Berlin Shortfilm Festival: MEX 04 “Before Fame and Fortune”
Both mexican programs were shown three times at the festival, and while we saw MEX 01 at 10pm pressed into a tiny, yet completely full theater, the program I will be talking about now was at 3pm in a very large room, but about 90% empty. I doubt this was MEX 01 was slightly better, because the difference wasn’t that large.
De Tripas Corazon
Gael García Bernal is so incredibly cute! Since this program was about early works by people who have become famous, I have crossed my fingers and hoped that they would present some good early works. Well, it seems they did. Surely this film wasn’t a masterpiece in any way, but it was overshined by Monsieur García’s incredibly adorable performance. Ah!
La suerte de la fea.. a la bonita no le importa
Pamela Anderson as a fairy! Ahaha. Losing weight truly is a universally female problem, and this one. By the way, I absolutely love how the assumed Pamela is never shown with her face – I guess it really is difficult to get a lookalike, especially in Mexico. Apart from this detail that you can’t really blame the filmmakers for, it was quite a hilarious short film.
El Octavo Día
This film was so bad that I nearly forgot about it. More than that, I nearly fell asleep during it, it was just that bad. The animation was crap, the whole story utterly boring and on top of that, the character design was downright ugly and creepy. Oh goodness.
Sístole, Diastole
Salma Hayek is such a great nun, especially with those glasses, my my! They made me think of Antonio Banderas in this Almodóvar movie a lot – he wore the most ridiculous spectacles as well. Family comedies really are the best, and this one is no exception. I felt so sorry for the one brother though, heh.
Considering that Salma Hayek didn’t really have a large role in the film, but was shown in the first scene with her name prominently displayed in the opening credits, I wonder if she has been famous in Mexico before her international breakout.
Rogelio
The punchline of the story was pure brilliancy. While I usually am not the type of person who ‘loves her life’, I was totally able to feel the spirit of the story – and I think I would want to come back to move around in the world after death too, especially since you don’t need anything. What a paradise it would be. *hrr*
Me La Debes
How incredibly… sexual! The only thing that I have been missing in this story is a homosexual couple, Diego Luna x Gael García Bernal style. Apart from that, it was quite a rollercaster ride of a family comedy. Perhaps family comedies just are the best, especially since my own family is so incredibly boring, healthy and un-perverted somehow. Or is it just in comparison to the exaggerated comedic characters?
Speaking of Diego L. x Gael G. B., I want to see “Y tu mamá también” again. I have been this multiple times during the two mexican programs actually.
The Powder Keg
Ah ah, Inarritu, my hesitations about whether I should like you are just like my hesitations about how to write your name. (González? Inarritu? González Inarritu is too long though. And how is this damn name spelled anyways?)
This film feels exactly like all his other movies, and I wonder how I like that. At least I must say that I was very, very surprised to see Clive Owen in this short film – his performance outshined the whole short film in my opinion, especially the “I’m going to discuss all the moral conflicts and identity problems a war photographer could possibly have in one tiny monologue” scene, heh. It came off so incredibly unrealistic, he should have made a full-length feature about the topic to do it justice.
Apart from the three people mentioned in the title of this post, I actually knew nobody, especially not the other directors. Perhaps this is a really bad sign, and perhaps this also has kept me up from really appreciating these short films, but ultimately I