connelly.

But it belongs also to the truth that it remains one of the most indigestible and deadly serious films of all times. If you want to make (no) friends show it at your next birthday party.

Pyrrhocoris apterus enjoying the sun

 

Pyrrhocoris apterus enjoying the sun.

(Foto: SKG, 3/2026)

My Reading Traces: Jacques Derrida - Spectres de Marx

 

My Reading Traces: Jacques Derrida, Donner la mort

 

My Reading Traces: James Joyce - Finnegans Wake

 

My Reading Traces: James Joyce - Finnegans Wake

 

My Reading Traces: Paul de Man - Allegories of Reading

 

Ti West: The Sacrament (2013)

 

In a way Eli Roth's "The Green Inferno" (2013) is the evil and even more apocalyptical twin to this film. If you are dreaming of a life in seclusion and harmony watch both films at once or after one another. Yes, ethnographical interests often end in death and destruction. Paradise lost. And Ti West's "The Sacrament"(2013) is a really good, deadly seriously and uncanny mockumentary about Jonestown. Back to nature and back to the spirit are equally self-destructive movements.

My Reading Traces: Paul de Man - Allegories of Reading

 

My Reading Traces: Paul de Man - Allegories of Reading

 

My Reading Traces: Paul de Man - Hypogram and Inscription

 

My Reading Traces: Paul de Man - The Resistance to Theory

 

My Reading Traces: Paul de Man - The Resistance to Theory

 

My Reading Traces: Jacques Derrida - La peine de mort

 

My Reading Traces: San Juan de la Cruz - ... aunque es de noche

 

Frederick Wiseman is dead

Frederick Wiseman. Photo: Antoine Yar/Wikimedia Commons.

* 1. Januar 1930 in Boston, Massachusetts

 † 16. Februar 2026 in Cambridge, Massachusetts

One of my most admired directors passed way. I believe that I have watched at least 70 percent of his films. And I am still afraid to watch his "Near Death"(1989). It is darkly funny that this title coincides with the fall of the Berlin Wall and the near death of global socialism. In any case my favorites are "Missile"(1987) which is also in a certain way a film about near death. And "The Store" (1984) and "Meat" (1976) about the cruelty and the violence of global capitalism.

He will remain together with maybe Robert Kramer the most important cartographer of the modern post Shoah world. So much sadness and mourning in his world. He already saw America dying -- decades before it happens right now before our own eyes.

David Wellington: The Carpenter (1988)

 

Bizarrely unconnected story lines, in parts dreamlike.

A female and male psycho meet.

The undead male is ludicrously connected to a house.

The abused female comes directly out of a mental institution.

In a part also love story with a feminist twist. 

Maybe a film about editing living bodies with tools. 

Or it simply adds another reason why anyone hates to have craftsman in the house.

First feature film with a masterly and almost idiotically overachieving camerawork by the now famous David Franco.

Worthy of watching it mainly for this reason. 

Giacomo Abbruzzese: Disco Boy (2023)

When dreams melt into the world, and vice versa.

And one meets one's Doppelgänger in the jungle.

When death becomes life, and vice versa in a series of transgressions.

If any comparison would even be possible it would be:

Weerasethakul.

A deeply original work. Don't miss it!