Ten Minutes Older: The Trumpet (2002)

Highly Overrated But Still Good

Don't listen to the Hype. It's awful

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

Seven directors and their view of time. Or maybe I should say six: Spice Lee's contribution might be interesting in another context, but seems misplaced here.The opening quote by Marc Aurel and the interludes with the melancholic trumpet and the flowing water feel a bit cheesy if you look at them in 2016.Several other reviewers have provided synopses for the segments, so I will only review the moments that stand out for me: The big old cook/nurse in Victor Erice's short that makes us not only understand, but feel the human bond of an extended, close-knit Spanish household a few decades ago.The tuberculous Indian warrior Tari in Herzog's short documentary, holding the white alarm clock to his head. It makes you cringe, because the scene makes him look like a true savage, almost like an animal. It touches you, because we know and, more importantly, the Indian knows that his time has run out.The strange mixture of female beauty, loneliness, silence, and comedy of Jim Jarmusch's segment.Chen Kaige gives us the moment where a group of simple minded, „modern" Chinese movers, who's brains have been dulled by the faceless progress that surrounds them, have a glimpse at the glory of their own unique past.Most of these directors have the one unique gift, to make us feel interested in their story or characters after only a minute or two.All in all, this collection of shorts does not always feel coherent, but maybe that wasn't the intention to begin with. It's like looking at short sketches of contemporary masters of cinema, and learning what they can do with 10 minutes of time, which is a lot. A very good way to spend a rainy Sunday afternoon.

1) Aki Kaurismäki (segment "Dogs Have No Hell") ATMOSPHERICTrue masterpiece. Aki as always brings brilliant story or how in 10 minutes: exit prison, quit old job, get a wife, escape to distant place.2) Víctor Erice (segment "Lifeline") UNINTERESTING AND BORINGEven black&whiting of THIS not making any sense.3) Werner Herzog (segment "Ten Thousand Years Older") HISTORICALLY AWESOMEDescribes contact with last "uncivilized" tribe on Earth.4) Jim Jarmusch (segment "Int. Trailer. Night.") DISTURBINGLY POINTLESSIt seems, that in this anthology, black & white is a sign of complete rubbish.5) Wim Wenders (segment "Twelve Miles to Trona") CURIOUSMan trying to reach hospital under accidental drug overdose.6) Spike Lee (segment "We Wuz Robbed") COMPLETELY UNINTERESTING US POLITICAL CRAPNothing less, nothing more.7) Chen Kaige (segment "100 Flowers Hidden Deep") THIS IS EAST, BABYYou have to watch this one by yourself.FINAL WORDS:I wonder who compile this anthology? Very weird selection. Episodes 2-4-6 should be expelled, they spoil all atmosphere of the movie anthology.

I'm a big Herzog fan. Thought I'd search the web on "Ten Minutes Older" before I bought the DVD. Found the solitary review on this site and in particular the comments made about Herzog. They were so harsh I felt I should search for more reviews. Honestly, I've never seen anything Werner Herzog has done that wasn't unique, interesting etc.Here's a snip from another site about Herzog's segment. This way, folks like me (who might otherwise run in horror) have a balanced view.The third short, Werner Herzog's Ten Thousand Years Older [69], is a fascinating mini-documentary which examines the discovery of what might perhaps be the last lost tribe. Set in the Amazon, the film epitomizes Herzog's willingness to go to the ends of the earth to demonstrate his attitudes about civilization's debilitating effects on nature. Genuine tension arises in scenes such as the one showing the tribe's first contact with modern man, in which a native threatens to spy the hidden camera recording the event. When Herzog tells us that these few minutes of contact with the modern world led to the tribe's demise, the film suddenly shifts into a sadder, but no less interesting mode. Time jumps forward twenty years, and the effects of the modern world are made apparent. Even if it's not one Herzog's best works, it's undeniably an excellent piece of movie-making.

A mostly very recommendable collection of shorts by some of the most renowned arthouse directors. In DOGS HAVE NO HELL a man starts a new life with the woman he loves. Aki Kaurismäki delivers, as usual, grand melodrama in the most deadpan manner. Wonderful photography. Werner Herzog's documentary is his usual ethno-cliche crap: Modernization blows away the culture of a small hunter-gatherer group. Herzog mourns this but uses evolutionist-colonialist vocabulary like "tribe" and "stone age" - he obviously never realizes that his perspective overrates the power of Western culture in the same way as die-hard modernizers do. Embarrassing.Jim Jarmusch's vignette about movie making combines a calm view of everyday situations with some subdued comedy. Quite unassuming and more complex and substantial in hindsight. Wim Wenders returns to his roots: 35 years after his early shorts we are once again in a car for almost the entire film and listen to rock music. Just this time we get an exciting plot, beautiful retro-psychedelic visuals and a poetic near-death moment: Wenders shows all his abilities.Spike Lee reports irregularities of the last US-presidential election, quite frightening of course, beautifully shot, but a bit out of place here.Chen Kaige's 100 FLOWERS HIDDEN DEEP gives us a little parable about the change of modern Beijing, which is a bit silly at first (and includes some awful computer animation), but has a further dimension: The worker's pantomime and the old man's effeminate gestures are stylistic devices from Peking Opera, an art form of the past, virtually surviving "hidden deep" in cinema.But the one piece overshadowing all the others is Victor Erice's LIFELINE, a portrait of a peaceful afternoon in a Spanish village in 1940, with death and destruction always close at hand: Children play, farmhand reap dry grass, old men play cards, while a baby starts to bleed to death. The beauty and poetic power of the images and sounds is outstanding, only comparable to Tarkovsky (another director with a genuine feel for life on the countryside). Marvelous.