While yesterday, I wanted to be somebody from the press so that I don’t have to run into all these people, I now realize that apparently, the Berlinale gets too much press anyways and they seem to treat press people very harshly. You have to pay 60 euro to get your press card, after sending in proof of why you would deserve this card (of course), and in some movies, you are last to enter, oh my.
What is even more depressing is that major newspapers really don’t talk about much else aside from the competition entries. Why can they not write about some less interesting movies from time to time? Hmm.
So, today we were actually first to enter and, yet again, sat at some very good places. The cinema, albeit smaller than yesterday, was packed. I can’t believe so many people would go to a movie that I would have considered not so interesting. What are these people doing there? Why are cinemas typically empty – especially for a documentary like this – and suddenly get incredibly full when it’s the Berlinale? I cannot believe this.
Araya
France/Venezuela 1959, Margot Benacerraf, 82′
It really was no interesting movie. In many respects, this film was like listening to a class at university.
Basically it’s a documentary about the fishermen and salineros, people who work at the salt evaporation sites at Araya, a beautiful, but barren beach in Venezuela. The workers there are obviously very poor and have to spend their whole life working on the same thing. This is accompanied by a calm narrator voice from the off, recounting sentences such as “Nothing grows.” to emphasize on the atmosphere of beauty and repetition.
Of course it is not surprising that I actually took my 5 minute nap in the middle of the movie (just like in class, by the way). The whole thing felt like 3 hours to me (very much unlike Ai no Mukidashi one day before), and even though it made perfect sense and I have found the movie to be very good technically, I could not stand the slow pacing. Sure it’s poetic and sad and beautiful, but it’s also boring.
It’s not that I didn’t care about the lives of the people there, the film even shows a little bit how that life is going to come to an end because machines will be replacing the workers. I have also been wondering whether the fishermen or the salt workers are comparably well off – my theory is that the salt workers always have money, they can get their salt every day while the fishermen have to take a certain risk. Furthermore, the fishermen can never make more than what the salt workers can pay them; on the other hand, the salt workers are dependent on the fishermen to, well, get fish. If the fishermen don’t happen to catch enough fish, they will keep what they have to themselves and the salt workers will have to starve with cornbread for awhile.
All in all, it was very interesting to have seen a movie like this. But since I have nothing more to say, I devised a new poll, hoho. Also, feel free to comment about your experiences with film festivals. I’d love to hear them. :3
That screen shot looks pretty fascinating and it indeed makes me think of some slow-paced movies I’ve seen (like the Iranian documentary “The House is Black”, which is nothing but astonishing).
@poll: I’ve only been to two film festivals – the one being the Fantasy Film Festival together with you XD, the other one the Innsbruck Film Festival two years ago. I watched the Indian film “Navarasa” back then. Of course film festivals have to to be liked!
loving these reports :)
one of the most exciting parts about film festivals, I think, is the part when you actually roam through the program and decide what to see! even if the film finally turns out to be a dud, I think it is still interesting to have attended the event, especially if the film is more obscure and doesn’t exactly have as much publicity as major entries do. there’s also a higher likelihood that those involved with the film will be in attendance, making the visit even more worthwhile.
we don’t have something as huge as the Berlinale over here in Munich, but we have the Filmfest, which is really an audience-event: you don’t have all the glamor and journalist-exclusiveness and can see many of the competition-entries from major festivals like Cannes or Berlin on several days during the period of the event. on some occasions you also have directors/actors present, like the cast of “Entre les murs” last year or William Friedkin for “Bug” a longer while ago.
what’s nice about the whole thing is that the program really combines things from many events all over the world and you get a massive choice of films every year.
there are also smaller regular festivals like the Dokfest, the Underdox (which is a favorite of mine as it is dedicated to veteran filmmakers who nevertheless get little public exposure) and the Fantasy Filmfest (which has a really random but usually awesome program). Retrospectives are usually part of these events and are another wonderful attraction in their own right, I think.
@Shii: Yeah, the screenshot is great! It totally captures the beauty of the movie, and from re-reading my posting, I think that I have not stressed enough how beautiful the imagery is. They showed a 2002 restaured version of the film, and I fully agree with the commentaries how the play with images is absolutely brilliant in the film (It won the Critics’ award at Cannes back then in 1959 along with “Hiroshima mon amour”).
You actually might like this movie a lot! Hopefully one day it will be available… one reason why I decided to go for “Araya” was that it was nowhere to be found on the internet, hahaha.
I am not sure if one necessarily has to like those film festivals – right now, most of what I hear is people complaining about the bad organization, hahaha. But of course it’s quite a special event. This is even an A-festival after all! Hohoho.
@Gorp: I’m so glad you enjoy this! *___* It’s really nice to see some feedback and hope that you will continue to enjoy the postings!
We have been roaming through the program a lot! It really is a lot of fun, although at the beginning it also was very overwhelming. In the end, we actually won’t be seeing that much.
There also is a long list of films we wanted to see, but the time slot was bad or it’s not that important to see it at the Berlinale because we expect it to run in the cinemas later on anyways. Perhaps I will be make a list of them. XD
The Filmfest in Munich sounds pretty great actually! You must have been so happy to see the director of “Bug” since you loved the film so much. Or do you love the film so much because you saw the director? Heh.
Oh yeah, the Fantasy Filmfest is in many other cities apart from Berlin too, I remember. Of course it’s pretty nice, too bad it’s just as expensive as the Berlinale though.
This year’s Berlinale retrospectives are not that interesting for me (ahh, years ago, they had one for Fritz Lang, that would have been great), but they will be showing some 70mm movies which I am looking forward to. Well, you will see!
well, he did seem really sincere about the film and mentioned that Ashley Judd’s performance was his favorite out of all the films he made :) and basically stressed the point that it is above all a wicked and warped lovestory that you are either bound to love or hate – on top of that a good friend of mine in the states adored the film so when I finally saw it and ended up amazed, the whole experience just amplified the impression :)
(omg are you going to see the restored 2001?!?!)
I didn’t know “Bug” was a love story? Haha. It always looked like a horror movie to me – and unfortunately I don’t particularily like them.
I see that it received the FIPRESCI prize along with quite a lot of other movies I liked a lot… hmmm! I want to see it!
Ahh, I knew that 2001 is going to run but I had no idea that it was restored. We didn’t plan on it originally, but hmmmm, how tempting! XD I think it depends on my degree of tiredness, because it’s going to start on Saturday at 10pm.