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BERLINALE BERLIN |
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by Marike MUSELAERS |
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Berlin 2005
A new year of creative filmmaking was waiting to be revealed during the Berlinale 2005 from 10 february till 20 february, where the Berlinale was celebrating its 55th year of existence. Over 400 films from more than 100 different countries will be represented.
Competition (by Suzanne and Marike)
CHANGING TIMES (LE TEMPS QUI CHANGENT) By Suzanne A film by André Téchine (France) starts in Tangiers, where Antoine (Gerard Depardieu) arrives. He took up a job as a supervisor for the construction of an audiovisual centre, but his actual reason for his presence in Tangiers is his first love Céline (Catherine Deneuve). He sends her flowers every day, but she has long forgotten him. He tries to win her over as a fragile man that has been hurting from the loss of their love for 30 years, but Céline is busy with other things. Her son has just returned from Paris for a short visit, he brings a girlfriend, but is clearly a homosexual and at the same time her husband wants to move. The different interpretation of love or lossed times and life between Céline and Antoine is a nice start, but the film doesn’t progress far. The cinematography is fine, but also doesn’t really appeal to the cinema-eye that is looking for something new. The film is a nice portrait of two completely different lives that ones were one the same path, but nothing more.
ASYLUM By Suzanne Asylum is a film that tries to have the potential of a very subversive film, where the boundaries are being sought in a given atmosphere. A couple and a small child move to a small village, where the husband just got a new job as a doctor in a mental hospital. The wife is supposed to join the group of the other faithful women and even the dress code has been set. The wife just doesn’t conform and starts having an affair with the gardener who is also a patient at the hospital. Slowly she gets more and more involved and she leaves her husband and child. Her love and obsession for him, as a representative of everything that her husband is not, reaches big heights. She even risks losing her child and ends up in the hospital herself. The story seems to be interesting, but loses all given tracks. The dark atmosphere is too obvious and so is the plot. The only interesting thing is the atmosphere of the village and the mental hospital.
By Marike Honestly, I never heard about Sophie Scholl. But she is a well known person in Germany, a young woman who resisted the Nazi regime during the Second World War. She and her brother Hans were members of the White Rose resistance. A foolish decision to smuggle anti-Nazi leaflets into Munich University and secretly distribute them while classes are in session results in the arrest of Sophie and Hans on February 18, 1943. She became an interesting character for film scripts, and several films about her story have been made, for example in Michael Verhoeven's "The White Rose." Sophie Scholl- The final days depicts the last six days in her life.
This German
competitor (one of three German films in the competition) won two Silver
Bear awards, for best director (Marc Rothemund) and best actress (Julia
Jentsch). Berlin has always picked breakout German films, like
Gegen die Wand
last year or
Goodbye Lenin
the year before.
Sophie Scholl
according to me doesn’t have that special something to become an
international success like these German films. The film features an
incredible performance by the main actress, and her Silver Bear is
well-deserved. But the story is nothing new, nothing original, and nothing
we Europeans didn’t already know. The film follows Sophie Scholl during the
last days of her life, she gets caught by the Nazis and tries to fight (with
lies, words and acting) her way out of prison. She keeps the faith, but her
struggle is used by the Nazis as an example (or a threat) to all resistance
groups.
Next to the two Silver Bears, Sophie Scholl won an Independent Jury Prize as well, namely the main prize from the ecumenical jury (the international film organizations of the Protestant and Catholic churches, who awards its prizes to directors who display genuine artistic talent and succeed in expressing actions or human experiences consistent with the gospel, or sensitize viewers to spiritual, human or social values). According to the ecumenical jury, the film is ‘based on a script that draws on new historical sources, with a minimalistic aesthetic, a concentrated narrative style, and brilliant acting, Marc Rothemund’s film focuses on the psychological debate between Sophie and the perpetrators of Nazi crimes. Sophie’s human and critical judgement is rooted in her Christian conviction. The film’s contemporary resonance is achieved through its ability to evoke dialogue about a Christian perspective on justice and freedom. It expresses a consistent civil courage and resistance against adverse structures of power’.
THE HIDDEN BLADE By Marike Two years ago, The Twilight Samurai screened in the Berlinale Competition. Yohi Yamada earned international appreciation and an Oscar nomination for best foreign-language film, and now his new film The Hidden Blade screens in the Berlinale competition as well. I think The Hidden Blade will do quite well on an international level. The two films are remarkably similar in a structural way. The first part of the film is about a samurai who has to rescue a woman. This woman is being abused by her husband and his family. The second part, tells their love story (which doesn’t reveal at all) and the samurai’s confusion because of his loyalty to the her husband. The third and last part contains the long foreseen dual between the samurai and his friend, who the supervisors had ordered him to kill.
The Hidden Blade
contains, or even better, continues the atmosphere, themes and conflicts of
the samurai society we saw in “The Twilight Samurai”. The hero seems the
same man, who stands for the conservative samurai. The
Hidden Blade
takes place in the 19th century, when European developments (in a
military way) are influencing the Japanese society. So we see the old-school
samurai fighting for sword and knife battles, while Japanese soldiers try to
use cannon and are trained to fight in troupes. These scenes are the comedy
elements in the film, and they are quite funny although it’s starting to
look like slap-stick when they overdo it. The visual work of the film is
beautiful, although you shouldn’t expect great images of duals, it’s more
about the inside of the samurai. Corruption, relationships, conflicts and
life in cast society are the main themes. Yamada shows us a life in a lower
cast of samurais, and this was quite new for me, because I already expected
three hours slick samurai fighting. But it’s all about a simple life and all
the complex elements in it. Comments By Suzanne and Marike
It should be noted that we were only in Berlin for five days. If we critic films, it will be the ones we saw, for more information on the other films we would like to forward you to the website of the Berlinale.
Panorama Selection By Suzanne The Panorama selection was developed as a “country focus” from the Competition selection. Today the Panorama is seen as the formal ‘official program’ together with the competition selection. The selection consists of 34 features, 18 documentaries and 26 short films. The Panorama selection was a good selection in an overall not very good selection. The films differ from accessibility and quality, but it remains a festival where completely different styles, themes and forms merge in just a few selections. There weren’t really films that took my breath away or gave me a new perspective on cinema. Actually, the most interesting were the themes and the view on the present society given from different angles. Still, the ‘auteur’ we do tend to find was not to be found. I will briefly discuss some films, which fitted the best in the main themes of the Panorama Selection. One of the focuses of this selection was very just for the society we live in, crossing borders. There were several films that really showed the problems we live with in a society where boundaries tend to fade. However the questions of the roots and the ideology of the birth nation keeps on returning in films like LIVE AND BECOME, WAITING FOR THE CLOUDS, FOR THE LIVING AND THE DEATH, STRANGER and DALLAS AMONG US. I will try to give an overview of the themes and the way they were cinematographically transported to the viewer. It was surprising to see all the different forms to represent the ambiguity we live with today. Another focus of the selection is gender and sexuality, where the homosexual scene was explored in a selection. There were some films that fitted directly in the genre of the selection, like COULOUR BLOSSOMS and DUMPLINGS, these will be discussed after the ‘crossing borders’ films.
LIVE AND BECOME (VA, VIS ET DEVIENS) This film was the award winning panorama film by Radu Milhaleanu, French, Israelian film. During the mid 1980’s the famine broke out in Ethiopia. Israel and America helped transport several thousand Ethiopian Jews to Israel. A young boy from Sudan, who is persuaded by his mother to flee with another woman who he is obliged to claim his own, ends up in Israel. He is accepted in a new family as a Jew, but he can’t forget his mother who is still behind and his roots from Ethiopia. He isn’t a Jew in a society where he is supposed to be one and where he is supposed to live with shoes and all the other differences. He slowly grows accustomed to the situation and tries to use it to his advantage. He studies medicine in the hope of returning to his country with the hope to find his mother. The heavy and still present themes in our daily society are being explored in this film through the narrative of this young boy that you see grow up to be a man. All the frustrations of several not understood misunderstandings concerning religion, ideology and nurtured actions are revealed. The cinematography shows a clear difference between the wide-spread images of Ethiopia and the sometimes closed society like Israel, through the eyes of the boy. The viewer is posed in his position, but does not judge. The words of his biological mother, just before he left her, VA, VIS ET DEVIENS, (Live and Become) are as strong as the film itself.
WAITING FOR THE CLOUDS, (BULUTLARI BEKLERKEN) This film, by Yessim Ustaoglu, a French, German, Turkish and Greek film, is also a film that concerns the literal meaning of crossing boarders. In a small fishers village in Turkey the film starts with an old woman, Eleni, taking care of her sick sister. A young boy comes running in the little one-bedroom house and turns on a TV. A moment of silence and the viewer get to see that the story is set in this age and time, although the living circumstance date back to at least a century. The woman has fled from her village during the First World War, leaving her family behind. Nobody knows this secret in the fisher town, until a man comes along that speaks Greek. Little by little we discover her sad story and her decline to search for them while her sister is still alive. Even though the story is sad and interesting, not the narrative, nor Eleni, are the main actors in this film. It is the environment where they live. The metaphor of the boundaries is the sea, the sea that never ends, where people come and go from all different parts of the world, that is the main character in this film. It is a great metaphor for the situation in Turkey and also for the link between nations, roots and possibilities. Another returning aspect in the film is the door openings. Open space that link one physical space with another. These two elements make the film very esthetic, but the main characters don’t really reach the hart of the viewer.
DALLAS AMONG US (DALLAS PASHAMENDE) Made by Robert Adrian Pejo (Hongary, Germany and Austria). Dallas is the local grocery, bar and actually the only place where people can by anything in a refuse dump near the Romanian City of Cluj. Where the soap Dallas is almost synonym for richness and secrets, the dump is literally the other side of the coin. Romanians live there ‘voluntarily’ and their work is to order the garbage. When one of the former residents of the camp comes back to burry his father, he is confronted with what he left behind to live in the big city and become a teacher. Because of various reasons he eventually stays there and falls in love again with his youth love. The story and the cinematography are a bit over-the-top. The colored clothes, the religious statues everywhere and the twinkling gold, like the foggy mornings and the bad make-up on the filthy residents are all a bit to much, but the Romanian are maybe just like that. The film does give a good representation of their way of living and why they love it so much to stay at a dump when they can just walk away from it. The fact that the love story eventually becomes the centre is really a pitty, because the other elements are far more interesting.
FOR THE LIVING AND THE DEATH (ELAVILLE JA KUOLLEILLE) Made by Kari Paljakka (Finland), this is a film that is more from an inner point of view border-crossing. The son of a family, mother, father and brother, has just died. He was locked in a burning car and his father failed to save him. Where do you go from there? Every family member ends up at their own island, the frustration; the grief and the future are different for everyone. The film is filmed in a cold Karismaki-Finnish way, and without falling back on stereo-type filming, there really is a connection. The inner world is represented by the camera and the people say little or nothing. The fact that the little brother wakes up on the floor in stead of his bead every morning, the constant bright blue and cold background in the house and the constant physical distance between the family members are just some examples of the way the metaphors work in this film. The way they slowly cross the borders of the grieving and end up in a certain possible coherence, against the narrow minding attitude of people around them, the family becomes a unity of loss.
ONO (STRANGER) This film by Malgosia Szumowska (Germany, Poland) starts with a young woman in Poland. She, Eva, tells her friend that it takes courage to love life. When she is in the hospital to have an abortion she finds out she was robbed and cannot pay for the surgery. She is almost destined to keep the child and as soon as she hears that fetuses can hear, she starts telling the unborn child everything she knows. Increasingly, she begins to share her lust for life with her unborn child. Her whole world before the pregnancy, where she worked at an unfulfilling and underpaid job, where her family barely looked at or after her, seems to light up when she is pregnant. Not that her surroundings change, but she changes. Even though she eventually finds out that her birth might be problematic for her health or the baby, she can handle it since her new given strength. The cinematography stresses this by placing her alone in wide environments as a strong and independent woman. She literally grows, in length perspective by the camera as in emotional perspective by the narrative and her acting.
The last two films mainly concern the inner crossing boarders, but are known subjects to everybody. The contradiction between loss and birth give two completely different points of view. However both films end up in better situation from where they took of and both give a very cold atmosphere. The next two films concern the themes gender, sexuality and the frustrations or love that flows from the two themes.
COULOUR BLOSSOMS (TAO SE) is a film by Yonfan from Hong Kong in China. Yonfan was for this film, like his two previous films inspired by an opera by the Chinese poet and dramatist Tang Hsien-tsu. The film explores themes like transsexuality, sadomasochism and youth in a love triangle that is set like a dream sequence. The film starts with a real estate agent named Melli, she is a good looking young woman who shares her adoration for men in uniforms to a friend. The first love fantasy, purely platonic, starts with a police officer NR. 4708. In the meantime she is selling a beautiful apartment that is like a dream from room to room. The owner is a known actress in China and she wants to rent it to somebody special. This is where she meets young Kim. A man who appears in the apartment when she is looking at herself in the mirror. He directly starts filming her with his 8 mm camera and he doesn’t talks, he just registries. The film slowly grows to a certain climax where all the two women and the two men pass by each other during a dark and rainy night in an alley. The story is more a dream sequence where time, gender and desire tend to be set in a time where time stands still. The images are strong and mostly the production design is breathtaking. The apartment is a world on its own, where every room represents a new atmosphere. The camera easily slides between the atmospheres as the sexuality slides between youth and the different boundaries set on the conventions of sexuality. The story isn’t always fitting and the characters often lack the same fantasy-involvement as the surroundings do. However, concerning the ‘mise-en-scène’ the film is very attractive.
DUMPLINGS a film by Fruit Chan, also from Hong Kong, China, is another example that finds its themes in youth, time overlapping and sexuality in a story-driven way. The film is a part of the Horror Trilogy called THREE…..EXTREMES, to which Takashi Miike and Korean director Park Chan-Wook have each contributed one episode. The general inspiration of the film is the obsession of women with beauty up to the extremes of the complete body make-overs like breast implants, face-lifts and liposuction. Qing is a former starlet and a know personality in China, who is married to a well-known and wealthy business man. She has all the money of the world and the beauty to go with it. Still, her husband cheats on her with a more youthful girl. Even though she is beautiful, she still feels her cheeks are sagging and she tries to find the famous and mysterious Mei. Mei makes dumplings, a Chinese specialty with an interesting content. Youth feeds the new young, because the content of the dumplings are fetuses from aborted young women. The symbolic meaning of a fetus giving youth to elderly is quite morbid, but it works. The cinematography is quite simple; the camera registers what happens and takes a welcome distance to digest the heavy narrative. The many funny parts make the viewer even more relaxed and capable to swallow the new idea of the future. The shifts of the boundaries concerning the body and the make-overs have reached a limit, but have they really? Three….Extremes is a perfect indication of the film, but also the most extreme situations become very normal, for nothing today isn’t possible.
Other films concerning the gender and sexuality theme were UN AÑO SIN AMOR, from Anahi Berniri, AMOR IDIOTA, from Ventura Pons, INSIDE DEEP THROAT, from Randy Barbato, GENDER X, from Julia Ostertag and many others. The selection has clearly chosen for a very transparent selection that could easily give you a perspective on the different films in this selection.
The International Forum of New Cinema By Marike The Forum wants to ‘provide visibility for films that aren’t considered for a mass audience’, according to forum chief Christoph Terhechte. The Forum has been a springboard towards international recognition for many filmmakers, and focuses on so-called New Cinema. The program of 2005 consists of 39 feature and documentary films. 16 of them are debut works and 24 of them are world premieres. The glue that holds the Forum together this year is the rather vague theme “Parallel Worlds”. The crossover between cultural genres, the diversity of countries and cultures and the focus on life itself should all be instruments of this main theme. The filmmaking of films in the Forum should be ’global, innovating , eager to the experiment’ and it should be ‘taking unconventional paths outside the mainstream’. It’s rather difficult to find the thin red line of parallel worlds. Of course, 33 countries are represented in 39 films, that’s quite a lot and offers a great diversity of cultures. But can you create a theme just by selecting as many countries possible? I am not sure. With so many documentaries and features put in the same selection (and you just have to guess if you’re seeing a documentary or a feature because the catalogue and the program will not tell you), I can’t tell you the real main themes. The films are new and interesting, so why bother about a thin red line? Because I think a selection, at least a pretentious selection as the Forum, should clearly point out their criteria. Maybe one of the main reasons for this confusing selection of films is the reduction of the Forum selection by one quarter. The reduced line up was made because of the organizers, so they could operate in more concentrated way, but by cutting off traditional parts of the Forum (there used to be a special, more mainstream midnight section for example) it all becomes a forced mix of very, very different films. The unconventional paths outside the mainstream, one of the main criteria, aren’t taken by all the filmmakers. The Hong Kong triad film Jiang Hu for example, is a great example of popular, mainstream Hong Kong cinema. And the Indian film Veer-Zaara is an example of popular Bollywood cinema. This type of films used to be in the midnight section, but now they are kind of lost between all the other different films. Like I already said, why bother when you have so many interesting films to see? I wanted to write one article, in which I would have put all the reviews, but now I will review the eight films I saw separately.
Crash Test Dummies Crash Test Dummies is an Austrian film about how and where the characters live their lives, about how they are moved, by themselves, or by others? In crash tests where people are used instead of dummies, the main thing is not so much speed as acceleration, and this what the film is all about, slow speed and fast acceleration. Ana and Nicolae, a young Romanian couple have the opportunity to make some fast money by delivering a car from Vienna to Romania. They take a bus from Bucharest to Vienna, a few days before Romania joins the European Union. After arriving they are told to be patient, because the car is not ready yet. They are stuck in Vienna without any money, and after a fight they split up. They can no longer move, despite their energy. Nicolae meets Dana, a 30 year old travel agent who loves to party and to hang around during the night. Ana gets in contact with Jan, a department store detective still suffering from his break up with Rita, who lives across the hall. And then there’s Martha, Jan’s roommate, the real crash test dummie, because she earns her money as a human dummie for crash tests. In the end Nicolae and Ana meet at the border, Ana driving with Jan and Nicolae with Martha. The circumstances are different, and they their relationship in a new light.
“How and where do you live your life, do you get up and do something or just sit there? Do you merely observe or intervene in some way, do you move yourself or are you moved by others?” These are the questions the director Jorg Kält asked himself. The characters are worked out well, even though they change, move, transform and start again. They have problems with addresses, meeting places (Nicolae: “Look I don’t know where I am and you don’t know where I am, so how will we meet?”) and contacts, they meet, they fail to come together and find obstacles on their way again and again. They are real crash test dummies. Even the worst consequences of the ‘crashes’ seem to be healed so well that they can immediately return to their starting position.
Vienna is presented as an anonymous city. We don’t see the real Vienna, the tourist-Vienna, the most important Viennese locations are a train station, a supermarket, a park and a coffee shop, all in desolate neighborhoods. The choice of locations raises some questions about where and how one feels at home. Is it through love, friendship, or through language? Crash Test Dummies is a contemporary European film above all. At the beginning, the Romanians have lots of problems to get into Austria, while at the end when Nicolae and Ana cross the border back to Romania, fireworks are lighting up the sky to celebrate the EU extension with the Eastern countries.
The film was pretty funny, the characters are really convincing and the main themes are quite interesting. I think the title is really well-chosen, it draws your attention right away and it fits in every little detail of the film. The European setting, the different languages (German, English and Romanian) and the choice of the time frame are, especially for us Europeans, all elements to identify with. There was one thing I didn’t like so much… like I said, the film is pretty funny, but the Germans in the cinema really laughed like crazy, so several times I paid more attention to them instead of the film!
Jiang Hu Wong Ching Po is not the first to name his film after the Chinese martial underworld. Many Hong Kong and Chinese films celebrated their kung fu mafia, and used the name Jiang Hu in their titles. The title refers to the brotherhood of martial artists, thieves, opera performers, monks, security guards, prostitutes, professional soldiers, and beggars. It’s all about a secret society, a shadow or dark mirror image of conventional society. Jiang Hu members recognized each other via a complex system of secret signs and signals - a newcomer visiting an inn, for example, could arrange chopsticks and teacup in a certain pattern on his tabletop if he wished to contact the local affiliates. "Jiang Hu" (or "Giang Hu") literally means "rivers and lakes", and refers to the itinerant status of many Jiang Hu members. Stories of the Jiang Hu emphasize the complex web of obligations and feuds that proliferated in the shadow world and were referred to as "the love/hate relationships of the martial world".
Hong Kong
triad films don't get any bigger than this 2004 Jiang Hu. Young
director Wong Ching-Po (Fu Bo) was given a big push by producer Eric
Tsang and co-presenters Andy Lau and Alan Tam, and their faith shows some
initial promise. Jiang Hu's director and stars seem to promise
something exciting and possibly even new. But they try too hard and although
the film has many entertaining moments, it’s nothing original.
What I missed
in Jiang Hu is the ability to identify with the characters and the
storyline. The actors do a good job, but I miss a certain emotion, a certain
spark. The twist alone cannot save the film. Jiang Hu is a must for the
triad film fan, it has beautiful visual elements, but it is only
occasionally entertaining. The great cast cannot change that. This French film, directed by Jerome Bonnell, didn’t get much attention at the Berlinale. However, the simple but attracting story was of great interest to me. The main character is Fanny, a girl with a psychiatric disorder. What kind of disorder is never told, it might be schizophrenia, but the answer doesn’t really matter. It’s not a scientific disease, no diagnosis is made, but the madness above all is treated in an emotional way. It is all about communication, or lack of ways to communicate. Fanny lives at her brother’s house, but she doesn’t get along with her sister-in-law, especially after she sees her kissing another man. Her ways to show emotions are irritating her sister-in-law, and it all ends up with a big fight. Fanny decides to leave the house, she takes the car and runs away to Germany. The problem with Fanny’s brother and his wife is their image of Fanny. They never see her as a grown up woman, they don’t even see her as a person. Fanny remains the annoying little sick sister, the one who is being watched and who watches people all the time, the one who makes them ashamed. Fanny stands between her brother and her sister-in-law, and this strange position has to fall down one day. She flees to Germany to see the grave of her father. He is buried next to his mistress, at a graveyard near a small mountain town. When she arrives, she meets Oskar, a German man who lives by himself on the mountain. He doesn’t speak French, but together they manage to get Fanny to the graveyard. They invent a form of communication with gestures and facial expressions. For director Jerome Bonnell, the body has an essential part in this film. It is mainly Fanny’s body that is sick, and this is also why Oskar doesn’t speak her language. Communication works with senses other than language. The idea of a meeting between these two bodies was his main goal for making this film. I loved this film. The story is heartbreaking, everything is so realistic but still you keep a fairy-tale feeling. The story of the ugly duckling, the black sheep of the family, who flees, sets off in search for adventure. She never knew how to communicate and then, when she is looked at differently and creates her own form of communication, she suddenly ‘becomes beautiful’ and is saved by love. I saw his transformation myself, by finding fanny strange and ugly in the beginning, and brave and beautiful at the end. The director does what he wanted to do, and I think it’s very strange this film didn’t get the attention it deserved.
Lü Cao di The buzz started on Saturday, when the trade papers headed “Bavaria swoops in on Mongolia’s Ping Pong’. Suddenly the screenings were full of people, a great example of the influences of the industry. When a sales agent shows interest, suddenly all the buyers and other sales agents are interested as well. And that’s how it should be, of course. The translation of the title is Mongolian Ping Pong. And that’s exactly the title this film should have. It’s a Mongolian film above all, it offers images of a land, a culture, we usually don’t see. Children are growing up at the steppes in the middle of nowhere. This is no documentary or travel program, this is a real film made by a Chinese director, Ning Hao. There are moments when you have to tell yourself it’s fiction, because of the wide images of the steppes, the daily life and the natural behavior of the characters. The film doesn’t tell anything of Mongolian history, but this little story offers an insider’s view into certain elements of Mongolian culture, at least the culture at the steppes. It’s all about 9-year old Bilike. He lives with his family at the Mongolian steppes, without electricity and running water. When he finds an ordinary white ping pong ball in a creek, he doesn’t recognize the object and runs to his wise old grandmother. His two best friends Erguotou and Dawa try to solve the mystery with him. The grandmother says the ball is a glowing pearl from heaven, and so the boys stay up all night, waiting for the ball to glow. During the annual Nadam festival, some children mistake the glowing pearl for a golf ball they see on a film screen, while the film projectionist tells Bilike his treasure is a ping pong ball. The friends take the odd white object to the lamas, but even the wisest men in Mongolia don’t have a clue. While trying out a new television set, the boys learn about ping pong, the “national ball of China”. Although they set up a tall antenna, they can only get sound, no images. So they don’t see what ping pong is all about, and only know they have the national ball of China, which should be returned to the national capital, Beijing. Not realizing how far Beijing is, they set off to return the national ball.
This film is beautifully shot, and very charming and amusing. It’s really interesting to see how life in the middle of nowhere can be so exciting. The smallest details become big events, and the mystery of the small ball leads to questions of the world around them, and to exploring a bigger world. The film is both playful and gently satirical, because of all the elements of capitalism and Mongolian culture. Images of a family in a tent, trying to watch TV with a self made antenna of plates and cans say everything they need to say. The son who has been to America, and brings “coffee, a famous American tea”. The boy who can’t ride a horse but does have a motor bike. It all fits in, it’s all about the big questions during childhood, and learning about a culture, a land and a world. And the audience learns together with the boys.
Odessa, Odessa… I wanted to review only feature films, but I accidentally saw this documentary. Yes, accidentally, because I couldn’t find any information about the genre in the catalogue or program guide. This Israelian and French co-production by Michale Boganim has been selected to last Sundance Festival. Various characters are being followed in this documentary, they live in three places, Odessa (Ukraine), New York and Israel. The exile and wandering of the Jews of Odessa are the main themes of the film. The focus of the film is on the three cities and the manner in which the immigrants merge with them. The choice of three big port cities symbolically reinforces the notion of the migratory movements of this population. Odessa is the city of the past, of memories. The architecture of Odessa stills shows signs of a decadent and wealthy past. All the characters live in an imaginary Odessa, reinvented through memories. They summon feelings of Odessa through memory and music. In Odessa a few old women tell us about their youths, World War II, their ideologies and their careers as singers and dancers. It’s a delight to watch the beautiful old women sing and dance again. In Brighton (New York), we see a woman singing of Brighton Beach, the new Odessa. The vibrancy that once filled Odessa has been moved to Brighton. The Russians praise America as the country of their dreams, but the Americans don’t like the immigrants at all. They refuse to learn English and they always stick together like the real world doesn’t exist. This shows when the Russians go on a trip to Manhattan, and can’t believe their eyes. They try to move the Odessa from the past to present-time Brighton. In Ashdod, Isreal, the Odessans express disappointment that, while in Russia they were considered Jews, here in the ‘promised land’ they will be Russians, outsiders, forever. Their homeland appears not to be a homeland at all, it has become a Diaspora. Odessa is a place that exists, that existed, but it during the film it becomes an imaginary and almost mythical place. One of the women in Brighton expresses her nostalgia for Odessa, but then she asks herself “What if I go back there, will my feeling for exile diminish?”. It’s all about fantasy, about a search for a possible somewhere else. The Odessans in America and Israel dream of the ideal place Odessa, while the remaining Jews in Odessa dream of their ‘promised land’ Israel and the ‘land of plenty’ America. The ideal place has a different meaning for them. Jews are in fact always waiting for a promised land, an ideal place. And the personal search for this place is the most interesting theme of this film. The Confederation Internationale des Cinemas d’Art et Essai (the International Confederation of Art Cinemas) awarded Odessa, Odessa… in Berlin, because of the same reasons I already mentioned. Their comment: ‘People and places seem almost fictions. Michale Boganim takes on a journey along with people into their ide4alistic world that does not exist any more – nowhere. An idealistic world we all long for. We feel familiar with these people because we all live in exile in a way’. I can only agree with the jury. I am glad I made a mistake with the program, because I didn’t want to miss this film. Odessa, Odessa… is a very special documentary.
Oprosti za Kung Fu The Croatian comedy Sorry for Kung Fu, by Ognjen Svilicic is about a pregnant young woman, Mirjana, who returns to Croatia after staying in Germany as a refugee. Her visa has expired and the war in Croatia is over, so she has to go back to her family. Her parents are unaware of her pregnancy, and it’s a huge shock to discover their unmarried daughter carrying a child. They are still trying hard to get on with their lives and rebuild their house after the war, so a pregnant daughter only increases all the problems. Because of the patriarchal culture and the strong family traditions, they decide to find Mirjana a decent Croatian husband, so the child will have a father. But it is not that easy to find a husband for a pregnant girl. And she has her own opinion to. The real problems start when Mirjana gives birth to a boy with Asian features, a result of a love affair she had in Germany. The whole village is shocked. The father doesn’t want to accept his grandchild; he wouldn’t even accept another nationality, so another race is out of the question. They don’t come to a solution so Mirjana has to leave with her child, and returns three years later, just before her father dies, because his last wish was to see his grandson. The film starts with a quote from the Polijca Statute of Croatia: “If a daughter or a grand-daughter, under the age of 25 and fit for marriage, chooses a dishonorable way of life or becomes pregnant in a shameful way, her father is granted a right to chase her away”. And so he does. This comical satire about culture and xenophobia takes place just after the recent war in former Yugoslavia, so an extra ironic element is added. The film is drenched in irony. Everything is turned upside down, by things getting quickly out of control while the characters are hardly aware of that because of their strong believes. Nothing works the way they want it to work, and all of this creates comic and tragic situations. It’s all about a people making the best out of their own traditions, while the world is already ten steps ahead.
Sekai no Owari The Japanese film World’s End, Girl Friend by Kazama Shiori (the literal translation is ‘The end of the world’) is highly entertaining. It’s a story about love and friendship in the world of Tokyo’s urban youth. Shinnosuke and his friend Chef run a store in Tokyo that sells bonsai trees. Despite bearing the old-fashioned label 'bonsai shop', it's a modern store. One day, Shinnosuke's friend Haruko comes to the shop after being thrown out of her ex-boyfriend's house. She is training to be a beautician, but she quits her job because of an argument with her boss about her behavior towards a client. Haruko moves in with Shinnosuke and Chef until she can find a new apartment. Soon afterward, Haruko finds a new boyfriend and moves out. Though Shinnosuke feels a certain affection for her, he says goodbye to her with a smile. Haruko's new boyfriend is older than she is and quite well-off. He is very kind to her, but hides the fact that he has a wife. When Haruko finds out that he is married, she is deeply hurt and moves back in with Shinnosuke. But he now has a new girlfriend... It's not that Shinnosuke and Haruko aren't fond of each other, but the timing just never seems to be right. The wounds inflicted by unrequited love are the subject of this film. A break up should be just a personal matter and the pain is less than that from physical illness. But it is not something you can get a medicine for, and it is certainly not something that allows you to stay away from the outside world until fully recovered. The problems of the main characters have to with love, break ups and this strange pain. The characters are all in their twenties, and they deal with love as a very serious issue. Their friends in the same age group all understand the break up pain, but their bosses certainly don’t, money has to be made and the daily life has to continue. This film is quite light to watch, the atmosphere is nice and funny and the characters are enjoying life, despite all their problems regarding love. Seeing this young people living their life in Tokyo and dealing with all the little obstacles life offers is a great experience, and offers you a view to Tokyo’s daily life.
Shin Sung-il hangbang bulmyung The translation of the title is ‘Shin Sung-il is lost’, and this Korean film is made by Shin Jane. It was one of my favorite Berlinale films, because of the great symbols and metaphors in it. This film could become a great festival-hit. The director poses many questions, but doesn’t offer all the answers, so we have the opportunity to think and decide for ourselves. The location of the film is most of the time an isolated orphanage, called ‘The House of Angels’. The director of the orphanage brainwashes the children into believing that God will frown on them whenever they eat. The children obey their teacher, and they hold back their appetite until they can’t bear their hunger any longer. They eat in secret because they are aware of their sin. Ashamed of what they are doing, they hide in the bathroom or under the bed while they are eating. Shin Sung il is the only plump child of the orphanage. The other orphans hate him, and look down on him because they think he discovered a way of getting food. He decides to fast, because he wants to show his innocence and his devotion to the director. He only has one friend, Kim Kap-soo. A new girl arrives in the orphanage, and she doesn’t know the rules. She eats in public, and she tries to convince Sung-il and Kap-soo that it’s not right to fast. They get punished, and the worst punishment in the orphanage is eating in public, on top of the desk in the classroom. When they eat, a mass vomiting occurs. In the same time, Kap-soo and his friend Boss create uproar, and Sung-il manages to escape the indignity of the orphanage during the confusion. It’s his first time in the big city, it’s almost Christmas and the city is covered with snow. Sung-il discovers that people are eating openly in restaurants without shame. He is amazed and shocked, and therefore refuses the food people offer him in their kindness. He keeps on wandering, confused about everything he sees, but the worst surprise is yet to come. He discovers his director and her son eating in a restaurant.
According to me, questioning the modern consumption society, eating diseases, diets etc. in a religious way is a great decision. The film is full of symbols and metaphors, but still there is space to create your own meaning and definition of the subject. I hope many people will be able to see this film, because the theme is a very suitable problem in these modern times. The images are beautiful, the choices of black and white for some scenes and color for other scenes are well-made. Slowness is the only negative point I can find, but the story remains interesting and the audience keeps on waiting what happens next. It’s bizarre and intriguing. The Readers’ Jury of the Berliner Zeitung agreed with me, and awarded their prize to this film. Their comment: ‘Shin Sung-il is lost. The film’s viewer feels lost as well, at least at first. Seemingly incoherent images cohere. Real things are exaggerated, visions appear as real. In the unreal world of the orphanage, the child protagonist lives out the ongoing contradiction of pleasure and asceticism. The children are not so much real people as tenderly confected figures. The nevertheless allow viewers to identify with them in certain ways and captivate the audience from the start. The film delights with its playful treatment of diverse figurative and ideological symbols. In retrospect, these various elements dovetail logically and generate the films surreal, fairytale-like world. The director requires viewers to take a clear position, but leaves the film’s meaning open. The films shows how we deal with learned values and how we might react when they are called into question. Can the confusion and emptiness that Shin Sung-l experiences at the end of the film be passed to us?’
European Film Market By Marike The Berlinale has its own filmmarket, called the European Film Market. This name might be confusing, but ‘European’ only refers to the location. Films from all over the world are being sold her. The EFM is the central event for the film industry at the Berlinale. It is an independent market, but many films screening at the Berlinale are represented at the EFM as well. This year’s participation of the EFM:
of which 40% are also screening in other Berlinale sections
Furthermore the EFM offers eating places and meeting spots reserved for Market Badges. Apart from the regular market stands and booths, EFM offered some specialties in collaboration with its partners. For example, Straight from Sundance, in cooperation with the Sundance Film Festival, screened 25 new independent films. Works in Progress offered a forum for film projects which are still in production. A presentation in Berlin facilitates contacts and collaboration with potential partners. An interesting development is the cooperation between the EFM and the Frankfurt Book Fair. They have joined forces for the first time this year. 26 publishing houses participated in the EFM, with the purpose of forging stronger ties between literature and film. Topics ranged from the discussion of literary works for screen adaptations, to the development of joint marketing and PR strategies.
The American Film Market’s decision to move to November (mainly to sabotage the MIFED), makes Berlin the only market at the top of the calendar year. The EFM therefore became an (even more) important market for international buyers. According to the trade papers, many buyers and sellers this year are eager to test Berlin’s potential as a place to do business. Insiders expect Berlin and Cannes to become Europe’s most important filmmarkets. The EFM was booked solid, film buyers and sellers were pouring into Berlin. The amount of companies has increased by 38%, the amount of films by 33%. Many films in competition were already licensed to some territories, so the main buying focus was on the EFM films. The building was crowded with industry attendees, and it’s a good idea to move the EFM to a much bigger exhibition space next year, because struggling to get around doesn’t create the right atmosphere. Can Berlin really replace the February AFM? According to the buyers it will depend on the availability of ‘wide appeal English language genre product’. The EFM has always been an art-house market. The festival is the central event, the market exists next to the festival, unlike Cannes where the mega-market exists independently. The Marché du Cinema and the Cannes Film Festival have even become competitors. In Berlin the festival and the EFM fill each other in, 40% of the market screenings this year consisted of films also appearing in one of the Berlinale sections. The director of the EFM, Becki Probst, says she wants the EFM films to be a ‘mixed bag of commercial art-house titles’. This means EFM is a cinema theatrical market, even if television, video and DVD sales are the main ways to make money. It will be a challenge for the EFM to expand to an AFM-like market. Industry attendees are used to business-only environments, and they might not like the importance of the festival. A first time attendee puts it like this in the daily Screen: “I don’t care if there is some great black-and-white Afghan film running at the festival that everyone says is genius. I just want to be able to set up a stand, meet customers and do the deals”. I think many work has to be done before EFM will be the next AFM. The time slot has put them in a great position, but they have to make a choice about their goals. Festival or market? Or both? Arthouse or commercial? The first time to see new developments in the filmmarket calendar will be next year, when the new location will be in use. This year it was just too chaotic and crowded too see the real face of the EFM. Business was done and deals were made, but the festival took the center stage. Next year will be a very interesting year.
Talent Campus By Suzanne
The Berlinale Talent Campus is an arena for know how and inspiration, in which the world’s next film generation moves to learn, communicate and exchange experiences. It is a Campus where 530 young filmmakers from 90 countries get together at the House of World Cultures to have the opportunity to learn from experienced professionals from all genres, cultures and generations. Applicants are to submit a 1 minute mini-film. This film will be decisive in selecting participants. Screenwriters, production designers, sound designers and film music composers may submit an appropriate alternative work sample. To be selected, applicants have to be fluent in the English language, and they have to work or study in the areas of screenwriting, producing, directing, cinematography, acting, editing, sound design, composing, production design or art directing. Furthermore they have to: - have finished at least one short film that has received a prize or they have been invited to an international film festival, - OR they have worked on a film of at least 60 minutes in length, - OR they are students in their final semester at a film school and have worked on several short films. The six-day programme touched on the essential issues of filmmaking: philosophy, pre-production, production, post-production and promotion. Every day there were public and private lectures from experts, where about 80 international experts were present to give the new talents the possibility to be really close to ‘the real thing’. Some examples of the programme and experts are the daily themes like Storytelling and Cultural identity, Directing Sex with among others Catherine Breillat, Painting with the Camera, with Christopher Doyle, Marketing and Distribution and others. During the whole five days there were three international filmmakers announced as Hosts, Emi Wada, Dante Ferretti and Walter Salles. To give an impression of the three hosts and their weight in the industry I will give a short summary of their works.
Emi Wada started her career as a costume designer with the film Ran from Akira Kurosawa, from then on she worked on several films. She was also a costume designer for big films like ‘Hero’ and ‘House of Flying Daggers’ from Zhang Yimou.
Dante Ferretti became known for his collaboration with Pier Paolo Pasolini in ‘Medea’ and ‘The Cantebury Tales’. With his film designs for ‘La cittá della donne’and ‘E la nave va’ by Oscar winner Fellini, he created looks which wrote film design history. Recently he has been working on Martin Scorsese’s films ‘Gangs of New York’ and also ‘The Aviator’.
Walter Salles has contributed to a number of art house films, which instantly put the international world’s focus on South America. Among others ‘Central Station’ and ‘The Motorcycle Diaries’ are the best known films of Walter Salles.
It is clear that these three hosts are not new in the business and they really give weight to the level of the Talent Campus. The Talent Campus is a huge set up system where upcoming talents get a possibility to be very close to known experts. It is a big success and the fact that the Berlinale doesn’t only look at what’s happening now, but also takes a look at the new and the upcoming, makes the festival even more respected. |
and Suzanne Teichman