Monday 22 August, 2005

Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 22.08.2005

Claudia Kramatschek gives a very instructive insight into Pakistani literature - pardon, into Urdu, Sindhi, Pashto, Punjabi and Balochi literature. "In general, the situation seems to be just as paradoxical as the country itself, combining vitality and stagnation. That also goes for the key question of censorship under General Musharraf, who occasionally hosts large banquets for writers. Some authors who were once critical of the regime now say there was never as much literary freedom as under Musharraf. Like Fahmida Riaz they once fought the regime, but now they count among the current government's supporters. Some of their former readers feel they have betrayed their ideals and those of Leftist authors, many of whom now have to write under the protection of an NGO. That leads Ajmal Kamal to take a rather bleak view of contemporary Urdu literature: 'A type of literature is emerging that is just as predictable in its form as in its content, because it toes the political line that will further its author's career."

Urs Schoettli compares his impressions of Shanghai and New York. The Chinese prima donna only gets the better of the comparison at first glance. "A real cosmopolitan city, a real culturally animated, forward-looking metropolis needs more than just concrete, steel and glass. Far more important is its spirit, and here Shanghai can only look at New York with envy. The Yankees were once considered new-rich upstarts by Europeans. Today Shanghai's cultural life is second-rate and modest compared with the 'Big Apple'... Despite all the excitement, modernisation and unconventional vitality of its youthful populace, what is missing in Shanghai is freedom."


Süddeutsche Zeitung, 22.08.2005

Reinhard Schulz is enthralled with Austrian composer Peter Jan Marthe's new arrangement of Bruckner's third symphony, performed on Friday in St. Florian near Linz. "Marthe has put Bruckner's material together in a new way. He has expanded the finale, which has always been seen as problematic, to a flabbergasting dimension. The grandiose finale which takes up the initial theme in the major key is now delayed. It is as if the sound had to squeeze between perilous straights and avoid precarious last-minute obstacles before coming out into the open. At first it is only a premonition, then it mounts and crescendos with resounding energy. The piece abounds with psychic development, at times unhurried, at times exhilarated.... The last movement takes the listeners down to purgatory before culminating in deliverance. After the last note faded away, the audience was still, shaken to the core. The applause started up only after a breathless silence, at first timidly, so as not to destroy the effect, before mounting to a frenzy."


Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 22.08.05

Dirk Schümer reports that Nanni Moretti is planning a film about Silvio Berlusconi. "The title..., 'Il caimano' (the cayman) is not only a play on words on one of the favourite nicknames for the snappy media entrepreneur, but also a reference to the cayman islands, the chic financial paradise where Italy's rich like to divert their more inscrutable incomes. (...) The director has spent four years on the project, most of the time engaged in political activities. The conclusion: a political film through and through. No coincidence, then, that 'Il caimano' is set for release early next year, the same time as the general election."


Saturday 20 August, 2005

Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 20.08.2005

Claus Leggewie and Erik Meyer sum up the controversy surrounding a proposed centre against expulsion, deportation and forced settlement in Berlin. The creation of the centre is arduously supported by Erika Steinbach, CDU politician and president German League of Expellees, and has now become part of the CDU campaign in the upcoming elections. Steinbach had established a foundation together with Peter Glozt in 2002, and exhibited a "screenplay" for the planned permanent exhibit. "The details published on the Internet reflect a design that visitors to the information centre in the Berlin Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe are already familiar with. Both memorials, as contrary as they may appear to potential visitors, are compared in certain respects, at the expense of the Holocaust Memorial... Whether enough will be done with this initiative to shed light on the complex story of 'ethnic cleansing' in the 20th century, remains questionable."


Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 20.08.2005

In Berlin, Julia Encke listened in awe as the eminent sociologist Ralf Dahrendorf cheerily answered the question "What is Germany actually missing?" "According to Lord Dahrendorf, what Germany lacks above all is a decisive political language. 'I guarantee,' he said, 'that terms like Hartz IV or one euro jobs would not have survived a single day in Great Britain.' According to Dahrendorf, Tony Blair would have never spoken of 'reforms', but of 'modernisation'. What Germany has dubbed 'deregulation', England would term more positively, as 'better regulation'. That is no coincidence, Dahrendorf argued. There is a whole attitude behind it. Germany's political language is so full of ill-tempered political concepts, it's no wonder that the entire country is in a bad mood."

"Video games increasingly satisfy the task film critic Siegfried Kracauer attributed to photography," observes Andreas Rosenfelder following a trip round Leipzig's "Games Convention": namely, the escape from external reality. "In 'True Crime – New York City', for example, players take on the role of a cop turned gangster. Their beat is a breathtakingly accurate Manhattan – every street, every subway station, every subway line. 'True Crime' belongs to the growing number of games which transcend the Manichaeism of earlier incarnations, leaving the choice of good or evil entirely up to the player: If the policeman stays 'clean', restaurants spring up like mushrooms, even in the city's more objectionable neighbourhoods. If he becomes corrupt and sells guns on the black market, soon enough every wall becomes littered with graffiti."