You probably know Ken Stringfellow as the co-leader of Northwestern power-pop all-timers the Posies or as a sideman for R.E.M. or latter-day Big Star. He’s also a solo artist (we’re particularly fond of the soft-rock American beauty that is 2001’s Touched) and is currently preparing the debut by his Norwegian garage-rock band, the DiSCiPLiNES. Each day this week, magnetmagazine.com guest editor Stringfellow will be filing reports from his home on the European continent.
Well, the France you know and love—Godard, Gainsbourg (the lecherous male one), Mon Oncle futurism, Gaulouises—forget it. It’s gone. Gauloises aren’t even cool anymore (they’re made in Spain), and everyone I know here smokes Marlboros. French music is horrible chanson; think Celine Dion (but more histrionic) or Mika (who isn’t even French; Lebanese by birth, lives in London). All those natty suits, philosophers who get treated like rock stars, cool-looking Citroën 2CVs and DSs—they’re all on the rubbish heap or pushing up existential daisies. So, it makes sense that Caché, the best French film I’ve seen in the last few years, is, in fact, Austrian. Filmed in Paris, starring Daniel Auteuil and Juliette Binoche. No musical score. Many of the shots are static views of a Parisian doorway (for reasons I won’t spoil here). When a film this good is so poorly received in the U.S., as Caché was, you know it’s on the right path. I also recommend writer/director Michael Haneke’s The Time Of The Wolf, which is absolutely certain to confirm your worst suspicions about humanity’s likely reaction to any major crisis. Be prepared to run images and ideas from these films over and over in your mind for weeks afterward.
