The Importance of Dreams

Dear Michael Haneke,

To seek emotional protection from our disturbed, insane, corrupt, violent world, I tried to take refuge in your films, in your poetic and philosophical view and your analysis of human complexities. I would compare you to Ingmar Bergman. A filmmaker which I would enjoy being sank in his creative world. And also Sohrab Shahid Saless' works come to my mind!

You wouldn’t imagine how much I admire your film “Amour”.  A film which would invite the spectators to take journey into the core of the matters, to the dark maze of human soul.  I know that through insanity, I would find sanity, truth, love and empathy.
To calm my restless heart I watched The White Ribbon and The Piano Teacher. My predication was that these films were somehow prophetic reflections of a new rise of totalitarian era. A suffocating new historical period!

Yes, they were. Yes, They are!

My sadness grew deeper and I became more disturbed! I left home, tried to look at flowers, green plants, colorful fruits, Evanston’s sidewalks, smell Linden trees and lilacs…I needed to experience the beauty of nature…
In the library I went straightly to the section of love… I selected films that I had seen before. I wanted to watch them again and again…The Lovers directed by Louis Malle, The Lover based on the novel by the same title by my favorite writer Marguerite Duras, directed by Alain Resnais, and Life is a Bed of Roses also by Resnais.

I watched them in few days. I could dream again.

To deal with reality we need dreams!

Good night, dear Michael!
E.G

"Michael Haneke (German: born 23 March 1942) is an Austrian filmmaker and screenwriter best known for his bleak and disturbing style. His films often document problems and failures in modern society. Haneke has worked in television‚ theatre and cinema. He is also known for raising social issues in his work. Besides working as a filmmaker he also teaches directing at the Filmacademy Vienna.
At the 2009 Cannes Film Festival, his film The White Ribbon won the Palme d'Or for best film, and at the 67th Golden Globe Awards the film won the Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film. In 2012, his film Amour premiered and competed at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival. It won in the category of Best Foreign Films. Haneke has made films in French, German and in English."

Read my review of the Piano Teacher.

“The lovers” presents Jeanne Moreau as a restless bourgeois wife whose eye wanders from both her husband and her lover to an attractive passing passenger. The film caused quite a stir, and was censored and attacked for obscenity around the world. If today its shock has worn off, its glistening sensuality and seductive storytelling haven’t aged a day.

In Life is a bed of Roses, Alain Resnais pays tribute to three influential French filmmakers, with this lighthearted film about happiness and the power of the imagination.

Life is a bed of Roses is divided into three parallel narratives. The first section is set around the first decade of the twentieth century in the Ardennes, where count Ferbeck unveils his architect’s design for a utopian city

Renais weaves together these three threads to make Life is   a compelling and entertaining mixture of drama, satire, comedy, fantasy and music.

Resnais raises more questions than he answers in this fascinating three-section parable about utopianism, education and love. Life is a Bed of Roses is a lark combining elements of fantasy, medieval and drama, operatic melodrama, comedy and romance.

And The Lover

Watch The Lover
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