“Every German is obliged to ensure that the Holocaust is not forgotten” a pokerfaced Uwe Boll said, around the same time he was crowned The World’s Worst Filmmaker in the wake of his 2011 film, “Auschwitz”. His own contribution to the collective memory of the Shoah was memorable for all the wrong reasons; an upshot of the fact that Boll had already made a name for himself as the mastermind behind such video game film adaptations as, BloodRayne, House of the Dead (HoTD) and Alone in the Dark.

But subtler minds than Boll have shared his sentiment about speaking the unspeakable through art. This month, on a romp through the European lit scene, I happened upon two.

German writer, Timur Vermes, is a professional ghostwriter who has harnessed his ventriloquistic skills in his first novel to tackle one of the most brutal subjects imaginable –Adolf Hitler. The title– He’s Back – says something about the novel’s jocular tone, and something, too, about how the passing of time loosens tongues on even “unmentionable” topics. It’s 2011, and Hitler’s woken up with a raw headache having spent the night in the bunker with Eva Braun. He stumbles through Berlin, scratching his heavy head over where all the Russian soldiers went, like someone crawling home at 6am who swore they took their denim jacket to the party. Hitler paranoid as hell; he’s sure people are staring and laughing at him. They are, of course, because they think he’s a regular guy doing a Prince Harry – only funny. Hitler turns into a YouTube phenomenon. He’s filmed on a visit to the headquarters of a German fascist party, where he’s appalled by the lack of commitment to the cause that he sees amongst the young neo-Nazis. When they realise Hitler’s won a prestigious journalism award for exposing them, they jump him. Yes, Hitler gets jumped by Neo-Nazis. It’s Ali G meets Heil Honey I'm Home meetsFawlty Towers. (Or, in fact, just Fawlty Towers.)

The other German tackling the subject of Nazi Germany is graphic novelist, Reinhard Kleist. Since the publication of Cash and Castro, Kleist’s been steadily building a name for himself as the fore figure of a new wave of German author-illustrators. He has a studio with three other artists in Prenzlauer Berg. Der Boxer tells the life story of Hertzko Haft, who survives the Holocaust through a combination of physical resilience and devotion his sweetheart, Leah. Having been introduced to boxing for the amusement of the Nazi officers, after he escapes Hertzko decides to fight for a living in America, where he hopes he might also track down his girl. Kleist’s novel is a modern-day Maus in the most obvious sense. Kleist pays deference to the game-changing novel, but also explains his own deviations from Spiegleman’s Pulitzer prize-winner. As he explained over email: “Maus is still a very important book... I am not a fan of his idea to use animals as persons in the story. But this is part of the thinking process he did at that time … dealing with the thought “Can I do this?” Now we are able to deal with the subject more openly, which is not always good. I hate books (or movies) where the victims of the Holocaust are just sad looking puppets. They are human beings and … sometimes they are not good ones. That is something I want to provoke in the reader: Do I still identify with Hertzko after he … knowingly beat people to death?” Kleist cuts to the chase in that his characters are humans –pain is pain in this novel and some of the boxing scenes are beyond graphic; they’re brutal. Offsetting this are the text-less pages where images cross the frontier that language, according to Kleist, can’t. “My favourite scene from Der Boxer is when Hertzko has to work in a factory and comes home. There are no words, nothing much happens, but for him a whole world collapses.”

For me, the text never destroys the impact of Kleist’s drawings; he has a gift as deft as a fine short-story writer for delivering a line like a slap in the face (see, “I have no fear” and you’ll know what I mean). Luckily for the non-German readers, you can still relish the still movie that is Der Boxer. But this graphic novel is crying out for an English translation. For Boll’s sake, at least, somebody translate these silences.

Cover Image: Roger Wollstadt

Taken from the February Issue of Dazed & Confused:

“Doona is an angel. She creates art without artifice; often it feels like there is nothing between the lens and her pure, vulnerable emotion. She is also as lovely and kind as you might imagine her to be.” - Lana Wachowski

She might be an unfamiliar face to western audiences, but in Korea Doona Bae is a household name. Highly regarded for roles in Park Chan-wook’s Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance (2002) and the Japanese film Air Doll (2009), she is able to cherry-pick parts from some of the world’s most acclaimed directors. So her audition for the German $100-million adaptation of David Mitchell’s novel Cloud Atlas was her first audition in 13 years – but one she was happy to undertake. “I really wanted to work with the Wachowskis and I don’t like big main roles,” Bae says. “If my favourite director gives me a role that is very...” – she pauses to find the right word – “sparkly? A very brilliant character? I’ll do it.”

In her role as clone Sonmi-451 in the dystopian country of Nea So Copros, Bae delivers a poignant performance that required serious prep. She had to learn English from scratch and play three characters, all of different ages and ethnicities. “I was a little bit confused to be absolutely honest,” Bae says of the challenge. “I went to Berlin by myself because I wanted to become Sonmi. She is very miserable at the beginning and I was also really lonely, but Lana and Andy Wachowski were amazing. In the end we were like a family.”

After Cloud Atlas wrapped, Bae elected to travel straight to London to tackle her next project – mastering English. “When filming ended I could still hardly tell my friends and my directors how much I loved them, and how much I enjoyed making the film,” Bae explains. So she spent six months living with her dialogue coach in Primrose Hill, enjoying a spell of rare anonymity. “No one knew me, no one bothered me. It was refreshing.”

What challenge next awaits the multilingual, award-winning actress? Bae remains undecided. But it seems likely she will undertake it with characteristic dedication. “I really love learning and working long hours. I was even jealous of my Cloud Atlas stand-ins because I love being in front of the camera,” she says, earnestly. “In social situations, when I’m surrounded by people, I become very shy. But if there’s a camera in front of me, I feel free.”

Cloud Atlas is out on February 22

Photography Lauren Ward
Styling Sara Paulsen

Given David Bowie's 66th birthday present to himself and the world, 'Where Are We Now?', a bolt out of the darkness reflecting on his Berlin era, as well as the upcoming Bowie V&A exhibit, there has been a drought of the Thin White Duke on catwalk soundtracks this season. Bowie is, for Raf Simons, a hero – and has been since his youth. Simons' silhouette owes much to the musician, his models' candour and fair hair often reminiscent of one of the greatest recording artists of all time.

It's interesting then that Simons, for his finale music – which turned away from the thud-thud techno we all love, and the Belgians are obsessed with – to Bowie's 'Modern Love', from Let's Dance. The track is a world away from the wrought emotion (and coke-detached surface) of 'Station To Station' or the teutonic wail of 'Heroes'. It's a true crossover hit and one that snobs would undoubtedly scoff at.

That choice said everything about this Raf Simons collection. Here was the designer drawing out his loves and influences in a new way. The clothes were 70s from an angle Simons has never perched himself at before, with patterned wool tank tops, big collars and cuffs dishevelled on fitted shirts, fluid trousers, fuller-cut suit jackets with patch pockets, striped satin t-shirts with matching bags and an architectural take on the lavallire, unbowed. If the feeling before was all Sisters of Mercy, Smashing Pumpkins and Berghain bangers, this was more Grange Hill, corduroy, Ford Cortina. From the angsty youth to the wistful one. There's something about that that feels very right – and honest – for the moment.

It would be a bit odd if Simons's post as womenswear creative director at Christian Dior hadn't questioned his entire creative spectrum. Looking at this show, with its celebration of colour and open fashion ambition, it's clear the designer is in a good place personally right now. He wants to share it with all of us.

Last year, when Dazed Digital spoke to the photographer/curator Laurence Von Thomaswho was releasing the second book of photographs from his blog If You Leave-the blog had little more than 3,000 followers. A year later, the numbers have hit 100,000, and Von Thomas is back in London to launch his third and final book - with a selection of the best images from 95 global contributors.

TheIf You Leaveblog started in 2009 as a platform for young photographers to submit their best work. The name, If You Leave, is inspired by three words Von Thomas scribbled down on a piece of napkin, and seems to have consequently become an apt guideline for the stream of submitted photographs, as they incorporate similar themes and aesthetics drawn from the title. Loneliness, vast landscapes, distance and intense expression have all been inevitably present on If You Leave over the years.

Dazed Digital: Tell us a bit more about this year’s selection. How is it different from previous books?


Laurence Von Thomas:I've learnt to always believe what my mom says is true when it comes to intuitive exploits... last year's selection was "more positive" than the first... she hasn't seen the new book yet. This said.. thank fuck there's no more comment box or she'd retort with a full blown Baudrillardian essay about colours and frequential energy.



DD: Can you list a couple of words or phrases that would characterise the selection?


Laurence Von Thomas:I'll leave that up to personal interpretation, but I would like to try and define the style of If You Leave, since it has often been asked and I never felt able to accurately respond. Me and Berlin-based photographer Lena Grass spoke about this during the summer and we felt there was a definite style/subculture going on and that maybe it was time to create some sort of manifesto and then give it an eccentric name... alas, in the absence of this glorious pamphlet, I think the term neo-romanticism might come close, since a lot of the imagery seems to relate to many of the characteristics of Romanticism in terms of mood, composition, theme or even technique. Turner and Friedrich return frequently as a source of inspiration.



DD: With so many submissions, is your selection just instinct based? Are there any guidelines?
Laurence Von Thomas:

There are no guidelines. I prefer it this way. My selection is not based on objective parameters, so it wouldn't make sense to dictate any.



DD: Do you know how many submissions you had overall?


Laurence Von Thomas:I had to look it up, but it seems over 4000 since the start of the blog, though I would say 1/3 of these are images I invited.



DD: I can’t help but notice there are a lot of soft coloured images of women in a certain type of mood. Do you think that is a natural reaction to the theme and title of the blog?


Laurence Von Thomas:Maybe I'm wrong, but it seems to me that, in general, women like to explore the visual in a different way (and at a different pace) than men. I think a lot of the photographs you refer to are in fact self portraits or images of close friends serving as study objects.



DD: Can you pick a song that would suitIf You Leave Vol III?


Laurence Von Thomas:Today it would be 'One more cup of coffee' (the White Stripes version). 

But over the last 2 years I've been putting together a playlist for each book launch. The list is a collection made out tracks from Spotify playlists by If You Leave photographers, so in a sense you could say it's the soundtrack to the book. 

Here's one for Volume III (though it seems to only show the first 30 tracks).




DD: You started If You Leave in 2009 on both Flickr and Tumblr. Have you sensed some kind of retreat from the Flickr community in general? Are artists moving to their own blogs, tumblrs, websites?


Laurence Von Thomas:Flickr has most definitely suffered some fall-back since Tumblr has boomed. For me personally, they have their individual qualities... Flickr still has many groups, is very useful as an archive and feels less curated, blogs work better chronologically or as a diary and a website still works well as a showcase.



DD: You mentioned this would be "the third and final instalment of If You Leave". Does that mean this is the last book for If You Leave? What’s next for the blog?


Laurence Von Thomas: I don't want to give the impression I'm milking it. I've been exploring the aesthetic you've come to expect of If You Leave for almost 4 years now, and while I still really enjoy it, it feels like it is time for something new. The blog will still run on and a few 'established' galleries, and more recently museums have been showing an increasing interest in the blog, but none of this will happen before the next season. Maybe we'll put on some sort of retrospective in combination with new images.

DD: 

Do you think If You Leave has influenced your personal photography? Or vice versa?


Laurence Von Thomas:Undeniably yes and yes.


DD: Any future projects you’ve been working on?


Laurence Von Thomas: I've been working withArthur-Frank, the publisher of If You Leave, and we have two magazines in the pipeline. One is purely visual reference, based on a pop-up project I ran during the summer. The second one is a heavily content-based concept. That’s all I can say for now! Maybe by this time next year I will publish some of my own work, take it on the road and hopefully combine it with a film project I've been working on for ages.

Books are available to pre-order online exclusively viaif-you-leave.tumblr.comand will hit London and UK stores by December 16th


cover image Matthew Lief Anderson