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Berlinale 2015, Day 9 (Gentlemen Prefer Blondes)

I am going to finish blogging the Berlinale 5 days before last year, but last year I saw 27 films while this year it was “only” 20. At the same time, I think my postings became longer, so it’s all relative I suppose. (I am not even sure if greater length is a good thing – am I rambling more too?) At least this posting will be short, because.

Usually I try to see bigger pictures on the last Sunday, because I expect there to be less people trying to see them on this last day. But this year, there simply were no “big” movies of interest to me, but instead I was only interested in less popular titles. In this screening of “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes” was packed though, just like “Paris, Texas” afterwards. I really enjoyed spending my last two films at the Berlinale staying seated in CinemaxX 8. It’s lovely to end the Berlinale with this, and the chance to do so is one of the reasons why I chose to see these films in the first place.

drrt

Gentlemen Prefer Blondes
USA 1953, Howard Hawks, 91’

Marilyn Monroe plays Lorelei, a pretty blonde stupid money-grabbing showgirl who goes on an overseas trip with her down-to-earth muscle-loving deadpan-humoured friend Dorothy, played by dark-haired Jane Russell. On the trip, the family of Lorelei’s husband-to-be hires a private detective to find proof of her assumed infidelity, but throughout the process, Dorothy falls in love with him.

Just like everyone else, I know the film for the “Diamonds are a girl’s best friend” song, and Pixelmatsch rightfully concluded that the film is an operetta. Sure it’s actually a musical, but it’s closer to “Eine Frau, die weiß, was sie will” than to “Grease” or “West Side Story” if you ask me. As a result, we loved it! It looks awesome, it has a few great musical numbers, it has a very bold philosophy on love and relationships and most of all, it was actually funny. Who cares about whether the story fully makes sense or not. I think my favorite was actually Dorothy’s number with those ridiculously handsome swimmers, I understand why it’s less famous than “Diamonds are a girl’s best friend”, but it was so much more fun and it’s refreshing and only fair to sing about male beauty when the rest of the film showcases female eyecandy, right?

As I already said before for “Yolanda and the Thief”, I love musical films nowadays. Perhaps not all and perhaps only those of the screwball comedy or the step dancing variety, but it’s interesting how my slowly growing love for operettas has also changed my view on musical films. Life is better with musicals than without, that is for sure.

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Berlinale 2015, Day 9 (End of Winter)

I like pre-purchasing tickets for the last day of the Berlinale because the tickets are cheaper anyways, and because having the tickets already motivates me to actually go and see films on the last day. Originally I even wanted to see 5 movies on this day (6451 shows how easy it is to do so), but I didn’t get tickets for “Wonderful World End”. That is fine – I don’t expect the movie to be good anyways, it will most likely be available online someday and this way Loris and I were able to enjoy the fine weather we luckily had that day.

After Pixelmatsch and 6451 saw “End of Winter” on day 1 (while Loris and I watched “Love, theft and other entanglements”), they both ranked the film pretty low. Honestly, if I hadn’t had tickets already, I most likely would have skipped on the film which, I think, would have been a grave mistake. Just like “Ship bun”, this is not a film you will easily find on the internet (I suppose). It was absolutely worthwhile to see the film at the Berlinale if this is my only chance to see it.

drrt

End of Winter (Cheol won gi haeng)
Korea 2014, Kim Dae-hwan, 103′

Wife, two sons and a daughter-in-law attend a teacher’s retirement ceremony. There are dissonances between all of them, but when the father announces that he wants to divorce his wife (from whom he has been living separately for a long time), everybody is shocked. On top of that, a snowstorm keeps everyone up from going home as buses are not running, so the entire family is stuck in the father’s little apartment and forced to spend a few days together.

I cannot explain it, but this film was much to my tastes. 6451 is right with his assessment that this is a movie where essentially nothing happens, nothing big gets revealed (besides the divorce announcement at the beginning) and which doesn’t seem to lead anywhere. Nevertheless, I thought it was a lovely character study, and I especially enjoyed the father’s quiet grumpiness. In an effort to explain myself, the film reminded me a little bit of “Still Walking” which I disliked. In “Still Walking”, however, the entire family is dysfunctional in a different way: Everybody is polite but there is so much hatred underneath that I cannot possibly fathom why some critics ramble on about the film is about “love” in a family. There is no love between them, for goodness’ sakes. “End of Winter” is similar, but they are much more open about it in comparison. There is much miscommunication and simple refusal of communication, but at least it’s not pretense and hidden hostility. The daughter-in-law openly complains to him about her husband’s family, and the son asks his father the right questions – I liked how this family was generally less mean-spirited (except for the mannerisms of the mother maybe), which makes the gravity of their differences more interesting. I think if you are mean, it’s no big surprise you cannot truly bond with other people, but if you are simply normal, the inability to understand each other and be ‘good’ to each other is much more tragic and ultimately more interesting.

Oh, I should also mention that I did fall asleep in the film a little bit, but not for too long. It certainly is the type where not all that much is happening for sure, but it’s fine that way. For a young director’s work, I thought “End of Winter” was well-crafted, and I surely liked all the snow and the Korean barbecue. (The movie gave Pixelmatsch a craving for it, and now I am craving it too.)

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Berlinale 2015, Day 9 (Kurzfilme Kplus 1)

Sunday in Berlin-Friedrichshain at 10.30am – needless to say that there were pooptons of children. This time it was not huge groups of school or kindergarten kids, but affluent and hipster looking parents trying to instill some culture into their children. The whole affair was quite loud, but it actually made the Q&A rather pleasant. As always, the children asked a lot of “why”-questions and most of them were really good. I really liked the answers given by Montoya who explained his film so well that I liked it more afterwards, and I was in love with the Iranian woman who appeared on-stage with a light headscarf and a very cutesy but elegant outfit. I was impressed by how child-like and thoughtful her answers were, though sometimes she overdid it a little bit (and the children actually did not believe her version of the world). On top of that, the lady from the first film had stamps with her film’s characters for the autograph session. The children were delighted and I thought that marketing scheme was brilliant.

drrt

Der kleine Vogel und das Eichhörnchen (The Little Bird and the Squirrel)
Switzerland 2014, Lena von Döhren, 5′

A short film about a bird and a squirrel fighting over something (food?) and then meeting a fox who tries to eat them. It looks utterly adorable and the kids laughed a lot, but I wasn’t a huge fan of the story itself. It seemed utterly pointless that the little bird couldn’t fly, and there was basically no point to the story except it had action that children like.

Camino del agua (Water Path)
Columbia 2014, Carlos Felipe Montoya, 8′

The story is really short – mother tells girl to go to a further away water source to fill up a bottle of water. She does so but on the way back a stranger with crutches asks her to give him water. She does so, but it turns out that the stranger lied to her and can actually walk just fine. She ends up filling up her bottle again at a pond, and a little fish gets caught in the water. I like how ambiguous the end is (we don’t know if she gets scolded, if the mother notices etc.) and especially how unclear the moral takeaway of the story is. Was her decision a “good” one?
Oh and how much I loved the little girl’s outfit! I was amazed at its cuteness. But I think all of these – ambivalent story, beautiful landscape, cute outfit – are things that little children don’t really care about. Only for adults like me it was truly fun.

The Tie
Belgium 2014, An Vrombaut, 7′
I think this one got an award for being visually impressive or something, but I thought it was remarkable that this was the only film I did not remember just from its title. It sure was beautifully rendered and features a cute idea, but its story was all but forgettable and I was not a huge fan of its style. But the children sure liked it.

Messages dans l’air (Air-Mail)
Switzerland/France 2014, Isabelle Favez, 6′

A cute little story and an awesome cat (see picture above! I loved the cat so much that I chose the picture for this blog post.) I doubt the children were very into it, but I certainly loved the style and enjoyed the sweet love story.

Agnes
Sweden 2014, Anja Lind, 15′

“Agnes” is the longest and one of the more meaningful stories in the bunch, about a 6-year old girl whose 16-year old brother is the most important person in her life. She experiences jealousy when he starts becoming alienated to her as he has a new girlfriend. But before it takes a real toll on their relationship, they reconcile. I didn’t fully get what was going on in their heads because it was all subtly hinted at, but I actually liked the way it was done.

Rosso Papavero
Slovak Republic 2014, Martin Smatana, 6′

A visually stunning dream sequence of a small boy who dreams of, well, a circus. The whole thing looked pretty surreal and the director actually said something about what it was supposed to mean, but I couldn’t understand his answer very well (sad!) One kid asked how those circus waggons could all disappear in a small tent, and his response was: “It’s a magic tent!” Cute.

Mahiye sorkh shodeh (The Fried Fish)
Iran 2014, Leila Khalilzadeh, 11′

Based on a Japanese children’s book, this is the story of a fish who gets caught, then fried but manages to escape being eaten. He offers a part of his body to animals who find him in exchange for taking him to the sea, but one by one they abandon him after eating his flesh. Ultimately quite a sad story, and I would have hated it as a kid. (What is the point of all this sadness?) I also was not a big fan of the animation which looked sloppily done. However, I really liked how it stirred up a lot of discussion with the children. (One of them complained that mice don’t eat fish hahaha.)

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Berlinale 2015, Day 8 (Ode to my Father)

This year, the Berlinale was barely showing any Korean films. Originally I thought that “End of Winter” sounded more interesting than the pathos-laden “Ode to my Father” (which it really was), so I only scheduled for the former. Then my plan was to see the previous Golden Bear winning short films which would have run right after “Ode to my Father” at the International, and there was nothing in this time slot so I decided to add it in. After getting sick, I kicked the short films out of my schedule because I didn’t want to stay up too late, and finally I ended up just seeing “Ode to my Father”. But since it was a very memorable experience (so much so that I revisit the film in my head again and again), it turned out very well this way.

drrt

Ode to my Father
South Korea 2014, Youn Je-kyun, 126′

While trying to flee from the Chinese troops, Duksoo loses his sister which makes his father go back to look for her. With only his mother and two younger siblings left, he promises his father to take care of his family. Instead of pursuing his dream of becoming a ship captain, Duksoo goes to Germany to work in coal mines, takes over his aunt’s store on Gukje Market, marries a girl he met in Germany and goes abroad again, this time right into the Vietnam War. In the 80s, he finds his sister through a television program. In a timeline told from today’s perspective, Duksoo reminisces about these times and finally comes to terms with the fact that he will never find his father anymore.

I should have known that the film would be intriguing for me. Just like I adore evil women, love triangles and adultery in film, I love stories spanning an entire lifetime (or almost a lifetime). It’s the reason why I like “Huo zhe” so much, and why I was so deeply in love with Capek’s “An Ordinary Life” which I just finished reading. Interestingly, the fictionary lives in all three examples are parables; they are not exactly realistic or individual, but these people’s lives are the product of their time. They are designed to be mirrors of society and everything major in history had an impact on their lives (the Cultural Revolution, the Korean War, World War I respectively). At the same time, there are strong personal influences going into these protagonists: Capek has similar parents as his nameless character’s (especially the overbearing mother), Youn even gave his main characters the names of his own parents. While these three works are ultimately not comparable at all (and I feel a little ashamed for mentioning Capek and “Ode to my father” in the same sentence), the similarities are still striking and oh, I love these stories for that aspect.

At the beginning of the film, I wasn’t so sure I would like it. It starts off with an unbearably sappy scene in which Duk-soo’s family flees which is basically a “Lord of the Rings”-sized epic tearjerker. You are supposed to feel oh so sorry for these poor people running for their lives, and of course I did, except that I was rolling my eyes constantly and actively kept myself up from succumbing to the sappiness. Soon after, Duksoo’s accident in the coal mines in Germany were not much better. The scene in which Youngja kneels down in front of these very Nazi-looking Germans, pleading “These poor Koreans came all the way from their country to work for you!” Oh God, that line is so bad on so many levels that just thinking of it makes me cringe. At least they saved that scene a little bit by not allowing the Germans to suddenly have a heart, but the Koreans staged a nice little revolt which made the whole thing a tiny little bit more realistic. The whole first part of the film was about having mercy for those poor Koreans, it was simply embarrassing.

Afterwards, however, “Ode to my father” became one of those few films for me which actually turns better rather than worse towards the second half. While saving the sister of a little Vietnamese boy was way too blatantly reminiscent of Duksoo losing his own sister, I thought that most other callbacks to previous elements of his life were pretty lovely. The movie actually expects you to have some sort of memory while watching the film, you will find the old Duksoo say “I told you before” about how he wanted to be a ship captain and then some half an hour later, we see Duksoo on his first date with Youngja many years before, telling her about his dreams for his future. The film walks the fine line between overly pathetic and painfully touching, and for the second part of the film I was just crying non-stop. The KBS show in which families found each other hit a nerve somewhere, and after I had a stuffy nose the entire day, it was finally emptied out through a 20 minute long constant stream of tears. It was so darn touching! Oh and the end was wonderfully beautiful. I thought it was utterly satisfying yet bittersweet because, really, Duksoo’s father would have been so proud seeing his son uphold his family traditions, however pointlessly conservative they may be. I was touched by how he achieved everything in his life that his father could not do, and yet remained lonely and misunderstood even by his wife.

There was one scene which I found especially memorable, much like Sasha’s horse from “Under Electric Clouds”, which is that Vietnamese boy who saved Duksoo from an attack just because he gave him chocolate before. To me there was something so simple and touching about it, much more so than some of the other aforementioned tearjerker scenes. I think the movie does well in these details, apart from the obligatory humorous tidbits (which of course must be done well since this is a big blockbuster after all).

Somehow Korean movies manage to hit my heart’s weaknesses like Chinese or Japanese movies never do. “JSA” makes me cry every time I see the film, “Silmido” completely broke my heart (shudder), and the movie whose touching story comes closest to “Ode to my father” is “Welcome to Dongmakgol”, another wonderful story with many weaknesses. Bottom line: I don’t care about the naysayers of this movie, for me it was actually an awesome experience.

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Berlinale 2015, Day 8 (Leave her to Heaven)

O is back to being energetic and healthy, but most recently the Berlinale blogging got a little hiccup mostly because I am in a writer’s slump. On the one hand, I feel my energy draining out of me now that it’s almost done (not entirely, but close), on the other hand, I had trouble with “Leave her to heaven” specifically because my thoughts kept wandering to “Ode to my father”. In good news, Pixelmatsch has been filling in the films he has seen – yay yay! Thinking about it makes me look forward to my meta postings at the end: Films we have missed, afterthoughts and statistics and rankings.

Just like last year, my Saturday was pretty short. We got a bunch of tickets (4 films) for Sunday, and by this time, both O and I were sick and after 3 days of getting at home after midnight, I really didn’t want to watch any late night screenings anymore. As a result, my choices fell on an afternoon film and one evening film so I could spend most of the day with O but without passing out by the end of the day. It was my most balanced day of the Berlinale, with two very nice, solid films but which did not blow my mind.

drrt

Leave her to Heaven
USA 1945, John M. Stahl, 110′

Successful writer falls in love with a beautiful, strong-willed but slightly strange girl who turns out to be maniacally possessive to the point of murdering people just to have her beloved to herself. Starting out as a love story, it then turns into a murder story and then a courthouse drama.

I had no idea what I was getting into with this film (who is John M. Stahl anyways?), instead I was just taking my chances since I wanted to see a Gene Tierney movie. I was intrigued by her even before I ever saw “Laura” (becauseI thought she looked strange in a good way and because she dated Kennedy hahaha). Strangely enough, I didn’t think she was that great as “Laura”, a beautiful lady who is ultimately just innocent nice damsel in distress. But oh, she is absolutely gorgeous as Ellen who is just as evil as her bitchface suggests. The beautiful, charming, headstrong, but also crazy woman is simply perfect for Gene Tierney, and I absolutely adore her in this role. I have to admit that I am a big fan of these kinds of characters, and Tierney plays her in a shockingly convincing manner. I was also impressed by the styling of this film: When Ellen’s craziness gets overboard, her hair is done up in an utterly frumpy manner to indicate how out of control she has gotten. But when commits one of her worst crimes, she opens up her hair and is styled beautifully to give her the appearance of the victim. This subtly shows how purposefully she acts, and makes her so much more interesting than someone who is just mentally ill and not herself.

By the way, I was also quite smitten with the actress of Ruth, who is styled so cutely ever since the beginning that I had a hunch her and the protagonist must get together. Nevertheless, she never goes beyond ‘cute’ of course, and I suspect Gene Tierney would not have allowed her to steal her spotlight (she doesn’t).

Even though this is a Technicolor film, They shoot pictures don’t they lists the film as one of the 100 quintessential noir films (which are the most referenced and cited for the genre), indicated by that 100-icon. I am not surprised, Ellen Berent is perhaps my favorite femme fatale of all, and she is perhaps one of the most radical too, much like the protagonist of “Angel Face”. There are no gangsters in this film, it’s ultimately a family drama, but the characterization of its protagonist and its immensely beautiful style are very noir-like, so you can probably tell that I enjoyed the film very much.

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Berlinale 2015, Day 8 (Der Geldkomplex)

Lukas Förster liked the movie, and Loris liked aspects of the movie. In that respect, I am glad I saw the film because it’s the kind which you probably can never get your hands on ever again. I instantly took interest in the description on the Berlinale website, and the adaptation of an old novela sounds intriguing (in the case of “The Painted Veil”, the slightly romanticized film adaptation is actually awesome). Sadly, it ended up being one of those “What the heck did I just see?” kind of movies in which I also – unfortunately – fell asleep to. Considering how short the movie is, missing some 15 minutes or so felt like a lot. It reminded me of this very stressful day in which I slept through almost the entirety of Rossini’s “Il Turco in Italia”. Until today, I feel like my impression of the opera is inadequate since I missed so much (and I would like to see it again especially now that 6451 told me he liked it). I have similar feelings about “Der Geldkomplex”, though I have no particular desire to see the film again.

By the way, this was one of the few times where I sat upstairs in the Delphi theater. We had seats in the very front, so the view was much better than most places downstairs. It’s definitely something to keep in mind when faced with an almost filled-up theater. Afterwards, we didn’t stay for very long. A good Q&A would have helped a lot, where the filmmaker could have explained some of the background of this pretty confusing movie he has made. Shockingly, in this case the Q&A just made it worse. The director essentially said “Oh I didn’t want to write my own script so I stumbled upon this story and randomly decided to adapt it” (which honestly is quite offending to Reventlow’s possibly good book), then went on to say a lot of confusing things including how nobody really knew anything and they just sat together to develop the characters at random. It totally sounds like the entire movie was made on drugs, and there was no structure or intent anywhere.

drrt

Der Geldkomplex (El complejo de dinero)
Spain 2015, Juan Rodrigáñez, 76′

As I mentioned before, I simply have no idea what the whole story is about. I liked its first scene and some later scenes, but I am unable to put them together to an actual story. I never read zu Reventlow’s epistolary novela the whole thing is supposed to be based on, so I have no idea whether the original story is just as confusing. Maybe the film actually is supposed to be some kind of mumblecore thing in which nothing happens and people just talk, but then how is it a literary adaptation? Other than that, I actually liked the concept of the film: A bunch of people hang out in a serene, beautiful place, doing nothing but talk about life, themselves and so on. It could have been fantastic, if only I knew what it was all about.

Taken out of context, however, the film did have a few moments which I thought were interesting. I thought the first scene, in which one of the guys is being coached to ask for 3 million euros – sofort! (hahaha) – was quite amusing, but the greatest scene was definitely the paella one, in which we see nothing but the paella pot from bird’s view and a few guys arguing about whether shrimp (or something else) goes into paella. It made me hungry and the repetitive humour of the scene gave me a glimpse of what the film could have been. Finally, I liked how they all ended up breaking into song, even though it’s a cliché (and I am ultimately glad that Star Trek DS9 did not have a musical episode).

The good thing about this year’s Berlinale was that there was no movie which I perceived as a waste of time (unlike last year, where some movies were saved only through the grace of Stephen Horne’s accompaniment), but “Der Geldkomplex” came pretty close.

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Berlinale 2015, Day 7 (Ten no Chasuke)

I have never actually been to a premiere in the Berlinale Palast. Before this, I have only seen specials and repetitions of competition films here, and while I think that it’s a decent venue, there is something I simply don’t like about it. This time, at least I got to know that the personnel here is very nice and competent. I’ve always wanted to experience a premiere of a competition film at the Berlinale, only to realize with “Ten no Chasuke” that it’s quite pointless unless you are really into someone in the cast and even then you might only get a glimpse of them. Compared to that, the Panorama and Generation premieres I have seen so far have always been amazing, followed by an interesting Q&A. Oh well.

Also, it’s the last day of February and I still have a long way to go to blog the Berlinale. Seriously, my February is always entirely dominated by the Berlinale, though that is also somewhat awesome.

drrt

Ten no Chasuke
Japan/France 2014, Sabu, 106′

Chasuke is a tea boy in heaven, where heavenly scriptwriters write the stories of everybody’s lives. While serving tea to them, Chasuke reads various people’s stories and especially falls in love with one girl, who is going to die soon. Since Chasuke’s actions are not dictated by any script, the girl’s scriptwriter sends Chasuke to earth to save her.

How should I put it – “Ten no Chasuke” was panned by critics and unlike “Under Electric Clouds” it was rightfully so. To me the film was an example of how movies should not be made: Incoherent storytelling, wasted side characters, overly melodramatic ending, absolutely absolutely horrible directing and cinematography (you may disagree, but this is how I see it). The first indication that the movie might not fulfill my expectations was the moment when they showed how the actress of the female protagonist was walking on the red carpet and tons of otaku were having her sign her gravure shots. This does not bode well. There is nothing wrong with a gravure idol becoming an actress, heck I love Sibel Kekilli to pieces, but I got the feeling that she was foremost a bikini model and indeed it was. She had a mute role (thank goodness) and she barely had to act.

To be honest, the complaints of “Ten no Chasuke” have no end. The story made no sense, it completely lost its suspense after Chasuke managed to save the girl’s life (and thus fulfilled the job he had to do in the first place) and towards the second part, I wasn’t even sure what the whole point of the film was anymore. His problems with the yakuza seemed totally unresolved and the whole “Chasuke heals people’s illnesses” plotline was utterly unsatisfying too. I already mentioned the ending, but its badness can barely be put into words (they both randomly get revived and she randomly regains her voice? hello?) and the “we can take our future into our own hands” makes no sense whatsoever within this setting, where people’s lives are being foretold by heavenly scriptwriters. For a premise so interesting and cool, “Ten no Chasuke” is probably the biggest disappointment in years.

Nevertheless, I enjoyed the film as curious as it may sound. Sure the last 30 minutes were a complete waste, but it started off incredibly strong. I almost laughed out loud a few times, and I am in love with all the side characters (oh and how awesome is Chasuke’s sister?), I just wished they had gotten an actual purpose in the story. More than anything, I enjoy how the film shows a somewhat alternative Japan – one which is not serene like an Ozu movie but actually loud and lively. On my only trip to Japan (which was before “Tamako Market” aired), I was fascinated by the covered arcades. Unlike the ones in Paris, the ones in Japan are really ugly but there is so much culture and life in them that I am surprised why you don’t see more of them. I liked how “Ten no Chasuke” took place almost entirely in one of these arcades, and how the entire story is a product of this setting (albeit a bad one).

I doubt I will ever watch another Sabu movie in my life, it’s totally not like Hirokazu Koreeda who is actually a good filmmaker.

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Berlinale 2015, Day 7 (Cuatro contra el mundo)

I love going to Berlinale screenings that nobody else goes to. Actually I don’t think that has happened very often, though last year there were a few Retrospective screenings with less people. (Perhaps this is the reason why they completely kicked out silent films this year, and had a Retrospective topic that easily pleases a greater number of people.) For “Cuatro contra el mundo”, the Arsenal was at most half-filled which is surprising even for a mid-day weekday screening. During the second part of the screening, it got even worse. People started leaving and the ones who were left started laughing at how bad the movie was. I am not joking. I didn’t actually think it was that bad, but when the badness was so in my face at the end of the film that I couldn’t ignore the laughter anymore, I also laughed along.

drrt

Cuatro contra el mundo
Mexico 1950, Alejandro Galindo, 99′

In essence, the film depicts the downfall of a 5-man gang after they pull of a successful heist, almost like “Reservoir Dogs”. One died during the heist, one is on the verge of dying, the rest of them fall in love with the same woman, who is panicking pretty much just like them and, of course, must also desperately fall in love herself.

Since this year’s Berlinale was so terribly lacking in old films (or at least so it seemed to me), I was mesmerized by this Mexican film noir that nobody has really heard of. “Cuatro contra el mundo” is beautifully obscure, it’s not even listed on They shoot pictures, don’t they though this does not surprise me too much. Generally the entire internet has very few to offer on the film, it doesn’t seem to exist anywhere and if you google it, Spanish websites appear on the first page of results. Sure, the movie is pretty terrible, but amongst the myriads of US film noir films, only a handful can possibly be as great as “Out of the Past” or “Laura”. If I had to take a guess, the majority of them may be worse than “Cuatro contra el mundo”.

Nevertheless, this movie is an exercise in how not to make movies. It nails the style (though Leticia Palma’s wardrobe goes from stunningly beautiful to really silly within a second) and the atmosphere of a film noir, but after a very promising, well-done start, the film starts to become silly when the love triangle-quarangle comes into play. The film was fine when it started out as a suspense story (though the camera work is sometimes not helping much with the suspense), but then delved into mediocrity when it tried to do psychological melodrama. Unfortunately all the actors are pretty terrible, especially the main couple there. Their sudden love confessions came off as terribly pathetic, and Paco’s tragic past sounded utterly unbelievable simply by the amateurish way he delivered it. It’s a shame that this film, which originally had an interesting idea and a generally good script, got destroyed by clumsy directing and, most of all, horrible acting.

Of course I still enjoyed it. I haven’t seen a film noir in forever and was absolutely in the right mood for the film. Maybe the Berlinale is inspiring me to revisit genre cinema more – Western, nouvelle vague, film noir, science-fiction, musicals – it’s been quite awhile since I have seriously studied various genres.

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Berlinale 2015, Day 6 (Aferim!)

Our viewing of “Aferim!” (same timeslot as for “Under Electric Clouds”, same cinema, same announcer) started out as a disaster. I was in a terrible mood, the guy announced the film as “a fun road movie without much deeper meaning” (which really irked me and I was happy to see that he was utterly wrong) and, worst of all, they started playing “Under Electric Clouds”. After I yelled into the audience “You are showing the wrong movie!”, it took a precious 6 minutes from the start till they got the right movie going. This is important because I needed to catch the last train back home! At least my sickness has slightly improved and I was immensely glad to be able to go to sleep shortly after 1am.

This film also ended my long-ish streak of great movies the last few days, but that is alright, it’s simply part of the Berlinale to see a few less good ones.

drrt

Aferim!
Romania/Bulgaria/Czech Republic 2015, Radu Jude, 108′

The gendarm Costadin takes his son on a quest to find a runaway Roma slave, Carfin. While looking for him, they meet a variety of people, some tell them lots about their views on the world and its people, some get into arguments and conflicts with them, some help them with their quest (for the right fee, of course). After finding Carfin, things get even more complicated. It turns out Carfin was not wanted for theft but for having had an affair with his master’s wife, and he is afraid that his master will kill him for it.

I don’t think I have heard so many racist comments in a movie and laughed at them so much. Because the whole thing is set in a different time, I tend to brush it off as a product of its time and therefore as something funny. But like I hinted before, there is a deeper message hidden here. “Aferim!” is a subtle history lesson, but it’s so subtle that I didn’t quite get the whole picture. I had no idea what was going on in Wallachia in the year of 1835 (apparently it was under Turkish control), heck I don’t even know where Wallachia is. I have no idea how the Ottoman Empire evolved over the years, and I know even less about any of those countries east of Austria and south of the Czech Republic. The only Romanian film I saw was “4 months, 3 weeks, 2 days” which is foremost a small-scale human drama. It’s embarrassing, but I didn’t think much about its politics until I saw the film, and the film had to teach me everything about its times. In that respect the movie did an amazing job despite its subtlety. Loris noted how amused he was at the nobleman’s head gear, and it seems that costumes play an important role in showing the hierarchies and relationships between people.

While I only was able to get a glimpse of the politics at hand, the film is full of interesting human interactions, especially with the Roma population. Most of all, I think the movie is actually trying to understand where all the problems with the Roma and Sinti today are coming from, how less than 200 years ago these people were slaves without a shred a human dignity left to them, and how it is inevitable that they cannot easily escape this kind of cultural burden. Behind that veil of humorous fun, the way people speak about the Roma population is quite atrocious and it’s ultimately only slightly better today. I think “Aferim!” does a wonderful job at getting this point across, heck its title is pure ironic greatness. The Ottoman Turkish term apparently means “bravo!” with a hint of irony, which is exactly how it is meant when it appears several times in the film. I didn’t know that when seeing the film, but now it makes me want to revisit those scenes again.

Back in the day, “4 months, 3 weeks, 2 days” came out during a time when Romanian cinema was really hot. The fad seems to have died out, but apparently Romania still produces great movies, just like South Korea does after the “Oldboy” mania faded. I remember how much I suffered seeing these late night screenings while being down with an almost feverish cold, but both “Under Electric Clouds” and “Aferim!” were totally worth it. For my top 30 films of all times, I have this rule that I only include films which taught me something about the human condition. Even though “Aferim!” will not make it into the list, it definitely passed that criterion.

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Berlinale 2015, Day 6 (Nuclear Nation II)

As you will be able to tell, days 5 and 6 were by far my best Berlinale days. One could say that the Berlinale started out OK, then became really great, then took a dip and finally ended with a few nice but not overwhelming days.

The greatest thing about watching “Nuclear Nation II” at the Berlinale was the Q&A, actually the best one we had this year. Funahashi has this very charming way of cleverly ignoring questions by basically answering a similar question or by responding to the question with one sentence but then subtly changing the subject and moving on to hold a speech on whatever he wants to say. The Q&A is just a decoy for Funahashi to voice his agenda, but I absolutely agree with his agenda, and I am in awe of his perfect English, his charming way of speaking and asking for help for the victims. He’s the perfect activist who carefully avoids any strong words (such as “activism”), accusations towards his audience (he only accuses the Japanese government) and exaggerated pathos. He is also adding a dose of humility to it even though you can easily tell that he is a very confident person: When asked about how he made such a beautiful movie, he essentially said “I listen to people and they inspire me”. (When that question was raised, I told Pixelmatsch that I think the right answer for these kinds of things should always be “Because I’m a genius”.) The Fukushima disaster is lucky to have a spokesperson like him, although of course he can only do so much as a filmmaker.

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Nuclear Nation II (Futaba kara toku hanarete dainibu)
Japan 2014, Atsushi Funahashi, 114′

Pixelmatsch discovered Funahashi back in 2008 (or 2009?), and then proceeded to watch every single film by him showing at the Berlinale. Of course he also saw “Nuclear Nation” so the continuation was a must-watch. I had an alternative for this time slot, “Alice in den Städten”, but I figured I would never actually watch “Nuclear Nation” outside of the Berlinale. But this time, I was strangely curious about this director that Pixelmatsch has been raving about for years, so I decided to come along. Luckily, it’s a documentary so there is no plot per se, and I didn’t exactly miss anything by not watching the first part. “Nuclear Nation” is basically Fukushima from 2011 to 2012 right after the disaster, and “Nuclear Nation II” is the aftermath Fukushima from 2013 to 2014, mostly focusing on the refugees from Futaba who are living cramped up in an empty school and then on the remaining traces of the lives they have left behind.

I am totally not a fan of documentaries, that is for sure. There have been a number of mixed-form fiction-documentaries which I have enjoyed (like “My Winnipeg”), but I have always had my reservations about actual documentaries. They have never felt real to me (somehow doing fiction-documentaries just seems more honest to me), and I always thought you don’t really learn the truth from it. “Nuclear Nation II” may be a big exception for me: Its message is a political one, and it is one which I find very easy to agree with. When Funahashi said that the big problem with nuclear energy is that it allows people to not see other people’s suffering, I agree that he pretty much nails the problem of all of human condition to its core. The movie made my aircon-loving self feel quite guilty for sure!

Aside from the sympathetic message, I was in awe of how he filmed everything. There is no sentimental beauty or anything, but the cinematography and the cutting makes you feel close to the people, characters are being revisited in a coherent manner and soft music is fittingly inserted. While making a documentary, Funahashi tells stories and puts them together in a clever narrative structure. Needless to say I liked how he shoots the people and especially the places they have left behind. He tells those stories in an engaging manner but without rushing, while lingering on some shots just like the people linger on their previous lives, while getting his political points across in a clear but not blatant manner.

Speaking of the music, I was surprised that Ryuichi Sakamoto wrote a title song for the film, because the movie is such a low-budget, crowd-funded thing. But then I saw it was titled “for futaba” so I figured Sakamoto wrote the song for free to help. (And indeed, his Wikipedia indicates that he is part of an anti-nuclear-energy group.) This is probably the best music I have heard in an indie production ever since “Hoshi no Koe”, so kudos to everyone involved in that.

All in all, you can probably tell that I was pleasantly surprised at the sheer competence with which “Nuclear Nation” was made. For someone who only mildly cared for the Fukushima disaster back in the day, I am glad to see that there is someone capable who follows these people so closely and so persistently.