Category: Art and Culture

THE ZONE OF INTEREST When the “Perfect Family” Found its Ideal Home at the Heart of Hell

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Jonathan Glazer’s historical film “The Zone of Interest” appears as a clear snapshot of the family life of mass murderer Rudolf Höss from 1943. That year, as the commandant of the Auschwitz concentration camp, Höss lived with his wife and children right next to the camp wall, in a home the perfectly suited National Socialist family ideals. It was an eerie “paradise” that fed on the misery of its victims and created a particularly infamous category of evil: the self-interest of brutal indifference.

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FIREBRAND The Overwhelming Physical Side of Gender Inequality in the Historical Film Drama of Karim Aïnouz

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Inspired by Elizabeth Freemantle’s novel “Queen’s Gambit,” the Brazilian director Karim Aïnouz presents with the historical drama film “Firebrand” a closer view of Catherine Parr as the sixth and last wife of King Henry VIII. Despite of her marked sense of duty, intellectual prowess, and a solid ethical backbone, Catherine Parr remains in “Firebrand” vulnerable, yet manages to overcome the most substantial aspect of gender disparity at last: physical strength.

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KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON Preachers of Death, Greedy Fools, and America’s Vast Native Soul in Martin Scorsese’s Epic Masterpiece

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Martin Scorsese’s “Killers of the Flower Moon,” inspired by David Grann’s homonymous nonfiction book, shows a complexity that goes beyond the representation of the assassinations of hundreds of Osage people, robbed of their oil-rich land a hundred years ago. Bringing together three paradigmatic figures of American history, Scorsese’s film reveals the power dynamics among preachers of death, greedy fools, and native people, in a world in which legality is used as a vehicle of crime.

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EMPIRE OF SIGNS Understanding Japan as a Graspable System of Forms with Roland Barthes

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Alluding to the seemingly unsurmountable oppositions of “East” and “West,” Roland Barthes presented in “Empire of Signs” an approach for overcoming strangeness with the same quality that fuels it: difference. More than fifty years ago, in an essay that regains importance in our increasingly globalized world, Barthes moved beyond the language of words, revealing the unlimited possibilities of the language of signs for (trans)cultural awareness.

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A WOMAN’S STORY Annie Ernaux and the Discovery of Identity through Family and Social Memory

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A literary work that consciously embeds individual remembrance into collective memory, Annie Ernaux’s “A Woman’s Story” bears witness to the pain that the loss of the mother inflicts on a daughter and the deep desire for finding her truth that this feeling triggers. Consolidating both pain and desire in a meticulous search for the own identity through memory, Ernaux translates nostalgia into reality with the historical power of the written word.

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SENSE AND SENSIBILITY Jane Austen’s Life Lesson on Self-Reflection and Empathy

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Sense and sensibility, seemingly opposite character traits at the core of Jane Austen’s homonymous novel, emerge as essentially interconnected human virtues paving the path for the understanding the self and the world. Subtly concealed behind the love and marriage theme, the actual interplay of (senseful) self-reflection and (sensitive) empathy in the formation of character is vehemently conveyed by a female author that continues reminding us of the everlasting power of self-awareness today.

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A ROOM OF ONE’S OWN Virginia Woolf on Being a Creative Woman in a Man’s World

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Asked on her opinion on the issue of “woman and fiction” almost a hundred years ago, Virginia Woolf could not avoid thinking of money and power, first and foremost. Arguing that only material conditions enable the freedom of mind so essential to creativity, Woolf exposed in “A Room of One’s Own” the limited access of women to financial means for centuries and the challenges this privation posed to their creation of high-quality fiction.

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ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT Innocence, Youth, and Friendship Crushed by the Brutality of World War I

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Edward Berger’s Oscar winning film adaption of Erich Maria Remarque’s novel “All Quiet on the Western Front,” tells us about the downfall of the German “iron youth” deluded into war by twisted dreams of victory. Unfolding as a mosaic of beauty and monstrosity, the film makes the war’s mail toll clear: the final dissolution of the individual.

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HOMO SOVIETICUS On the Actuality of Svetlana Alexievich’s “Secondhand Time. The Last of the Soviets”

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Ten years ago, Svetlana Alexievich’s “Seconhand Time. The Last of the Soviets” came into being. In twenty stories, collected between 1991 and 2012, people from the former Soviet Union reflect on their lives before and after perestroika. Their survival in a world of perennial authoritarianism is a central theme with fatal consequences in the current context.

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PARADISE Abdulrazak Gurnah’s East African World of Dreams, Nightmares, and Rude Awakenings

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The winner of the Nobel Prize in literature 2021 takes with his novel “Paradise” to a highly stratified East African society at the turn of the twentieth century. Against the backdrop of an increasingly pervasive European domination amidst a breathtaking landscape, a boy’s transition into adulthood is shaped by the increasing awareness of being a stranger in his own country.

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THE STRUGGLE OF A NEW START No Home, no Family, no Name Anymore, but the Future Waited

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The concerns of Holocaust survivors identified as “displaced persons” after World War II is the central topic of “Our Courage. Jews in Europe 1945-1948” at the Jewish Museum Frankfurt. For many of them, the recovery of the home, the family, and even the own identity meant a fight against unsurmountable challenges; it was a “rebirth” into a world that was not always welcoming.

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ARTISTIC AND INFORMATIVE 12 Amazing Coffee-Table Books for Exploring the World from Home

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During times in which you are unable to travel yet, or for those long rainy weekends you would rather stay at home, there is a way you can still explore the world without stepping out of the door: by scrolling through these twelve brilliant coffee table books with the best of art, travel, and culture!

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EMBRACING THE VALENTINO STYLE Basic Colours, Clear Silhouettes, Timeless Elegance

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Valentino, the fashion designer who once fiercely said “I make dresses for women who actually wear them,” reinterpreted the concept of a timeless elegant femininity once and for all. Discover the brand’s ten emblematic classics and make of your look a recognizable Valentino sight.

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EPITOMIZING THE SAINT LAURENT STYLE Cosmopolitan, Self-Confident, Sophisticated

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In the spirit of its brand founder, the fashion house Saint Laurent is committed to the sophisticated sense of style that characterizes the urban self-confident elegant woman. These are the twelve brand essentials that will certainly make of Saint Laurent a must-have in your wardrobe!

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DOLCE & GABBANA 10 Unmistakable Brand Essentials that Mark the Sicilian Legacy of D&G

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Established in 1985, Dolce & Gabbana coins today an emblematic fashion style that amalgamates Sicilian heritage with the sultry femininity of the Mediterranean woman. These are the brand’s unmistakable key essentials!

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BAD TASTE, IRONY, AND BOLDNESS The Theme “Camp” at this Year’s Met Gala

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In 17th century France, the camp aesthetic granted “bad taste” a new sense of beauty. The exhibition “Camp: Notes on Fashion” at The Met Fifth Avenue takes up on the idea, and sets the tone on the Gala’s fashion theme!

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KARL LAGERFELD The Undisputed Master of Brand Revival for More than Half a Century

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Well-known for his successful reinvention of former vintage brands like Chanel, Chloé, and Fendi, Karl Lagerfeld lent a typical fugacious industry a steady sense of continuity. Here you find an interesting side of his legacy.

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LIVING IN “ROMA” Alfonso Cuarón’s Intimate Snapshot of a Past Childhood

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The Mexican director Alfonso Cuarón allows us with Roma a deep gaze into his former family life. Like through a hole in the wall, we briskly become childish voyeurs, who see and feel more than we are able to hear. 

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A FLYING VISIT TO FLORENCE Food, Art, and History in One and a Half Days of Delight!

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Would you love to get a first impression of Florence? Then prepare for a good stroll! There is no better way to discover the hidden culinary and artistic highlights of the city, than a long, observant walk.

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LADY IN BLACK Tolstoy, Anna, and the Unveiling Power of the Color Black

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A short read of the novel Ana Karenina by Leo Tolstoy explains with great simplicity the quintessential notion of true style. Fashion, particularly the colour black, plays the main role in this revelation which proves to be dramatically fateful.

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