This year we have a new venue: the “Haus der Berliner Festspiele”, a theatre built in the 60s, so obviously it is very bright, open and rectangular! Very fitting for today’s second screening as you will see. For the third we also had something new: the IMAX 3D above the Cinestar moved out and now we have a huge screen with big comfy leather chairs with lots of legroom and space for all other extremities you may have.
My Way
South Korea 2011, Kang Je-Gyu, 137?
Shortly after D-Day, a picture of a Korean man in a German uniform is found; it turned out that he served in the Japanese, Soviet and German army. This serves as inspiration for the story of rival marathon runners Jun-shik and Tatsuo who miraculously make it through the war starting as Japanese soldiers in Manchuria, going through Siberia as POWs and later Soviet soldiers, just to end up as German soldiers on D-Day at the French coast.
So this is what happens when you try to outdo Hollywood: At least two truckloads of pathos and a big helping of noble idiocy together with more than one occurence of deus ex machina which was only needed to save the hero from dramatically unnecessary plot points which just served the purpose of building suspense and tension that had no real point in advancing the story. The whole experience somehow redeems itself through managing to avoid any situation that could be possibly construed as supportive of war in general. Another strong point would be that apart from our main noble idiot the main characters are portrayed as rather human and believable (Fan Bingbing was gorgeous by the way.), something you do not usually expect from an action-driven blockbuster attempt. Unfortunately this does not extend to most Japanese shown on screen, not that the lot of them was particularly likeable in reality, but dark gray is not black. As a craftsman the director goes all-out, every second oozes the smell of big budget. Ignoring the overly imposing American-style soundtrack, the cinematography, costumes and effects are an absolute feast, if not a little gory. The research for the Normandy unfortunately slacked a little (A German-Turkish soldier without a hint of accent in his German? Oh, please. I was waiting for him to talk about his small business selling spinning meat, back in Berlin.) however most of it would be invisible to anyone not too familiar with Germany, it is not one of the major flaws.
Cesare deve morire (Caesar must die)
Italy 2011, Paolo & Vittorio Taviani, 76?
The directors observe over the span of six months the rehearsals of a theatre project in the Roman high security prison Rebibbia for their production of Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar”.
What sounded like a documentary about a theatre play actually turned out to be 90% theatre play disguising itself as a documentary. Apart from the introduction there is hardly a scene where anyone speaks out of character. Only sometimes one of the inmates stops and thinks when one of the more universal lines hits somewhere close to his life as mafia or drug dealer. Other than that they constantly rehearse all over the prison grounds, captivating the other inmates and sometimes even the guards. The seemingly random choice of places for their rehearsals poses the question how much of this was staged, as the string of rehearsals actually makes a great production of the play in itself. Aiding in the suspense of disbelief is the subtle background music and the high-contrast B/W picture, all of this however would not help if the prisoners would not have had a surprisingly firm grasp on their characters.
From Seoul to Varanasi (????)
South Korea 2011, Jeon Kyu-Hwan, 98?
Youngwoo and Jiyoung have been married for ten years and lead a typical stale marriage. Youngwoo is a publisher and is having an affair with one of his writers. Jiyoung, bored out of her mind, becomes fascinated with the gentle young muslim Kerim. One day he has to leave Korea and she follows him to Varanasi, searching for him through the whole town. Youngwoo trusts the note she left about visiting her family and goes about his daily life until he sees his wife on TV in the aftermath of a restaurant bombing in India.
Naked people do many naked things. Nah, I’m kidding, there is more than that. However it is made very sure that Youngwoo’s very healthy sex drive is depicted in all its accuracy, quite daring for a Korean film as the government recently tries to restrict artistic expression again, in an act of desperation (or at least that’s what a group of young Koreans thought about it). Interestingly, the droning meditative music and sometimes fumbling focus together with his Buddha-like features somehow make this look like an overly carnal spiritual exercise. The story is a sometimes confusing series of scenes, not arranged in order, sometimes jumping from one end of the story to another. It definitely demands concentration to follow, I never found it to be too much however.
Interesting detail about the main actor: He wanted to play in one of the director’s earlier films but had a problem with doing a masturbation scene, so ultimately rejected the role. He said that after this film where he even had to show his penis “to the world” (yes, he said that) he realises that he was kind of childish back then.
