CreARTive Film. 
Peter Sempel : Nina Hagen Punk+Glory (D,2005)***
Nina Hagen delivered, especially with her first three records (Nina Hagen Band, Unbehangen, Nunsexmonkrock) highly original records in a (first) German rock style with especially on “Unbehagen” a punk-power-like expressive statement. Her extravagant dresses were highly appreciated and became almost like a new punk-fashion in Germany and beyond. “Nunsexmonkrock” was very varied in style, and rather humorous. In her career were songs, statements and interviews with remarks and acts that were associated with true feminism (like a song about predestined pregnancy of women, “Unbeschreiblich weiblich”, and a demonstration in an interview on Austrian television of how woman masturbate (in a way, not as shocking as it seems, but still it did shock people). Her interviews were always, for me, extremely funny, surreal and intelligent and in some way an act of theatre. Her voice, her acting, and playing of characters is like a mixture of opera en theatre. In the film Nina was asked what her favourite opera was, and she answered “the opera of my life”.
This film, which is presented as a documantarypsychomusicfilm is a portrait in collageform with mostly slices of interviews with her, her daughter, her mother, a few other musicians and Nina-lookalike fans. It does not give much of an introduction for people who do not know Nina Hagen and also does not show much of her music. But it is a portrait which lifts up a bit the tip of the veil of who Nina really is. The movie I see as being in more or less two parts. The first part shows more how Nina constantly plays with the public, playful, funny and in fact never serious. There she remains a mystery and does not reveal much of who she really is and what she thinks or feels. I think this part might be related to the very important period in her life. In her teens she fled with her mother the prison which east-Germany was. Her mother was a famous opera-singer. While her mother said she couldn’t be an opera-singer because more she was like a voice imitator, Nina had something she wanted to prove that she was able to do something different with her voice. Secondly I think, her inner urge to go outside in the world and to liberate herself, her expressions, and thus becoming conscious of her further possibilities, might have been the real fundament of the powerful expression on the first three albums she made, and of her playful acting. Later she more or less changed the music probably again from her urge to be free. In that way I think her personality might not have felt limited in expressions. When Peter Semple interviewed fans, Nina’s early reactive expression seems to have been appreciated by really odd characters with overdone plastic surgery, or by transvestites. The second part of the movie shows Nina with her children more often. The feminine dominated family (daughter, Nina , mother) are really beautiful looking people. When Nina is in India and with her interests there, she is completely calm and then she shows best her loving, caring, true friendly nature.
Just one thing is a bit odd in the movie, which is that Peter also interviews many other documentary characters (Lemmy -Motörhead-, Jonas Mexas, Blixa Bargeld-Einstürzende Neubauten-), which is ok for some of most of them, but a short cut of Kazuo Ohno, the famous butho-dance player is out of context, and made me feel Peter deliberately wanted to built in publicity for his other documentaries, something within one documentary isn't really so appropriate, and a bit of self-obsessed mystification, even when it is successful. Afterwards Peter explained to me that Kazuo Ohno had asked to put Nina into his documentary. This explains for me how somehow I did have the feeling there almost was a mystic connection between the characters held together closely and not just deliberately by Peter, a connection which worked. Only I couldn't understand/place that small detail yet. "Somehow", Peter explained, "I saw them as in one family".."all these people, artists, animals somehow I see related through their energy"...
grading of albums :
(link to audio)
(My favourite album is the third, from 1982, which is sung in English,
followed by the first and second).
