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Berlinale 2015, Day 5 (Pod electricheskimi oblakami)

Yesterday, I actually felt a lot of energy for writing blog postings, but I was generally tired and the thought of writing this particular one was just too daunting. I cannot predict what is going to happen, but it’s entirely possible that I will fall asleep exhausted after writing this one. We will see.

We saw the film under harsh circumstances: It was a late screening at the International, I was horribly sick and I drove there in the cold, then drove Loris and then myself back. I almost didn’t go (in which case I would have given my ticket to Pixelmatsch instead), and while watching the film definitely did not help my sickness, I am glad to have seen it. Where else to watch a Russian movie than at the International?

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Under Electric Clouds (Pod electricheskimi oblakami)
Russia/Ukraine/Poland 2015, Alexey German Jr., 138′

In 7 chapters and an epilogue, the film tells the stories of different people all somehow related to an abandoned construction site of a modern high-rise building: An immigrant who does not speak Russian who used to work on the site, the heiress whose late father held onto the building like a pet project, a girl who gets kidnapped and taken to a place on the construction site, a museum tour guide whose historical workplace is being destroyed by the workplace, the architect who designed the building oh and I almost forgot that real estate lawyer (mostly because his story is the most remote from the others, or so it felt to me). Their stories only loosely come together at the very end, but also not really. More than anything, the film is some sort of parable on life or society or existence itself.

The movie is amazingly slow, but I found myself mesmerized with its wintery photography (much fitting the weather we had in Berlin these days – the cold and the mist in the film mirrored Berlin’s perfectly), and not for a moment I was in actual danger of falling asleep. Especially in the first part, before I had a feeling for what the film was about, I was mostly confused and had a hard time understanding how the film worked. Even by the end, I don’t think I really ‘got’ the film, mostly because it simply has too many layers despite its slowness. This is definitely the kind of film I would want to watch again in order to catch more details, but it’s also not really going to be a joy to revisit. Just like how I rarely re-read Chekhov’s plays (though I have) because some of them are simply too tragic to bear, “Under Electric Clouds” is also rather apocalyptic, gloomy and ultimately depressing. Nevertheless, the film is beautiful, deep and wonderfully constructed – it’s definitely not for everyone, but it was for me.

I personally find myself revisiting the film in my mind over and over again, and I doubt I have spent as much time reflecting upon a Berlinale film ever. The beauty of its cinematography is absolutely stunning, and I thought it was a nod not only to Tarkovsky but also to Zvyagintsev’s “The Return” (I have not yet seen “Leviathan”, but I definitely plan to). Critics say the film is all about Russian society, but the Russianness of the film is much deeper than that. It’s like an exercise in film and literature history, and the spirits of some of the greatest Russian artists continue to live in these characters, especially Sasha and the tour guide. That is how I see it, without knowing all too much about those great Russian artists.

Speaking of Sasha and the tour guide, they were definitely my favorite characters. I was very amused that the architect appeared (I kept expecting that he would) and he was certainly interesting, but there was something so beautifully Chekhovian about how both Sasha and the tour guide are facing their own fall, the former in the form of her father’s death and the disappearance of the glory of her previous life, the latter in the form of losing his job which was pretty degrading to him to begin with. Both are also lovably smart and deadpan people, and I thought they were weirdly attractive too. (Mr. Tour Guide also looks like a Russian Stannis Baratheon, that litte detail made him somewhat comical.)

There is also another scene in the film that somehow continues to haunt me, which is Sasha’s scene with her horse. I kept wondering why she didn’t check on her horse first thing coming home (probably because narratively it doesn’t really make sense, so I will suspend disbelief), but other than that, this scene was absolutely terrifying. To me, it was emblematic of the tragedy she is going through, and I was deeply touched by how she cried over her dying horse. It is because of these kinds scenes that “Under Electric Clouds” feels more true to me than most other films, and which made the film one of my most memorable Berlinale films.

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Berlinale 2015, Day 5 (60 Jahre DEFA-Studio für Trickfilme)

Every Berlinale, I have to see a short film collection. Last year it was the retrospective, this year I am watching children’s films: There are the 60 year DEFA celebration films and on Sunday, I also picked up some short films in the Generation competition. I am a sucker for old so it was a given for me that I would be seeing these. It was early in the day and the cinema was packed with huge groups of children – I have not seen this many children ever since “Mary & Max” back in the Babylon.

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Die Flucht zu den Pinguinen
GDR 1984, Günter Rätz, 9′

In retrospect, this one was my favorite. Is this movie available somewhere? It was beautifully drawn, had an adorable story and is generally the kind of film that makes me love animated films so much. The moderator announced to the children about how all these films were made by hand and stressed what impressive artistic work it all was – and it was indeed. This film was its best example.

Die Suche nach dem Vogel Turlipan
GDR 1976, Kurt Weiler, 13′

A professor looks for a specific species of bird, Turlipan, while all other professor say such a bird does not exist. In the end the professor did not find Turlipan but he went through a beautiful adventure. Sadly I really had to go to the restroom so I couldn’t see all of this film, but in terms of visuals I thought it was stunning, and it’s the kind of beautiful message I would want to impart to children. This is “Millennium Actress” as a short film.

Pünktchen
GDR 1964, Bruno J. Böttge, 7′

This is just a short little film with moving dots and lines, chasing each other and recollecting. It was cute and I enjoyed it.

Alarm im Kasperletheater
GDR 1960, Lothar Barke, 16′

I showed this film to O once and ever since he has been loving it. He cries because he is only allowed to watch it once, and he wants to watch it pretty much everyday. I doubt he understands all of the story (and I try to explain it to him), but he likes the colorful characters, the chases and – especially – the kind grandma haha.

Meta Morfoss
GDR 1978, Monika Anderson, 15′

Girl can turn into all kinds of objects and does much mischief with it. I had mixed feelings about this story. The idea and the execution of all those different things Meta changes into are really awesome, but the story itself was strangely silly. I am not sure I liked how carefree and ultimately troublesome this little girl was.

Vom Fröschlein und seinem Reifen
GDR 1964, Heinz Nagel, 4′

A very short, straightforward little black and white film – I barely remember it but I know that I enjoyed it.

Urwaldmärchen
GDR 1977, Katja Georgi, 15′

OK actually I didn’t like this one. Set in an “exotic” country which looks mildly racist from today’s standards, the story was basically about a dude his newfound dragon friend who is just sweet and naive to woo a princess. Then the whole thing was 15 minutes long. Goodness.

Gegner nach Maß
GDR 1963, Bruno J. Böttge, 5 ‘

This little short story made me laugh, and I really liked the way it was made. The main character was a paper cut-out and he was given a pair of scissors to “create” his own antagonist. The slightly sarcastic wordplay on how the protagonist was just a lame “paper hero” at the end was simply lovely. In terms of concept and execution, this was probably the most creative film.

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Berlinale 2015, Day 4 (Neun Leben hat die Katze)

It’s 6451’s last day at the Berlinale. This evening, we decided to only watch one film, such that we can finish the day early-ish and spend the rest of the time eating foods and reliving the Berlinale up until now. Can you believe that 6451 saw 13 movies in just 4 days? That is amazing efficacy. As expected, it was a nice evening with take-out food and good conversation at Pixelmatsch’s cozy place. Needless to say, I immensely enjoyed 6451’s ranking of Berlinale films. Incidentally, “Neun Leben hat die Katze” was pretty much the worst film up until now, which is kind of unfortunate because all three of us got tickets for it beforehand.

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Neun Leben hat die Katze
Germany 1968, Ula Stöckl, 92′

The screenshot is quite indicative of what is going on in this story: It’s some sort of crazy 60s artsy collection of vignettes of the love lives of a few young women living in Munich. There are the two protagonists who are being courted by the same guy, one of them is French and talks about love a lot, the other one is in love with some good-looking dude who has a wife and cute children. The wife wants to kill him (I think?) when she hears about his infidelities. Then, a few other female characters also come into play and slowly, the film descends into surreal madness, from which the screenshot. At the point where aforementioned dude is surrounded by bare-breasted girls in dirndls, I completely lost hope in the film. This is unfortunate, because I enjoyed the first 40 minutes or so of the film immensely. Some of the dialogue was absolutely spot-on, pretty much everything involving the ugly dude who does the weirdest things in the attempts of seducing a girl. He tries to convince protagonist 1 that if she is nice to him then she must promise him to do it only with him, and when protagonist 2 tells him about her life problems, he proposes that a relationship with him would be the solution to all of her problems. The movie has interesting characters and looks effortlessly stylish – if only it had actually bothered to construct a proper story instead of doing this unnecessary artsy stuff. Much like “Jahrgang 45”, I thought the movie was a pale imitation of the Nouvelle Vague. For a feminist film (which I think it tries to be), I think it absolutely fails the Bechdel test: Much like in “The Women”, there are tons of women on screen, but they only talk about men. The movie is only recommendable for its small amount of Munichporn.

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Berlinale 2015, Day 4 (Koza)

The most fun aspect of today was actually the fact that I met an old guy while lining up for tickets. Since I had some more time before “Koza”, but not enough time to go home, we went to a café nearby and chatted some. It was much fun! He told me about how he went to the premiere of “One & Two” where a huge group of fangirls were lining up to see and get autographs by Kiernan Shipka (I was shocked! Kiernan Shipka! So she actually made it to become quite a star), but my favorite Berlinale story of his was how the Berlinale was in the 60s when it just started. He said people were lining up like crazy for Ingmar Bergman’s movies, just like they did for Terrence Malick’s “Knight of Cups” today. Other widely popular directors included Godard, Truffaut, Chabrol (really?) and Bunuel, and I grinned at how popular and famous they still are with the artsy crowd. Are Malick’s movies or “Boyhood” going to be perceived as classics in 50 years? The thought of it is kind of absurd to me.

Afterwards, I accidentally went almost all the way to the Cubix before realizing the film was going to be shown at the Arsenal, which, by the way, was pretty packed. I got a good seat only out of luck, but the Arsenal is nice enough that I probably would have enjoyed “Koza” even on a bad seat.

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Koza
Slovak/Czech Republic 2015, Ivan Ostrochovský, 75′

Koza used to box for Slovakia in the Olympics, but now he is terribly out of shape and making a living by collecting trash. When his girlfriend gets pregnant, she wants money for an abortion and he goes on a road trip to box events to earn money for it. That is easier said than done, because if he goes down in the first round, he gets kicked out without making anything.

As I perhaps mentioned before, while 6451 and I went to “Tannhäuser”, I proposed “Koza” to Pixelmatsch – a short film, easy to reach and generally catering to his interests. And oh, he was quite impressed by it, saying that it was incredible depressive and sad. When I heard that, we were just going to get tickets for “Yolanda” and I was in a rather stressed mood. I thought all I wanted were fun movies instead of the “Jujiro”-like depressed types, but then my curiosity was stronger. If “Koza” was a sad movie, there is a good chance I will never be able to see it because the film might have a small audience. After aforementioned café chat with the old guy, I felt energetic enough to see the film.

It was devastating and strangely cathartic. I didn’t cry and I don’t even think I was touched on a superficial level, but deep down it reached for me and I was moved in a strange way. In retrospect, I think that Koza’s story was immensely beautiful in is existential emptiness. What was it all for? In “Biutiful” the main character at least had a clear goal and then failed miserably, but Koza tried to raise money for an abortion that he did not want. How desperate is that? Koza suffers quietly (much unlike the characters in “Jujiro”) and it made me suffer quietly with him. The whole film was a rather quiet one, and I especially liked one of those last scenes when Koza has his final fight but we don’t see it. All we see is how his friend sits in the changing room, crying. (To be honest, I expected Koza to die in that scene, and the camera cleverly keeps you in suspense for awhile before revealing whether he did or not.) I also thought the character development was astonishing – Koza becoming more and more desperate, and his friend turning from tough boss to having actual friendly feelings for Koza. How can a cheap movie about a failed boxer be so brilliantly made? I was sad I didn’t have any time left to stay for the Q&A, though this is a film that speaks for itself without the need of a Q&A.

I wonder if the movie will ever get a proper distribution, but even if it does, will I ever want to watch it again?

PS. I completely failed to realize earlier that this is the same guy who did “Velvet Terrorists” from last year. It makes so much sense!
PPS. Bonus points for random Wuppertal, you can expect “Koza” to be very high up in the rankings.

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Berlinale 2015, Day 3 (Tokyo-ga)

At the Berlinale, there is almost nothing as great as being able to stay seated in a cinema for two movies in a row. I know it sounds silly but I absolutely love this. Sadly, they threw us out for a moment to do some testing (on the last day at another “staying seated” situation, I saw them do these tests and there really was no reason to throw us out for that), but at least we were able to save ourselves the best seats and get back in again first.
With that said, when we were standing in front of the line, all three of us left the line at some point to go to the restroom, and all of us walked through the line to get back in front without anyone complaining. 6451 says this must be the confident “I belong to the front of the line” face we were making.
By the way, every single time I managed to schedule myself to be able to stay seated in the cinema, it was in CinemaxX 8. Seems like that one is like my Berlinale movie theater.

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Tokyo-ga
Germany/USA 1985, Wim Wenders, 93′

Wim Wenders goes to Japan trying to walk in Ozu’s footsteps. He gets to interview Chishu Ryu and Ozu’s longtime cameraman, and he films Japan with the eyes of someone who, well, has never seen Japan before. Oh and he makes Werner Herzog say a few deprecating words on Tokyo and gets a super short shot of Chris Marker too, which is very telling because “Tokyo-ga” looks like a better “Sans soleil” rather than a documentary on Ozu.

I think 6451 was mostly bored in the film, and I am not actually sure if he has seen any Ozu films. As a fan of Ozu’s late films (most of the material is actually about “Tokyo Monogatari” and his later stuff), having seen all but two of his colour films, I was excited to see how his collaborators view his work. Simply put, they treat him like a God or something, and Chishu Ryu, who seems like an awesome actor and a genuinely soft person, talks about how he only learned from Ozu and how they had a father-son relationship despite being basically the same age. His cameraman was similar: Ozu had full control about how the camera had to look and how the shot had to be made, so for most of the film I thought all he did was to set up the camera and carry it around. Then he finally mentioned how he had control over the lighting, which I thought was pretty nice, and I think Ozu is gravely overlooking the importance of that. The way everybody spoke about him like he was an authoritative, beloved boss of all was rather weird. I know that directors have a lot of power (and heard that Mankiewicz slept with his actresses, Bergman had relationships with them, Cukor talked to them and Preminger essentially enslaved them), but this reverence in front of Ozu disturbed me a little.
Nevertheless, I was elated to get to know more about the way Ozu worked and have to conclude again that he was simply a genius. I am a huge fan of the posed calmness of his films and hearing all these people talking about film-making technicalities makes me want to make a movie.

Other than the Ozu parts, most of “Tokyo-ga” was about what a shitty place Tokyo turned into. Wenders really got into studying the weirdest aspects of Japan, like its pachinko parlors, the young folk in Harajuku and so on. Much more than Chris Marker, he seems to have a good eye for these weirdnesses, but to me it was actually rather off-putting. This really is the perspective of an outsider who looks at Japanese people like they are zoo animals and acts like a little kid who says “Look mommy, the big panda just moved!” I think 6451 was rather excited to see Werner Herzog in the film, but the stuff he talked about was confusing at best. There was one aspect that I really liked, which is how Wenders visited a factory for restaurant display food. I liked learning about how these little models are made, and I enjoyed his comment about how their lunch break consists of the workers sitting together at a table in their workshop, eating food that looks just like all the fake food surrounding them. I laughed a little at that one.

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Berlinale 2015, Day 3 (Yolanda and the Thief)

It’s only been 4 days since the Berlinale is over, but it feels like the world has changed a whole lot. O being sick, Chinese New Year, losing my phone (and retrieving it) and the sudden realization that I have put my life on hold for 2 weeks and now have to recover and return to normal. It’s strangely difficult to me to put myself into the mindset of myself of just 9 days ago, when 6451 was still there and most of my worries revolved around the Berlinale. It’s like that was a completely different life, and now I find it quite joyful to relive it through these blog posts.

In fact, my biggest worry of the day was that we might not get into “Yolanda and the Thief” and then we would have to find something to do during that time slot. It all worked out well and we got our tickets, but in retrospect the alternative (a nice dinner) wouldn’t have been so bad. In the end, it was one of the best days of the Berlinale because the three of us were able to watch films together (by that definition, day 3 and 4 were the only actual mini-PIFF portion of the Berlinale!) and I was not yet sick that day. In case you are wondering, of course I am still sick but thankfully less so than O.

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Yolanda and the Thief
USA 1945, Vincente Minnelli, 108′

Fred Astaire is a crook and runs from the police to a country with no extradition treaty with the US. There, he tries to scam Yolanda, the richest heiress of the country, by pretending to her guardian angel and by the way also over her heart. A bunch of silly situations and some great dance scenes ensue.

To be honest, I have never actually seen a Vincente Minnelli movie but have wanted to do so ever since last year’s Berlinale when John Michael McDonagh commented that the Zoo Palast has lavish “Vincente Minnelli curtains”. Now that I have seen “Yolanda and the Thief”, I totally agree with that assessment. The film had a somewhat strange look due to the fake exoticism of the decor but oh everything is wonderfully lavish and so suited for a musical. Even the dream sequences were imaginative and awesome.

Before almost every film, there is some idiot introducing it and this time, we had some guy who kept harping over and over on how “Yolanda and the Thief” is a bad but good-looking film, how Lucille Bremer lacks Judy Garland’s warmth (whatever that is) and the charisma to become a star, and how we should not have high expectations for the film. Nonsense. OK, the movie doesn’t really make sense at times and the story may not be the most, but that is just how musicals are. Also, Lucille Bremer is an absolute beauty in my book, and she did a reall good job in her role except for the fact that, well, Fred Astaire outdances her any second. It’s a little tough when the guy dances so much better than the girl (and it makes me wonder how Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers look together), but that is OK – their dance scenes were still awesome and the very last one was the highlight of the film and singlehandedly made it worthwhile our time. I overheard a conversation by the staff, where one woman said how she didn’t see the film but was able to catch that dance scene and she loved it. So yeah, Gorp, I am officially cured of my dislike against musical films; I now totally love the genre, especially when Fred Astaire and dance scenes are involved.

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Berlinale 2015, Day 3 (The Diary of a Teenage Girl)

So O got sick and this ends my crazy blogging spree. I also deliberately postponed all those backlogged films because I had this incredible urge to write about the Berlinale – and I am genuinely hoping that I will finish blogging for this year before March starts, which is another month bringing much excitement and stress, with O’s birthday and a trip to S’pore coming up. But there is much to do: More trips to plan, many many e-mails to write and a mess of a room to clean up.

This is day 3 of the Berlinale already, because on day 2 I lost my student ID which also had my ticket for public transportation. I called 6451 and was unable to make it to Ototo. Afterwards we spent 4 hours at the opera seeing “Tannhäuser” so technically there also was no day 2 of the Berlinale. Instead, day 3 was relatively busy. It is interesting to note that, while 6451 managed to see 5 films per day twice, I never watched more than 3 films on one day except for the last day when I re-watched “Paris, Texas”. Since I do not plan to reblog “Paris, Texas” (my old review was actually not so bad), I technically also will never blog about more than 3 films per day, but this is where Pixelmatsch will come in with his films, hoho.
Speaking of Pixelmatsch, he actually did see a film on day 2. I was “Koza” which he recommended so I ended up seeing it by myself later on.

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The Diary of a Teenage Girl
USA 2014, Marielle Heller, 102′

Living in 1970s San Francisco, Minnie’s mother is Kristen Wiig with an alternative, laissez-faire, drug- and smoke-filled life who is divorced from some stuck-up lawyer (I think?) and dates a younger (30ish?) dude, Monroe, played by Alexander Skarsgard. Minnie hits it off with Monroe at age 15 and gradually falls in love with him, so melodrama and a lot of sex scenes ensue. At the same time, she struggles with discovering her sexuality, her general boredom with life and the world and her aspirations to become a comic artist.

Who would not have a crush on Alexander Skarsgard? He is styled to look like a wimp in this film, but boy how good-looking is he? Nevertheless, I applaud him for his willingness to play such an asshole. “The Diary of a Teenage Girl” is one of the few films I am expecting to come out in theaters later, but I still wanted to see it. I was strangely intrigued by the story, and the Generation films only cost 4 euros so that is another reason for me to see it. I am glad I did because 6451 also liked the film.

To be honest, I actually really liked the sex scenes, especially the one with Minnie’s younger boyfriend, just to how much of a failure he is. I could relate to his statement that she is a very passionate person to the point of being creepy, and Minnie is generally very relatable to me. I complained to 6451 that her character is ultimately an asshole too, especially when she decides to dump Monroe the very moment he shows her his vulnerability and confesses his love, but he rightfully commented that it may be morally wrong but ultimately it’s very human and realistic. In that regard, the whole movie is amazingly done for its realism.
Needless to say, I really like the graphic novel inserts and Minnie’s art which I thought looked absolutely awesome and not all that disturbing at all.

Nevertheless, you won’t find “Diary” very high up in my rankings. The characters were far from being likable, the plot was strangely generic even though it tries to show the complicatedness of feelings, there just was something juvenile about the whole film and not necessarily in a good way. (Did the mom really have to find her diary? That part was just so so cheap.) I can’t even really explain it, but to me the film lacked depth, both in its story and its execution.

By the way, I really liked Minnie’s actress. She is exactly the right kind of ugly for the role, her huge, cow-like eyes and the pursed lips are just awesome. I loved watching her and I wonder if she will become more popular as an actress from here on.

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Berlinale 2015, Day 1 (Love, Theft and other Entanglements)

As I mentioned before, my first Berlinale day was actually a very, very full one. I saw 3 films and one opera and by the end of the day, I was of course positively tired. This was the first film of the Berlinale I saw with Loris, and it ended up being a good start into a satisfying Berlinale. This was also the only Panorama film I saw (Pixelmatsch saw “Que horas ela volta?” and 6451 saw “Tell spring not to come this year”) if you don’t count “Ode to my father” which ran in the Panorama Special. I was genuinely hoping that it would win the Panorama audience prize, but in the end “Que horas ela volta?” got it, which was also nice.

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Al-Hob wa Al-Sariqa wa Mashakel Ukhra (Love, Theft and Other Entanglements)
Palestine 2015, Muayad Alayan, 93′

The story revolves around Mousa who steals a car, not realizing that it belongs to the Palestine militia and holds a kidnapped Israeli soldier they want to use to exchange for prisoners. Being threatened by both the Israeli and the Palestine militia, Mousa is now a whole new world of trouble adding to his old ones (being the lover of a married woman, not having a job, needing money to leave the country) and he spends much of the film escaping one tricky situation into another.

The cinema was packed, probably because the idea of watching a film from Palestine is intriguing (and to be honest, it was one of the reasons we saw it too). We were happy that the film seemed like fun, and it really was. It had fun and, from what I could tell, not overly Western humor, with lots of slapstick but also in the way the characters interacted with each other. We laughed a lot whole lot throughout the film.

I was mostly a fan of the relationship between the protagonist and the Israeli soldier. I loved those little moments in which they struck up a friendship, both being simple men and ultimately just a tiny screw in the big whole machine of war and politics. In comparison to that, I absolutely did not care about the women. I would have been perfectly happy if she only appeared in the very first scene of the story to show how Mousa has a generally unstable life (including an unstable, mostly meaningless affair), only to never show up again. Sadly she never really gained any depth as a character, and anything related to her was just ultimately less interesting. Loris likes to joke about how the film would have been perfect if it had skipped on the love and it was only “theft and other entanglements” and I wholeheartedly agree. Also, why did they have to put that strange make-up and hairdo on her, only to prettify her immensely in the last scene of the film?

They had a Q&A session at the end of the film, and boy that was painful. It was so late that I just wanted to leave, but out of curiosity we stayed a little. Ultimately the filmmakers did an amazing job fending the stupid questions. When they were asked about politics, they told little anecdotes about how they got “caught” with the actor wearing an Israeli uniform tied up at the back of the trunk and had to explain what it was all about. Then one of them had a “toy” gun as stage prop in his backpack and forgot about how it was there when they were being checked. They talked about the irony that while the whole area was heavily militarized, people were still immensely afraid of normal people carrying guns. It was actually a very well-done Q&A with a bunch of very likable, competent people for whom politics may be complicated emotionally, but it can also be taken with a grain of salt even in their dire situation. With a main character who screams “You took away our country” to his Israeli interrogator, the film actually makes a very good case for the political problems of Palestine. It’s not all that complicated really – they simply took away their country, and not only it is difficult to fight, it’s difficult to even survive as a person with some sort of dignity.

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Berlinale 2015, Day 1 (You’re ugly too)

6451 didn’t get into “Jahrgang 45” (good for him, in the end) so Loris kindly gave him his ticket for “You’re ugly too”. He figured we were going to go to see an opera and another movie later that day anyways, which is already a lot for one day. So in the end, another ‘tradition’ continued: I went to the premiere of an Irish film in the Zoopalast and, most surprisingly, got an autograph from the actor of the protagonist. Last year it was Brendan Gleeson, this year it was Aidan Gillen. Just like last year, he was sitting there in front and I just went and asked. Since I was reading “Dead Souls” on my tablet, I did not carry a book with me, but ever since Pip gave me a bunch of notebooks, I always have one with me which came in handy today. Yay! Also, they are doing something with Aidan Gillen’s face. He always plays these rugged, wrinkly characters (“You’re ugly too” is no different) that I was shocked when I stood in front of him. I honestly wondered whether I got the right person because his face was so young and smooth looking, like he’s a 25 year old with gray hair. I was baffled.

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You’re ugly too
Ireland 2014, Mark Noonan, 81′

Stacey is your average 12 year old – kind of pretty, foul-mouthed, sarcastic and a bit of a know-it-all. When she becomes an orphan, her uncle Will gets let out of prison to take care of her. At first, they don’t make a good match. She is suspicious of him and his unwillingness to tell her why he went to prison, and he lives a somewhat shitty life in a trailer park. He has alcohol and drug problems, has trouble finding a job and it’s not easy for him to approach Stacey’s cynical character. They befriend a neighboring family and Will and the wife fall in love. But then Stacey finds out what Will did, and after she runs away, Will’s ability to take care of Stacey is being doubted by the authorities.

To be honest, there is not much to say about the film. It easily reminded me of St. Vincent because you also have a child and an older guy who on the surface seems like a butt but actually is a good person. Thankfully there are a bunch of differences: Stacey is less normal (much more funny and cynical, but also more complicated) and Will is not just some grumpy old dude. On the one hand, he has actual issues, on the other hand, he genuinely loves Stacey. This makes for more genuine human interaction, and while I didn’t always think it was believable how they became closer (there was way more on that with Will and that neighbor), I think they had a lot of great chemistry together. It was ultimately a very funny, enjoyable film.

They had a Q&A afterwards and the kids asked some amazing questions. “Do they get married at the end?” (referring to Will and said neighbor) was one of these. Noonan kept the ending deliberately vague, and you don’t know if Will and Stacey end up living together or not. The kids voiced that their optimism about that, Mark Noonan was vague in his answer but Aidan Gillen (haha) pretty much shot them off and said that he thinks the main character has too many alcohol and drug and depression issues to take care of Stacey and she knows that. Oh it’s so like Aidan Gillen to prefer gloomy characters, but personally I thought that the family bond between the two came through at the end. They may not be able to live together, but there is love. Another question I really liked was: “How did you come up with the idea for the movie?” Noonan said he was chatting with Aidan Gillen’s mom who complained about he’s always evil and his films are always so serious and wanted to see him in a comedy. So here we are, a role basically written for Littlefinger.
With that said, it was Lauren Kinsella’s birthday (coincidence or was the birthday actually 3 days ago?) and I was impressed by how proper she looked and spoke. She is totally a professional and very good with the media, so she is probably actually a very good actress.

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Berlinale 2015, Day 1 (Jahrgang 45)

As the Berlinale ends, the Berlinale begins! (The blogging, that is.) Have you been looking forward to my our coverage of the Berlinale this year? It was a very split up business. 6451 came to visit and saw a bunch of films that Pixelmatsch and I couldn’t see. I also ended up seeing a lot of films with Loris while Pixelmatsch had a bigger focus on other Japanese films. (Between the two of us, we saw every single movie from this list except for “Wonderful World End” and “Little Forest” which we expect to be able to see later on anyways.) Finally, Pixelmatsch and I went to different screenings of some films (“Koza”, “End of Winter”) because of his work scheduling. All in all, we all went to the Berlinale but sadly didn’t see each other that much. Also, since O was sick and Pixelmatsch and 6451 went to see Lucia di Lammermoor on Friday, technically this Berlinale started on Saturday and will therefore have 9 instead of 10 days.

This time, my Berlinale did not start out with an exceptionally good film (it was a decent copy of French Nouvelle Vague at best) nor was it Japanese. That is OK, because it meant the Berlinale only got better afterwards.

drrt

Jahrgang 45
German Democratic Republic 1966/1990, Jürgen Böttcher, 94′

Idle young dude has a boring steady job, got married at 21 and now that he is on vacation from work, he wants to leave his boring wife again. Actually she isn’t even that boring, she just matured and took a genuine interest her profession of being a nurse. The entire world (his mentor, his parents, his friends who also are hot for the wife) advise him against divorcing, even at work his boss meddles into the affair. After a bunch of immature affairs (moving out, trying to seduce his ex-girlfriend, making a jealousy scene at a club and fighting afterwards), dude has a moment of epiphany when seeing another couple being lovey-dovey together and reconciles with his wife.

You can probably tell that I wasn’t particularly enamored with the story nor with its characters. In a relationship movie, I am especially not fond of these stories where clearly one party is in the wrong whereas the other one just deals with it. Antoine Doinel is a prime example for that, and if I think about it, most of those French Nouvelle Vague films have the same problem. In this case, however, the relationship is the main focus of the story and it kind of missed its mark for me. It lacks both the passion and the seductive light-heartedness that I know so well from films like “Jules et Jim” or “Une femme est une femme”. Only the exceedingly pretty ex-girlfriend kind of exuded that air, but she was such a stupidly one-sided character. I am also not much into the portrayal of these people. I don’t have much love for that bored, idle youth of the time, especially from today’s point of view: that is the generation who easily got jobs after lazing around forever, wasted money like crazy and is now making the younger generation pay taxes for their convenient retirement, so no thank you. Nevertheless there is one thing to be said about this film – it’s so darn good-looking! I think I’m just jealous of that generation which was free, politically naive and so effortlessly stylish. I drooled over those 60s hairstyles and dresses, over their lives in their pretty tiny apartments and the fun at their dance clubs. The film may be a shameless copy of Godard and Truffaut’s early work almost a decade earlier down to their camera angles, jump cuts and styling, but it was a good copy. I simply liked how it looked, and the humorous scenes in the film were much fun.

Oh yeah, before the film started the director also held a long-winded, annoyingly sappy speech about how he touched he is and how never thought the movie would ever come out after it failed to pass censorship in 1966 etc. etc. Can’t they save that for after the movie? Younger directors all have the decency to first show the film before going on about themselves. So embarrassing.