#upgradeyourmind

TStarts with: smokey eyes, without smoke. The flu already at the start. Damn.  A journey around the world in pictures, from the cinema chair in Berlin. Why? To see other people of this one world with another perspective. #385days - (congratulations to myself) without flying with an airplane and it didn’t hurt going by train.

Systemsprenger | System Crasher  https://www.berlinale.de/en/programm/berlinale_programm/programmsuche.html?searchText=systemsprenger&page=1&order_by=1

BOOM. I have never seen such an exact representation of the drama triangle of persecutor/perpetrator, rescuer (on the victim's or perpetrator's side) and the victim. In this dynamic process, in the unstoppable spiral that only makes everything worse because the mother takes the perpetrator's side. And the nine year child, Benni, the wild and angry daughter? Helpless, feels unjustly treated, does not understand the world, is offended and then one wonders that this child reproduces what it has experienced and only when it gets worse and worse, only then - the mother comes. Within Benni’s perspective, you understand, how a trauma trigger works, what emotions in Benni’s head / eyes produces fear and anger and violence. A spiral of violence without end, because the mother is unable to free herself from the partner (perpetrator). This destroys everything for Benni. Benni grew up in an environment that offers no security and no trust. Neither to his mother nor to his brutal friend. How is Benni ever to gain trust? And the film makes sure, she needs someone, a close relationship, not a mother who makes promises and never keeps them. Because of their uncontrolled outbursts of rage, which are also directed against other, weaker children and herself, the spiral of violence becomes more and more blatant. 

The Youth Welfare Office hardly finds any more residential groups to accommodate Benni. And it’s hard to see, that some person’s try to help and recognizes her situation, but can’t solve the problem. When Benni trusts a caregiver, she wants him to be her dad, so urgently is the child  looking for someone to be close to. But too much closeness is not possible in assisted living, it is not professional. Benni actually needs someone with whom she can stay, without thinking that she constantly has to construct alarm conditions (against others and against herself). But that's what she learns: If it's really bad and she's pumped full of sedatives in the hospital, then the mother comes. The mother make promises she don't keep. A new disappointment, insult and rejection. New anger, new rage and Benni comes back to another institution and it starts all over again. To get back to the dramatic triangle: the victim becomes the perpetrator: a victim-perpetrator. The rescuers, the Youth Welfare Office can hardly replace the missing mother. And a long-term solution with one person, what a task... The film physically attacked me (this only did Utøya and Victoria before). It shows violence, but mostly at the edge of the picture and not in your face - and it hurts you so much more, because as a viewer, you fulfill it in your head. The anger, the despair, the hopelessness, also for the carers, frightening. The camera work is sensitive, because she works herself into Benni, we experience and understand her perspective. Benni's emotional world, impressive, also the editing. 

One image will stay for me forever: Benni with the caregiver Micha, they go up a green wooded slope on their nature trip and Benni's garish pink jacket screams into green tones: See me.  The great merit of this film is that it shows how rejected mother love can become arbitrary hatred and anger against all sorts of people and how lost those children are. 

The question arises: Who is the system crasher here: the mother who does not protect her child from her brutal boyfriend? The boyfriend who hits her small children? The girl who defends herself and gets brutal against others in this dysfunctional family? The dynamic of all?  But there is a life without violence, humiliation and destruction, for which one must decide and rather separate from a destroyer. Meeting: ProQuoteFilm. UPGRADE YOUR MIND https://proquote-film.de/#/informationen/news/aktuelles/2019/01/28/upgrade-your-mind-gender-diversitaet/object=post:3946

The Miracle of the Saragossa Sea  Why? Arbitrariness of the police man and the police woman? “tooth by tooth”? Revenge and death? 

There must be other ways to stand up than waving your weapon around and / or practicing vigilante justice.

Basketball Break: After a weak start Alba Berlin wins 82:74 against the lions of Braunschweig. 

La paranze dei bambini https://www.berlinale.de/en/programm/berlinale_programm/datenblatt.html?film_id=201913537

This movie shows the way of the young protagonist Nicola, a fifteen-year-old boy who lives in the narrow streets of Naples. With his mother (she has a little dry cleaning) and his little brother. No school anymore, no work. The mother has to pay protection money to the mafia gang. In Naples, there are different gangs for different areas. With the young boys we ride on scooters through the alleys of the city, experience already the gang fights of the individual groupings of the quarters. Experience the exclusion of the boys, who without brand name clothes and money can't get into the discotheques, while the girls go there, whom they drool after. It is very interesting, how the film constructs via spaces social positions. The districts of the city, the different gangs that control the districts and the only space where everything comes together is here the club, the discotheque. It is divided hierarchically: who is allowed to enter at all, who gets a table at all (only with reservation from 500 € basic consumption) or who stands at the bar or who even sits on the balustrade, above the heads of everyone or who stands in front on stage at the Miss elections. This is how the film depicts the social positions in Italian society, this is how the social positions show themselves: the man has to have money and thereby buys access, the woman has to be young and beautiful - a pretty woman serves to upgrade the man or - having a gun.  This film does not heroise this status, it criticises it and makes the absurd mechanisms clear, which often seems ridiculous. 

The film shows the seduction of power with false rule models, greed, a non-existent rule of law and Naples is a symbol of organized crime and power of patriarchal structures. And: Selfie-narcissism of the modern world. This self-assurance that you do exist, even if you're small, without a job and money.  And how important it is, with whom you make a Selfie, which revaluation this can mean for these boys (in the “sun” of power). How it raises their own importance, almost like Selfies with weapons that will follow.  The film shows the male youthfulness, this machismo and the strange honor and hierarchical thinking. How ridiculous some status rituals seem and how the boys can't escape them, but want to participate in any case. With brand sneakers or gold watches already makes a head dealer of the city? It's really painfully funny, how the movie shows these clichés and tells the mechanism in a reflective way. And via Nicola the audience steps into the spiral of violence. Nicola is a contradictory protagonist. Tender to his mother, girlfriend and brother. Naive first love. A friend you can trust on, a human, but surprised by himself what he's capable of. We are observers of his transformation, from a boy with friends into a “business” gang partner and here, Nicola becomes flexible. We see him worshiping an old family clan myth. It has almost something religious, this worship. But he changes the sides in behave of power - power is its seducer. These are chain-forming decisions which gang group he joins. The film unmasks the gang mentality, the mafia gangster heroism, the ridiculousness of the stupid macho behavior becomes clear. One can imagine that also in the future a young, ambitious offspring will overthrow the old Patrones from the throne somewhere. Nicola lives the traditionell role model: the man is the powerful part and a protector, girls are not in the gangs. Girls part: pretty and servants. That's why he dresses up as a woman to come by for the guards of the mafia boss, because nobody in the mafia world does fear a woman, because women are mothers, wives, “princesses” or servants, but the film cracks that constructed role model with Nikolas masquerade - that was the Mafia boss's doom and Nikola expected that. This scene unfolds the positions and hierarchies between women and men. Again, the triangle of persecutor/perpetrator, rescuer (not really, it always another mafia gang on the victim's side) and the victim.  The mother has to pay money to the mafia (victim), her son Nicola, want’s to protect her (rescuer - the son, not the police). Nicola wants to stop the arbitrary injustice, but chooses a dangerous solution: he want’s to get more powerful (more violent) than the clan how is “protecting” his area. This has serious consequences. He searches powerful partners and a strategy, to stop the payment for his area. The loop of the spiral of violence is tightened and the mechanism of violence and counter violence, revenge and wild, naive masculinity blows bullets around the ears and into the bodies of some children and adults. Which image I will never forget: the boys at the shooting exercise over the rooftops of Naples. How they train shooting, with the many satellite dishes as targets, under the protection of the self-produced fireworks: playfully dumb, between Appearance and Being. How the little boys with the guns seem to be getting strong or powerful, just because they have a gun and destroy their sat recipients.  I liked the camera, how it uses Naples as protagonist, how it plays with the rooms and perspectives and how it captures Nikola's feelings.  Plus: Never under estimate the power of a big gold frame. These apartments, these furnishings styles, the Italians' penchant for playing big golden Monarchie, crazy! 

L’ adieu á la nuit Please, can someone make a film about Muslims in Europe and show, that the Islam is not violent “by nature”? Excuse me, I myself will listen like a preacher because I cannot believe that the mechanisms of the situation is not better represented.  The movie: Heaven will wait https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1PgFiZwQdQM shows more sensitive and deep, how the brainwash of young, not self-assured people works.

André Téchiné gives answers? On his point of view, the new law for better police surveillance has led to the seizure of the three potential extremists. In my opinion: Telecommunication surveillance only with order because of the well-founded suspicion of international threat, does not simply interfere with civil rights for no reason and is monitored on a massive scale. 

Why fight only the symptoms instead of the reasons? The film is unfortunately very short-sighted and only remains on the surface. 

Synonymes A strangely funny-grotesque movie. I don’t know..?? How can you get rid of yourself: your past? Why would you take that off like a coat? That's impossible in life, but a change of location maybe helps. How knows? Somehow you have to deal with your experiences as well as you can. Looking back, looking ahead, doing things differently. And it will always get better with friends, new or old.  Absurde situation, the integration curse. I recognized: i do not like the french Nationale Hymnen, neither the german one or another. This power pose, urgh.  There is no "better" nationality. There is also no "better" religion.  Also in France the integration courses are as almost stupid and humiliating as in Germany and I don't like how the national arrogance towards the "newcomers" is radiated. That was very self-ironic and reflective presented. In that situation I want to inline a statement into the members of the course:  Equal rights without egalitarianism! A personal request: Please, respect the individual human being beyond national belonging. Equal rights for all people, equal opportunities for all sexes of all origins.  People are, for me, never “only” a nationality. It sounds almost strange to write that because it's so logical, but lately I have to emphasize that somehow. Nationality, double Nationality, french german, french italian, french israeli or german turkish AND also a Man or Woman, a Child, a Lover, a Dancer, a Security Worker, a Photographer, a Book Lover, a most dodified scrambled egg chef AND/OR a Spaghetti Lover AND jewish or muslim or catholic or non believing (scientifically possible: the big bang came out of nowhere): a complex human identity, with a past of a present and a future, with many layers. Are you able to see this? Or are you focusing your light just on only one layer? And the others are left dark? In my eyes - this could be represented more and in other and different aspects in that movie. The possibilities of understanding in this film are very wide fields.  The visual language, I was not convinced. (I smelled old teeth all the time, hopefully not mine? No. Mine must have smelled like cherries.)

Der Boden unter den Füßen Zerfiel, vor dem falschen Kino, in einzelne Buchstaben und alles über den Füßen müsste sich als Zeitungsvogel hinter einem Blätterbündel wieder zusammensetzen.