Ten Minutes Older: The Trumpet

I'm a big Herzog fan. Thought I'd search the web on "Ten Minutes Older" before I bought the DVD. Found the solitary review on this site and in particular the comments made about Herzog. They were so harsh I felt I should search for more reviews. Honestly, I've never seen anything Werner Herzog has done that wasn't unique, interesting etc.

Here's a snip from another site about Herzog's segment. This way, folks like me (who might otherwise run in horror) have a balanced view.

The third short, Werner Herzog's Ten Thousand Years Older [69], is a fascinating mini-documentary which examines the discovery of what might perhaps be the last lost tribe. Set in the Amazon, the film epitomizes Herzog's willingness to go to the ends of the earth to demonstrate his attitudes about civilization's debilitating effects on nature. Genuine tension arises in scenes such as the one showing the tribe's first contact with modern man, in which a native threatens to spy the hidden camera recording the event. When Herzog tells us that these few minutes of contact with the modern world led to the tribe's demise, the film suddenly shifts into a sadder, but no less interesting mode. Time jumps forward twenty years, and the effects of the modern world are made apparent. Even if it's not one Herzog's best works, it's undeniably an excellent piece of movie-making.

I don't know how to rate this frankly, I mean some of them were cool, some were ok...

I guess the most interesting was to see different interpretations of time, all the way from Herzog's documentary style approach of thousands of years to Kaurismaki's almost real time story. My discovery from all this was Victor Herice, I loved his style as a filmmaker and would be curious to see more of his movies. I think that's what cool about projects like this, they introduce directors.

Not a bad idea. but not a genius one either, I mean such projects have been done before (and maybe better). Paris my love, cine de la cine, etc.

TEN MINUTES OLDER "The Trumpet" is a compilation of seven ten-minute films by various noted directors that all deal with the passing of time. This is one of such two 2002 projects produced by Nicholas McClintock, the other is subtitled "The Cello".

In Aki Kaurismäki's "Dogs Have No Hell", Markku Peltola is released from jail and has ten minutes to convince Kati Outinen to marry him and board a train to Siberia. There's little explanation of who these people are, why Peltola was in jail or why they must go to Siberia, but the film does compress the Finnish director's style into a short span with its deadpan humour, stony facial expressions and even a performance by a morose rock band.

As Víctor Erice's "Lifeline" begins, a baby's swaddling clothes are stained with blood because of a rupture. The film tracks the suspenseful minutes between the accident and the time that the large household discovers it and saves the child. The film is set in a Spanish village in 1940 and the silence (there's only a couple of lines of dialogue at the end) and clockwork-like buzz of rural life (reaping grain, sewing with a machine) make a real impression over the other films here.

The main character of Jim Jarmusch's "Int. Trailer Night" is an actress (Chloe Sevigny) on a ten-minute break in her trailer while shooting a film. Though these ten minutes are all the time she gets to herself the whole day, her break is constantly interrupted by costume and mic checks and ultimately her dinner is delivered too late for her to eat it. Jarmusch is apparently showing us that a star's life is not an easy one, though considering the enormous salaries that these professionals command, it's hard to really sympathize.

Wim Wender's "Ten Minutes to Trona" depicts an American businessman's desperate attempt to reach a hospital after unknowingly ingesting a plate of cookies dosed with some kind of hallucinogen. As he speeds down a desert road, various camera effects represent his warped perceptions, which range from horrible visions to moments of idyllic beauty. There's such a realism to this that one wonders if it is based on a personal experience by Wenders.

Werner Herzog and Spike Lee chose to make short documentaries. Herzog's "Ten Thousand Years Older" visits a Amazonian tribe that had been contacted by the outside world in 1981 (thus being pulled millennia into the future in the blink of an eye). The first portion of the film consists of footage from the 1981 contact. In the years since, much of the tribe had been decimated by diseases to which they had no resistance, but Herzog captures an interview with two of the men two decades on.

Spike Lee's contribution "We Wuz Robbed" deals with the 2000 presidential election and Al Gore's loss to George Bush in Florida. Lee interviews Democrat strategists about the agonizing wait for the figures to come in. As outraged as I was at the outcome of this election, I find this film to have little to no redeeming value and regularly skip it on rewatchings.

Finally, Chen Kaige's "100 Flowers Hidden Deep" deals with the Chinese state's destruction of Beijing's traditional neighbourhoods in order to build skyscrapers. A middle-aged Beijing man asks a removals team to help him take his things from his old home to his newly built high-rise. When they arrive, they find only a vacant lot and it turns out the local man is quite mad. Through a computer-graphics overlay, Chen shows us what lovely buildings and streets were in this empty plot of land before the authorities demolished it all.

In spite of the talent enlisted for this project, the films here are generally not very deep. I would say that only the Herzog, Erice and Chen films are memorable, but it's hard to be enthusiastic even about these. I think it would appeal mainly to completists of one or more of the directors represented here, but it's hard to represent it to more casual fans.

Seven directors and their view of time. Or maybe I should say six: Spice Lee's contribution might be interesting in another context, but seems misplaced here.

The opening quote by Marc Aurel and the interludes with the melancholic trumpet and the flowing water feel a bit cheesy if you look at them in 2016.

Several other reviewers have provided synopses for the segments, so I will only review the moments that stand out for me: The big old cook/nurse in Victor Erice's short that makes us not only understand, but feel the human bond of an extended, close-knit Spanish household a few decades ago.

The tuberculous Indian warrior Tari in Herzog's short documentary, holding the white alarm clock to his head. It makes you cringe, because the scene makes him look like a true savage, almost like an animal. It touches you, because we know and, more importantly, the Indian knows that his time has run out.

The strange mixture of female beauty, loneliness, silence, and comedy of Jim Jarmusch's segment.

Chen Kaige gives us the moment where a group of simple minded, „modern" Chinese movers, who's brains have been dulled by the faceless progress that surrounds them, have a glimpse at the glory of their own unique past.

Most of these directors have the one unique gift, to make us feel interested in their story or characters after only a minute or two.

All in all, this collection of shorts does not always feel coherent, but maybe that wasn't the intention to begin with. It's like looking at short sketches of contemporary masters of cinema, and learning what they can do with 10 minutes of time, which is a lot. A very good way to spend a rainy Sunday afternoon.

I loved the idea of different directors seeing the same subject. The result is very irregular, but not in quality. Each piece individually is great, but you almost don't see a connection between them.