Paulina Holbreich

Coco Before Chanel (Coco Avant Chanel)

Sunday, August 23rd, 2009 | Film Reviews | No Comments

Coco avant Chanel

See Audrey Tautou in one of her best roles! She has interpreted the French legend of design Coco Chanel in an absolutely amazing way! Her charming nature is flowing though out the film and everybody is a bit disappointed when the story suddenly stops at a quite interesting point – the beginning of Chanel`s career. But obviously, that was the intention of the director Anne Fontaine.

She didn`t want to present Coco`s biography just as a chain of events. In fact her focus has been more on the second phase of Coco`s life when she left the orphanage and started singing in a Varieté.  The following acquaintance with Etienne (Benoît Poelvoorde) set an end to her (a little bit embarrassing) performances as singer but let her run into an ambiguous “love” relationship with him.  Her strong, determined but  feminine character mirrors Chanel`s typical cuts and styles. Her romantic relationship to “Boy”  (Alessandro Nivola) is moving and very well interpreted by both actors. Especially their dialogue about the meaning of a marriage against the background of “Boy`s” arranged wedding with an “Englishwoman” reveals and explains Chanel`s further attitude towards men, also after “Boy`s” fatal car accident.  He was her “big love” and she never married, though she had numerous love affairs.

The film gives a just small but essential insight into the roots of Chanel`s work and character. A short portrayal about her former collections and the absolutely revolutionary effect on the female world of the 30ies and 50ies still would have certainly fit very well into the film.

Tags: Alessandro Nivola, Audrey Tautou, Benoît Poelvoorde, Coco, Coco Chanel, Design, French

Democratization and Transition from Plan to Market Economy

Tuesday, July 28th, 2009 | Film Reviews, University | 2 Comments

To understand the still ongoing political and economical  processes in Eastern Europe (or especially in Czech Rep.) since 1989, we have to know something  about the existing transition theories. This post gives you a short overview about the main theories predominating the transition research.

Basically there are four directions, which are of importance. It started in the 60-ies with the Systems-Theory of Talcott Parsons which postulates the development of  so called ” evolution universals”. He argued that, like Darwin`s evolution of biological organisms, societies progress through their  “capacity for generalized adaptation” to their environment. This is achieved mainly through the development of specialized institutions to perform the social functions necessary to meet increasingly specialized needs (structural differentiation). Evolution is then from traditional to modern societies, and progress can be charted via bureaucratic organization, money and market complexes, social stratification, cultural legitimation and the emergence of generalized universalised norms.

Seymor M. Lipset advanced Parsons` theory  and developed a casual connection between economical development and democratization.  According to this, a growing GDP entails a better education, growing prosperity, tolerance, moderate working style of policy, a consolidation of civil society and eventually democratic structures.  This steps of development are essential for the neoliberal paradigm which focuses the free market economy with its constitutive criteria ( e.g. private ownership, free price formation, freedom of competition).

This so called Theory of Modernization and Parsons` Systems Theory expanded into the paradigm of the neoliberal institutions like the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (Bretton-Woods institutions). While this neoliberal model of development has been implemented on several countries of the third democratization wave (like India, Latin-America, Portugal) more and more criticism began to rise. Mainly the over- simplification as well as the missing  explanation for the economical development without further democratization such as in several Arabic countries have been criticized.

New approaches in the transition research began to become more and more accepted. The publication of Huntington`s  “Clash of Civilization” in the beginning of the 90-ies focused on the cultural aspects of countries in transition. Cultural theorists assume a close relationship between the secularization of a society and its ability and  success in developing democratic structures. Therefor some societies  just cannot be democratized because of their special religious-cultural roots which cannot be just replaced by new institutions and values.

Another branch of research are the stakeholder theories, which look on the microscopic level at the small elite-groups which seem to control the transition processes in a country. According to this, different  stakeholder combinations can be identified as well as possible activities and developments  be fore-casted. This is the main advantage over the Systems and Modernizing theories.

All in one the four theories complement one another so that a stakeholder analysis cannot be made without a system theoretical background. The multidimensional question of the  success of the Czech transition strategy as well as the initial situation at the retail market  will be targeted in the next post.

Tags: analysis, economics, Lipset, Parsons, stakeholder, strategy, third wave of democratization, transition, transition theory

Everything is Illuminated (Film by Liev Schreiber)

Sunday, July 20th, 2008 | Film Reviews | 1 Comment

Two totally contrary characters shape the plot of this film. Jonathan (Elijah Wood), a young shy American, who just collects everything, packing things in plastic bags, and Alex (Eugene Hutz), an extroverted and cool Ukrainian from Odessa, who acts (with strongest Russian accent) as translator throughout the story. Jonathan is a Jew and travels to Ukraine, just after his grandmother`s death, to look for Augustine, a woman from an old pic his grandpa gave to him, and a place named “Trachimbrod“. Alex`s father runs a business named “Jew Heritage Odessa”, which is “helping” rich Jews from the West  to find their Jewish roots in their homeland Ukraine.  This family business is supported by Alex, his old and anti-Semitic grandma and his beloved, crazy dog “Suchka” (Russian for “bitch”).

Their trip by a small blue “Trabbi” in search of  “Trachimbrod” is a mix of grandpa`s crude Russian swearing and Jonathan`s weird nature. The scene “I don`t eat meat, I`m a vegetarian!” is just brilliant! At that point the director (Liev Schreiber) and the actors did a great job in turning out differences of mentalities and hit the mark!

The journey reveals another aspect, which turns the viewer`s attention to Alex`s grandpa. He seems to remember the places and landscapes they are driving past. Russian and Ukraine background melodies give the scenery a special coloring and authenticity.

Eventually the Trio comes to a  field of  sunflowers. Augustine`s sister lives here far from civilization an reality. Grandfather shares a secret with her which turns out to be his own Jewish roots. He regains his own identity and ends up in a bath full of blood – content an silent. Everything is illuminated!

This film is really unusual and worth seeing particulary in original if you can understand Russian and English…

Tags: crazy, Gogol, Hutz, illuminated, Jew, Russian, Ukraina

Hodge`s “The Beach”

Friday, February 22nd, 2008 | Film Reviews | No Comments

“The Beach” is a screenplay based on a novel by Alex Garland. The novel of almost 500 pages creates a tension and adventurous atmosphere, although it almost gets lost in the middle of the story. The main characters are introduced to the reader one after another and we are able to get into the action step by step.
The film destroys this mysterious atmosphere from the beginning on by music, which doesn´t fit into the action and the rapid development of the story. Though the story about Richard and his friends living inside a secret beach-community in Thailand offers many aspects to work on, almost nothing has been picked up by screenwriter John Hodge.
Many key-scenes and important characters are simply left out and like many Hollywood screenplays the love scenes, which are actually not in the book, disturbed the original plot.
First, Richard steals his friend´s girlfriend and then he has sex with Sal, who is meant to be the strict leader of the community. His best friend Jed doesn´t exist at all in the film.
It doesn´t help, that a star-actor like Leonardo di Caprio is trying hard to play the shy, introverted and paranoid Richard. Leonardo´s star image and his popularity overshadow his possibilities as an actor. It´s also funny that some characters who are american in the book, have a strong British accent in the film.
Tensions inside the wanna-be-perfect community are not clearly shown in the film while it´s actually very important for the climax at the end. The well-kept secrecy of the beach has been lost in the moment, when Richard got the map of the hidden beach from a dead “duck” (played by Robert Carlyle).
The film-script is boring and consists of some unconnected scenes which don´t create a certain atmosphere. It´s a pity, that some very good actors wasted their time to cover the film-makers´ faults . The climax of this 90 min. picture are the annualy celebrations of the community.
As already expected, even this final scenes are not appropriate to the novel. A Techno-party, then malicious dope guards and finaly rafting home. A disappointing end.

The only plus point is the scenery which keeps a credible image of a lonely island.

If you don´t fancy Leonardo Di Caprio and have already read the book, you shouldn´t destroy the impression of a good novel.