Nina Hagen = Punk + Glory

Germany

1999

100 Min

Color, Black and White

English, German

Currently 3.7/5 Stars.
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DP Frank Blasberg, Claus Bosch-Dos Santos, Jörg Grönitz, Jonas Scholz, Peter Sempel

CAST Nina Hagen, Blixa Bargeld, Udo Kier, Samuel Fuller, Cosma Shiva Hagen, Lemmy, Dee Dee Ramone, Klaus Kinski, Jonas Mekas, Wim Wenders

SOUND Christof Weische

Berlinale (Panorama), CPH PIX (Punk's Not Dead)

Synopsis

Nina Hagen. A psychodocumentarymusicfilm. A sort of "direct cinema“-portrait as a collage. Moments and scenes in her life. Her singing from classical to punk, pop, chanson and indian folk and temple songs. Nina Hagen – today. Few archival footage for “flashbacks”. Energy – Desire – Chaos – Peace. In front, on- and backstage, in private and public life – hardly a difference, like a rollercoaster. You see her with her family and some friends: Lemmy (Motörhead), George Clinton, Anthony Kiedis (Red Hot Chili Peppers), "Angelyne“ (L.A.), Lene Lovich, Blixa, Udo Kier, Dee Dee Ramone, her Guru Muniradshi, Thomas D., Jonas Mekas, Maria D. Main Idea: To show the wellknown “Diva” (wild, colourful, loud) and the other side of her: quiet, loving, poetic. —sempel.com

Director

Peter Sempel

Cosmopolitan lotus-eater and fringe filmmaker Peter Sempel was born in Hamburg but raised in the Australian Outback, where he was deprived of utilities and befriended by a lazy kangaroo. The influence of his rearing can be felt as much as seen in the grainy compositions and quality of light with which Sempel builds his celluloid collages. While his subjects are most often intensely urban, larger than life, and neoteric by nature — Einstürzende Neubauten’s Blixa Bargeld, Motörhead’s Lemmy Kilmister, Berlin new wave diva Nina Hagen, 84-year-old mime/female impersonator Kazuo Ohno, the Gun Club’s Jeffrey Lee Pierce, Australian expat Nick Cave, actor Dennis Hopper, and filmmaker Kenneth Anger, to name a few — the images Sempel creates around them are as intimate, as strange, and as beautiful as an old sun-bleached photograph found in a forgotten starlet’s attic. —http://www.sfweekly.com