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Film Critique from Brooklyn

Philipp Hartmann’s film Time Goes by Like a Roaring Lion (Die Zeit Vergeht wie ein Brüllender Löwe), named for a curious turn of phrase used by the filmmaker’s grandmother, grasps for the more intangible phenomenon of temporality itself. Compendious, deadpan, and unabashedly personal, the film concerns a 38 and a-quarter year-old filmmaker in the middle of his life expectancy, whose fear of passing time leads him on a transcontinental investigation. The blindingly white Bolivian salt flats, the atomic clock in Braunschweig, the hourglass collection of the widow of a clockmaker in Buenos Aires, a train graveyard in the Andes (where, according to some graffiti, “the only thing that happens here is time”): Hartmann’s film explores memory and time’s many facets in ways both topical (concerns about child development and the diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease) and formal (cinema’s function of marking time through objects and motion). Most of all, Hartmann’s film makes the abstract intimate—through conversations with friends, his mother’s diary entries, and a dream about his father, and through an unflinching process of self-documentation, family photos, and the slow accumulation of little objects on his desk. And the film itself functions as just such an accumulation of styles, narratives, and insights, following philosophical tangents, playing games of perspective, and dipping into fictional episodes and witty reconstructions.

Leo Goldsmith in: „RECORDS, REMNANTS, AND RUINS – Highlights from Doclisboa 2013“ in The Brooklyn Rail.

http://www.brooklynrail.org/2013/12/film/records-remnants-and-ruins-highlights-from-doclisboa-2013

 

Text from CPH:DOX – Catalogue (english and dansk)

It is wonderful to see a film once in a while, wherein there is space for so many different ideas, as in this German film about one of the most elusive phenomena: time. And the director Phillip Hartmann even suffers chronophobia – a fear of the passage of time! A fear that he confronts with intellectual openness and a very German sense of humour in his travels to the atomic clock in Braunschweig, which determines what the time is everywhere in Germany (but which nonetheless loses a second every one and a half years), and a desolate desert where time stands still. We think. The 37-year-old Hartmann realises that he has lived about half of his life, and decides that every minute of the film should represent one year of his life – so when he reaches the 37th minute, his own cinematic (clock)work has caught up with him. ‚Time Goes By Like a Roaring Lion‘ is a freely speculating and liberatingly philosophical mind-bender of the very best kind. In short: everything you need to know about time explained in 76 minutes, which could not have been spent on anything better.

 

ALT HVAD MAN HAR BRUG FOR AT VIDE OM FÆNOMENET TID FORKLARET PÅ 76 MINUTTER.

Det er herligt ind imellem at se en film, hvor tankerne har så højt til loftet som det er tilfældet i denne tyske film om et af de ellers mest uhåndgribelige fænomener: tiden. Og instruktøren Phillip Hartmann lider endda af kronofobi – frygten for tidens gang! En frygt han konfronterer med intellektuel åbenhed og en meget tysk form for humor i sine rejser til atomuret i Braunschweig, der bestemmer hvad klokken er overalt (men som ikke desto mindre mister et sekund for hvert halvandet år), og en øde ørken hvor tiden står stille. Tror man. Den 37-årige Hartmann indser at han har levet omtrent halvdelen af sit liv, og beslutter sig til at hvert minut af filmen skal repræsentere et år i hans liv – så da han når til det 37. minut indhentes han af sit eget filmiske (ur)værk. ‚Time Goes By Like a Roaring Lion‘ er en frit spekulerende og befriende filosofisk ‚mind-bender‘ af den allerbedste slags. Kort sagt: alt hvad man har brug for at vide om tid forklaret på 76 minutter, der ikke kunne have været brugt på noget bedre.

 

http://cphdox.dk/en/screening/time-goes-roaring-lion

Text from Vancouver International Filmfestival Catalogue

Time is one of the most fascinating things to think about. Of course, it’s not a thing at all—we call it a dimension. Are there any better Wikipedia entries than those for “time” and “circadian rhythm”?

Director Philipp Hartmann puts his chronophobia to fascinating and occasionally funny use in this very German essay motivated by a very common anxiety: fear of the passing of time. His continent-hopping journey is poetic and evocative by turns. We move from the atomic clock in Braunschweig (which “exports time” to other European countries) to the amazing planes of the largest salt desert in the world, lying at 4000m in Bolivia. Hartmann is interested in unusual experiences of time—including a fascinating section regarding a test for Alzheimer’s—but mostly this is a film about the quotidian, about how the mind registers and is unsettled by being in it, with, of course, a few surprises along the way.

“A filmic philosophical essay often poses a challenge: how to film an idea? Often, talking about a particular matter is confused with materializing it in front of the camera. That’s why Philipp Hartman uses no intellectual stars to explain the philosophical dimension of time and rather attempts to present some sort of phenomenology of time through his camera and his own immediate experience.“ (Roger Koza, FICUNAM)

(Vancouver International Filmfestival 2013)

Otros comentarios sobre „El tiempo pasa como un león rugiendo“

Esta película presenta diversas aproximaciones a lo que el tiempo-cronos es o ha sido para el director. Con un sesgo intimista retrata ocasiones familiares, muestra cómo se mide el tiempo gracias a una super máquina, explica sus sensaciones cuando era un niño, comenta la muerte de su padre y el escaso tiempo que éste tuvo debido al cáncer, reportea a sus amigos, trata de mostrar la inmesidad del tiempo mostrando el salar de Bolivia y también nos acerca una prueba de Alzeimer que dibujan sobre las agujas de un reloj aquellos que padecen dicha enfermedad. El tiempo se vuleve accesible pero a la vez se aleja como dimensión metafísica. Reporta un profundo e intrincado planteo existencial. En líneas generales el film me gustó y en especial el nombre que eligió el director cuya frase había sido dicha por su abuela .

(Macarena en: http://elojosoberano.wordpress.com/2013/05/11/pelicula-03-1105/ )

… Desde donde se forma uno la idea que una pelicula debe ser hecha de acuerdo a ciertas reglas? nos hemos acostumbrado a una suerte de guión que se reitera en el cine comercial pero es entre las filas de los directores del cine independiente que podremos asistir a la busqueda y a una creatividad mas libre de modelos.
Esta pelicula sobre el tiempo es una miscelánea de experimentos y reflexiones referidos al paso del tiempo, resulta un entretenido acercamiento a distintos aspectos y denota una grave preocupación con el tema por parte del director. Me ha hecho reflexionar sobre mi propia relación con el tiempo, a veces las peliculas para eso sirven , Me he encontrado con algunas cosas inquietantes. Agradezco a Jorge haber pasado revista a las distintas maneras de contemplar el tiempo en la película, me habìa olvidado de muchas. El se ha olvidado de una, quizas menos explìcita, y que me cautivó tanto que esta mañana me desperté con la imagen de la mujer mayor que siente cada vez mas frecuentemente una mano que la empuja a la alegría. Creo que dice así, que siente algo que la impulsa hacia un estado de felicidad. Porque lo incluyó? en ese estado, pienso, el tiempo deja de existir. Que privilegio, yo quiero eso.

(Vivi en: http://elojosoberano.wordpress.com/2013/05/11/pelicula-03-1105/ )