The opening scene of the film is set at the Fallen Art Exhibition in Dresden. Elizabeth takes his nephew Kurt to visit these modern art that was denounced by the Third Reich as "useless, crazy, indulgent". The arrogant man in the film The bureaucrats pointed to Kandinsky's abstract paintings and came to conclusions such as: “These high-priced paintings are a waste of tax resources.” What is absurd is that Goebbels, the Nazi propaganda minister, was once a super fan of modern art.
The Degenerate Art Exhibition was a prelude to the cleansing of the art world by Nazi Germany. It took place in Munich (changed to Dresden in the movie) and then spread to other cities. The "art world" mentioned here is not all art. What Hitler hates is modern abstract art, but he admires classical art. Later, the iconic Nazi director Leni Riefenstahl made a series to promote the spirit of the German Empire. The film is deeply Hitler’s aesthetic essence, full of the solemn beauty of classical sculpture. In "The Triumph of Will", you can hardly not be instigated by the majesty, grandeur, and national collectivism it reveals, especially in that consciousness. In an age of vacillation, the masses can easily become puppets of political orders.
People are always afraid of what they don’t understand. When the development of things goes beyond your limited knowledge, avoidance is the first choice; if you hold power, everything will be different again. After your personal will is empowered, Have the dominance over the will of the country. This leads to a paradox. Since art is judged to be "useless and depraved," why spend so much energy to eradicate it? If it is weak, there should be no reason for a regime that regards itself as strong to fear that it will be subverted? Unless the authority knows that art has the power to change the worldview, this is what the director expressed in Q&A after the screening. This contradiction constitutes the most hypocritical and deceptive aspect of politics.
On the other hand, this cleansing is in the same line as Hitler's "eugenics". In the movie, Kurt's father-in-law (a former obstetrician and gynecologist in Nazi Germany, sterilized women who were defined as physically and mentally disabled). I have been poisoned by this kind of thinking all my life, even my own daughter will not let it go. Hitler took Nietzsche's superman doctrine out of context and believed that only racial purity can create a Germany without the weak. In the same way, the impurity in art should also be cleaned up.
This determines that "No Owner" and the political background cannot be separated. The film follows the trajectory of the male protagonist and is divided into three time and space: Nazi Germany, East Germany, and West Germany. But the most beautiful thing about the movie is the efforts made by the tiny human beings to try to get rid of external political forces. Although in a world deprived of light and fantasy, whether it is the charming love between Kurt and Ellie or the C major that Elizabeth bleeds, they are all “irrational behaviors” that are defined as tragedy by Camus. The stronger it is, the more it highlights the absurdity of the human world, and the more disharmonious it is, the more it reflects the orderliness of society. "No Master" sings the movement of freedom while praising the "depravity".
In his childhood, Kurt witnessed his aunt Elizabeth being forcibly sent to a lunatic asylum. In this elder who occasionally went crazy, he was able to find a trace of what is called the "brilliance of humanity", which is a symbol of the weakness of humanity under the gloom of the Nazis. The movie gave a close-up of Elizabeth’s face. Those Mediterranean-blue eyes will still be seen many years later. At that time, Elizabeth had become a victim of imperial genetics, and her nephew Kurt grew up and inherited this. Painted in blue, in several close-ups focusing on Kurt’s eyes, there is a wonderful sense of retrospect in time. It is a kind of contemplative look at each other. Art deprives time of the domination of memory and dilutes the trauma caused by oppression. Take the audience to stagger back to the afternoon when Kurt and Elizabeth took the bus home, a moment of cruelty and beauty.
War and death are undoubtedly a burden, but the young Kurt appeared in a vigorous and full of vitality. The phrase "I found the truth!" revealed the naughty and innocence of children, and it was incompatible with the ruined state of war in Germany. At the beginning, he worked in a printing factory, and soon because of his talent, he was admitted to the art academy to study realist painting. This is the mainstream in East Germany, and everyone seems to have silently accepted this unquestionable trend. After the war, the Soviet Union and the United States quickly divided their spheres of influence, resulting in a split in Germany, and people were pushed forward by the tide of history. In East Germany, enjoying art too much seems to be a bourgeois thing, and serving politics pragmatically has become its only mission. It is not who will be in power who is desperate. It is you who find that no matter who is talking, art can't escape the fate of becoming a vassal. You think that if this regime falls, the people will regain their freedom, but they are just staying in another cage, doing another form of fighting between trapped beasts. The sorrow of a screw is that all its value must come from others. This "other" can be A, or it may become B, C, D someday. So the screws can be easily replaced, just like the "Long live the laborers" mural painted by Kurt for the museum, which was quickly erased and replaced with new paintings representing the will of the government.
Kurt later fled East Germany and successfully entered the West German Art School. In West Germany, there is another scene. There are too many "ich" (German: I), "Your problem is that there are too many ich, ich, ich", the dean of the East German Academy of Arts The warning message is still in my ears. At that time, Kurt wanted to quit his mural painting work, but finally compromised; but now and here, embracing himself has become encouraged. The weird guys in the art school, those who use potatoes to create, some are crazy. Paper ones, and those who splash black and white paint on themselves, they fearlessly broke through the traditional boundaries of art and set off self-revolution one after another. Always believe that art needs channels to express, no matter what value judgment you make of art, although this kind of "creative freedom" sometimes makes people pay too much attention to whether the form is innovative enough, ignoring the most essential artistic core. Kurt has also Confused by this trap.
On the road of exploration, Kurt finally understood that the creation of art is not to show off skills, nor to remain incomprehensible in appearance. First of all, it must be sincere and closely related to life. The vague but clear memory of aunt Elizabeth, the beloved wife Ellie who gave birth to a new life, a Nazi murderer, a fighter who responded to the call of the country... Those black and white photos are the bridge that connects Kurt's young life with the past and the present, and it has also become his creation. "Muse". Re-engraving old photos and presenting them in the form of paintings, these paintings have been blurred, and the colors are single. At first glance, they seem to be just copy, without any skills at all. But penetrating that layer of canvas is indeed the unbearable weight of life. Abandoning the excessive pursuit of form, what is left of painting? When asked who the people in the painting are, Kurt responded with "someone I don't know". For history, people are forgetful. The unnamed people and things in the long river of time, the fleeting joys and sorrows, eventually become cold numbers to demonstrate the scope of the war, the death of the head, and the contrast of forces. Data helps us clarify the intricacies of the truth, but in the face of the huge truth, after all, we still look at the flowers in the fog. The emotional part, the sensibility overwhelms the rationality, is left to art. The ethereal confusion and sadness can always find solace in art. . Kurt's paintings have a simple power, just like Picasso's distorted geometrically cut portraits and Kandinsky's elusive combination of points, lines and surfaces, all in a variety of forms, all telling the same word: ich.
The script of "No Master" draws on the experience of the German painter Gerhard Richter, which is one of the reasons why the film sets the background in Dresden (Richter's hometown). The director spent several weeks with Richter, and the film eventually "use the trauma of his life", but perhaps it was because he got too close. The 87-year-old has never seen the finished film yet ( Q&A after the director's screening). In any case, this confirms the point that artistic creation requires nutrients, whether it comes from the outside or from the inside, the dreamy part of art still needs a foundation to support it.
"No Master" is not the kind of movie that uses avant-garde lens language, and the narrative is quite satisfactory, and even the soundtrack from cue to G is prone to flooding. But compared with the strong emotional resonance, these are all personal taste issues, and they are not as serious as propagating troops to seize the master. The pursuit of freedom in art will always be interfered with in one way or another, just because it hurts the interests of some people, and then it is branded as "anti-something" in a grandly sounding manner.
As the director said, today we may be accustomed to "Fifty Shades of Grey" or superhero movies. It's not that these movies are not good. Movies were created for spiritual enjoyment at the beginning, but sensory satisfaction is easy to cause. Thinking fatigue and paralysis, over time we will recognize certain established status quo, and we are too lazy to change. Therefore, "No Owner" is brave, and the director is brave. Fundraising and publicity are the dilemmas that this type of film has to face, especially now that movie theaters are occupied by Hollywood blockbusters. What drove the director to shoot "No Master" was responsibility. Someone had to say what the previous generation had experienced, instead of just using a "I'm guilty" or "I'm not guilty" to perfuse the matter.
The history of mankind is a history of constant loss and constant struggle for freedom. Freedom is too fragile, and what we enjoy is precious and perishable.
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