Re: [Cz-L] "Dieses Jahr in Czernowitz" (2004)

Dear Steven,

I saw the film "Dieses Jahr in Czernowitz" in Haifa, three years ago' I was
almost dissapointed from the film and from Harvey Keitel.
Regards
Yehudit Yerushalmi-Terris
Rishon le Zion


----- Original Message -----


From: "Steven Lasky" <steve725_at_optonline.net>
To: "Czernowitz Genealogy and History" <czernowitz-l_at_list.cornell.edu>
Sent: Thursday, May 29, 2008 5:49 PM
Subject: [Cz-L] "Dieses Jahr in Czernowitz" (2004)


> Greetings,
>
> I never knew that there was a German film produced in Berlin, that was
> released in 2004 called "Dieses Jahr in Czernowitz." The only American I
> know in it is Harvey Keitel. It is supposed to be a documentary. I have no
> idea yet what it is about. Try the link
> www.imdb.com/title/tt0409894/maindetails.
> Anybody know what it's about? The film is in German, English and Ukranian.
> The 'tagline' is 'Nach Herr Zwilling und Frau Zuckermann zurück in
> Czenowitz (From "Herr Zwilling und Frau Zuckermann" back to Czernowitz)'
> Has anybody ever seen this film? It is 134 minutes in length and is in
> color.
> Here is one external review of the film, though it is in German. The Babel
> Fish English translation (imperfect, to be sure) follows:
> The film review in German can be found at
> http://www.030-kino.de/filmtipp-0415.html.
>
> The English translation, as it is done by this online/free English
> translation service:
>
> Two opinions
> to “this year in Czernowitz” of Volker Koepp
> Czernowitz (today: Tscherniwzi) is more exact a remote city in
> Ukraine, in the north of the Bukowina, a region, which was once part of
> the Austrian-Hungarian monarchy. The south of the Bukowina belongs today
> to Romania. Czernowitz had 150,000 inhabitants once, nearly half of Jews.
> But also numerous other nationalities in the city, among other things
> Ukrainer, Romanians, German, Poland and Huzulen lived.
>
> Today there are only few Jews in Czernowitz. Many did not survive the
> Holocaust and did not go a multiplicity into the exile. Volker Koepp
> aufgespührt some these persons and tried to let the memories of the
> Bukowina revive: Eduard instruction man, a Cellist from Berlin, Evelyne
> Mayer and Katja Rainer from Vienna, the Schaspieler Harvey Keitel and the
> writer Norman Manea from New York.
>
> In addition, the film shows the life in Czernowitz today, both from
> the view of the 90-jährigen German Johann Schlamp, and from the
> perspective of the Ukrainian student Tanja Kloubert, which breaks open at
> the end of the film to Germany, in order to study there further.
>
> 1998 turn Volker Koepp here the documentary film “Mr. Zwilling and
> Mrs. Zuckermann” over two older people from the city, which died in the
> meantime. “This year in Czernowitz” is dedicated to these two persons.
> Unfortunately Koepps newest work is guessed/advised not as alive as “Mr.
> Zwilling and Mrs. Zuckermann” and tells the fates of humans occasionally
> somewhat long-windedly.
>
> One notices also, which became too strange most protagonists this
> region, that they could tell inspiring and umschweifend of it. In
> particular the appearances of Harvey Keitel work usually somewhat touched
> down and woodenly.
>
> Nevertheless the work opens interesting views of nevertheless most
> humans unknown past of a region in Europe, in which once an alive and
> multicultural life prevailed. - Worth seeing. (MR/030-Kino.de) (...) Once
> we see Harvey Keitel in the roads of Czernowitz. A leader tells it of the
> good old k. and k. Time, and Keitel say: “I miss it, although I do not
> know it at all.” A picture like a plate: the US tourist in Europe in the
> search for its roots. Keitel talks much and very enthusiastically about
> things, about which he knows few. With Keitel, which is to provide for
> such a thing like glamor, holds a tourist view introduction, which than
> only disturbs more. Because in the center of the documentary films of
> Volker Koepp the search stands after the unverstellten, true moment, in
> which a figure and its history become visible. These scenes are the force
> center of the Koepp films. Keitels tourist self productions are the
> accurate opposite.
>
> There are bright moments also to “this year in Czernowitz”. About if
> Johann Schlamp, 89 years old and perhaps the last German in Czernowitz,
> which is called today Tscherniwzi, on which road a Opperettenlied
> anstimmt. Or if the writer Norman Manea talks, which was as a child in the
> KZ and teaches now at the east coast of the USA literature. Manea speaks
> perfectly German and English, but writes, says it, can it only on
> Romanian. Then it looks lost into the camera and begins, as in an internal
> monologue to talk Romanian. One moment, in which an experience comes to
> the expression: the loss, which emigration means; the Gegenbild to Keitels
> phantom pain.
>
> Koepp looks for, like already in the East Prussia film “cold
> homeland”, for the east Central European culture disappeared in the
> terror of the totalitarianism. It is a far search: It leads to Berlin,
> Vienna, New York. The dramaturgische fabric has thereby many holes. Also
> to the fact it may lie that “Czernowitz” never wins the suggestiven
> rhythm, which distinguished “cold homeland”.
>
> Many of the figures seem to travel particularly for this film after
> Czernowitz. There they sit somewhat helpless in Cafés and look lost for
> the houses, in which once their parents and grandparents lived. But the
> past is to be aroused neither by speeches nor by the journey again to the
> life. In its best instants “Czernowitz” shows, like the attempt fails to
> bring destroyed offence back to speaking. This attempt would succeed, it
> would be kitsch.
>
> (Source: taz)
>
>
> Best,
> Steven Lasky
> New York
> www.museumoffamilyhistory.com
> steve_at_museumoffamilyhistory.com
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Received on 2008-06-01 18:59:36