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If I could travel back 100 years in time, I would want to see Warsaw

ida

Ida

Every year, I am always very interested in the Foreign Oscar. Considering how much crap populates the Academy Award every year, the foreign one boasts some really good titles (“Departures”, “The Lives of Others”, “No Man’s Land”, “La strada”, “8 1/2”, “Derzu Uzala”, “Fanny and Alexander”, “Life is Beautiful”, “All about my mother”, “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon”) so every year I am most interested about this category than any other one. Of course not all of them are great and some of them I will never watch (“Nowhere in Africa” uh), but my expectations are typically pretty high, just as they were for “Ida”.
Since “Leviathan” got the Golden Globe for this category, it was also the favorite for the Oscar. Well, did “Ida” deserve to win? Now that I have seen both films I think the two films are simply not comparable whatsoever. No two films could be any more different – they are both stylish in their own way, and they tell a story of humanity but about completely different topics. “Ida” looks at the past and how it affects us, “Leviathan” is (amongst others) a commentary about how the future of our society is in danger. In that respect, I am glad that both films got one award each.

Ironically, I will also say this about “Leviathan”: “Ida” was hauntingly beautiful. Every black and white shot looked meticulously composed, and its contemplative slow pacing struck a chord with me. Ida’s identity crisis is one which I can strongly identify with, even if mine is not the result of a horrifying past. Unlike “Leviathan”, the story in “Ida” is very simple and we spend more time focusing on Ida’s face and what she does than what actually happens to her. Even though she mostly goes along with her aunt and we don’t get to see her do a lot, she feels like an active character because of how the happenings in the story affect her later actions. I could strongly sympathize with Wanda, her sloppy lifestyle and her inner struggles as well, and she had quite a few great lines which believably made an impact on Ida.

I should watch “My Summer of Love” – I have been wanting to do that forever, and I have a certain affinity for Emily Blunt.

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Find the gay man in the picture!

parada

Parada

I am a little restless and I cannot sit through a movie without getting distracted (it’s “Dernier étage gauche gauche” and the fact that I have to really concentrate to be able to understand their banlieue French doesn’t help). Since I am also not tired, I figured it would be.

We are back from the PIFF! This time we managed to watch 4 movies, and coming back from it, I am overwhelmed by feelings – nostalgy for all the PIFFs we had, happiness to see O again, complete exhaustion which makes it hard for me to get out of bed and handle O’s tantrums, excitement about our next trips and finally some almost crippling worries which I won’t divulge any further because they don’t actually concern me directly. In any case, it felt so immensely good to go through the films to review our experiences this time, and recall to mind the highlights (a sauna in our Helsinki bathroom, some great modern art in the KUMU and Kiasma museums, walking through super pretty Tallinn by “nightfall”, trying various Estonian foods – kama is awesome – and of course, the movies). After coming back, I feel an intense desire to watch more movies but perhaps it’s not so easy without the lovely company at the PIFF.

In order to make a huge train of thought leading to “Parada”, I realize that we also are a bunch of unlikely friends. Sure, we are all somewhat affluent, middle-class hipster kids who enjoy the same things in the city (architecture, art museums, good food) and have a significant overlap in our movie tastes, but we also have somewhat different cultural backgrounds, we are all from a different place and there is some noticeable age gap (I admit that Shii is right about that). Our AirBnB host in Tallinn instantly pegged us as “quite an international crowd” and immediately proceeded to recommend young expat foodie places to us. What makes “Parada” so great and work so well is how its characters are also lovably similar. Of course there also is the laughing out loud gay humor (I love how it showcases so intensely how incredibly gay almost every manly ritual is), but most of all, I was mesmerized by much positivity and understanding it promotes between so wildly different people.

The only criticism I have ever heard about the story is about its melodramatic ending. I don’t care. I think it’s a fitting ending, and it’s not like the story claims to be (traditionally) realistic. As with every good comedy, the realism is in the overdone, so an overdone absurd melodramatic ending totally fits in my book. As for me, I was rather moved by it, and if those journalists had looked up the background for the film, it looks pretty real. I have the suspicion that some critics wanted a 100% light-hearted comedy and simply don’t want to face the fact that some activists actually risk their lives out there. I am totally with the plight of the people in this case.

Nevertheless, the best part of the story was the road trip where Limun goes to find his comrades in war. OK, I admit that I am a sucker for road trips, but I found that part, their friendship and their final acceptance of the gays so utterly hilarious. (“Do you know what a sexual minority is?” – “Of course! It’s you the Serbians, no?”) I am not surprised how the film did well in all of ex-Yugoslavia, because it makes so much sense to me that deep down they actually all love each other. (Germans and Poles probably do too, but I am not so sure about the French.)

All in all, I am not surprised that “Parada” is topping Pixelmatsch’s ranking at the Berlinale in 2012. It tops no.2 and 3 by far.

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Is this what you call a feel good movie?

slumdogmillionaire

Slumdog Millionaire

After a film festival is before a film festival, or something. The PIFF is coming up, the second biggest “film festival” of my life besides the Berlinale, and I made a list of films I would propose to watch. Last year, we randomly watched two films in an actual movie theater during an actual film festival, and besides that we only saw 3 films in those 4 days in Lisbon. We will see how it goes this time, but the very act of picking films for this occasion made me feel excited about watching movies. (Much unlike going through Netflix or my own to-watch lists, where I typically don’t really feel like watching that stuff. The only list that sparks this kind of joy, to put it in the words of Marie Kondo, is my list from the Film of the Day thread, courtesy of Shii and Gorp.) I feel like a little girl about to discover the big world, and considering how I haven’t really felt like watching a film ever since the Berlinale ended, I am quite happy that the feeling came back just in time for the PIFF.

I mean, heck, I watched “Slumdog Millionaire” in January! All of that really feels like ages ago. However, and this refers to this posting’s title, there is a benefit in not writing a blog post instantly. Maybe my first impressions are now lost, and often I end up not writing much about a film when I have forgotten a lot of its details, but sometimes time can only tell which details have made a large impact on me. I watched Poulenc’s “Dialogue des Carmélites” at the Komische Oper (in a surprisingly amazing production by Calixto Bieito no less!) and until today, I am being haunted by the final scene. It’s perhaps the most intense scene in all opera, and this is impressive because I was largely bored and a little taken aback by all that came before. I recently added the opera to the list of operas I want to see again simply because of its ending (and I just read that Tcherniakov changed the ending – that was a shock, but I am curious too).

Alright, I digress. My point was that having let time pass allowed me to focus on the things I remember the most about “Slumdog Millionaire”, which was that boy having his ears being destroyed. That one also haunts me until today, and I honestly cannot understand how the film is being marketed as a feel-good film when there is so much pain and suffering shown in it. Do people just ignore it? Do they just think “ah, they are Indian kids in slums, it’s alright”? I am guilty of usually ignoring what is bad in the world, but when it’s so obviously in your face (even if it’s a piece of fiction), how can you feel good about it?

Other than that, I remember the film as a Western film with Indian looks. With Chinese films, there are always elements that make people go “ah, it’s totally made for the Western audience” (a problem that Japanese or Korean films don’t really have as much), which is especially amusing since Hollywood films nowadays have elements totally aiming at its Chinese audience, and “Slumdog Millionaire” seemed to have a lot of these kinds of elements, especially in the humor department. There are no cultural inside jokes, not even the cultural subtleties you see in Japanese or Korean films which alienates but also fascinates people outside of the culture. This kid from the slums acts like he’s a British kid put into the body of an Indian slum-dweller, and then takes it from there.

Of course “Slumdog Millionaire” was a lot of fun. I enjoyed the ride and it pushes all the right buttons to make for a very entertaining evening. Freida Pinto is also immensely beautiful, and I am impressed that she and Dev Patel ended up dating – seems to be a Hollywood thing nowadays, like the Twilight couple.

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Call me Ms. Apricot

reservoirdogs

Reservoir Dogs

Even though I spent an important part of my youth in love with “Lord of the Rings”, I actually like things small. I lived in a 8sqm room for the longest time when I was a child, spending almost all my time in it, and besides small housings, I like small orchestras, small stages and, most of all, a small amount of characters in my stories. Chamber opera, orchestra, play – anything chamber – is totally up my alley, and Sartre’s “No Exit” was my favorite amongst all of them for quite awhile. As I watched “Reservoir Dogs” without knowing anything about it besides that it was an old Tarantino movie, I was elated to see that this was (mostly) a chamber story revolving around people talking.

Tarantino is definitely best at people talking, at least for me. I saw “Pulp Fiction” before I started this blog (probably in 2003 or 2004), and I loved every part that had people talking it, and hated every part that had people shooting or fighting or generally not talking. Despite liking most of Tarantino’s films, I definitely am not a fan of all that violence (or rather, I don’t care for it), but almost every time, there is a character so witty that he makes up for that action boredom. “Reservoir Dogs” is like all the good aspects of Tarantino, and almost none of the bad.

In fact, “Reservoir Dogs” is so talky that they were able to have a reading of the film with black actors. You couldn’t do that with “Kill Bill” for sure. With that said, I think the idea of bringing black actors doing the roles makes so much sense, because that’s what Tarantino totally should have done in the first place.

Of course “Reservoir Dogs” never provoked the emotional response that I had when I watched “Inglourious Basterds” (which is why the latter is in my top 30 films and “Reservoir Dogs” isn’t), but there is everything to love about the film: its amazing acting, its wonderfully witty dialogue, its absurd yet very human characters… and the fact that Tarantino didn’t have much money, giving the film its much needed focus on the people involved. (Heck, there is a reason why low-budget indie films become cult, because more often than not, money actually seems to distract from the good stuff.)

To be honest, I doubt Tarantino will ever make a movie as good as “Reservoir Dogs”, just like Polanski never made a movie as good as “Knife in the Water” (if you ask me), but the film is so good that I am totally fine with that.

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Of course I cried

stvincent

St. Vincent

This movie was totally a tearjerker, just like “The boat that rocked”. I can’t help tearing up when I see something designed to be touching, but sometimes the rational part of myself knows that this is totally idiotic. On some level, I found almost everything in “St. Vincent” revolting, and it blows my mind how the movie managed to get Bill Murray, Melissa McCarthy and Chris O’Dowd to play in this film. I don’t understand Hollywood.

So here we have a world in which somehow being a prostitute is a bad thing, but enjoying sex with one is somehow OK, being a soldier makes you a hero and washing your demented wife’s laundry is too (even though you keep having sex with prostitutes). Being grumpy to people, drinking alcohol and going to horse races makes you bad, but not bad beyond redemption. Sadly I don’t remember all the details, but most of all I remember that I wasn’t bothered by how the film was made or how the story was told… It was rather that aspects of the story just bothered me. In my book, the moral of the story was a very conservative one and the world it is set in calls for openness but fails to hide its own narrow views on what makes a “good” or a “bad” person. I didn’t really like that part.

Other than that, Bill Murray is as much fun as he always has been! I always thought the film was enjoyable, I just couldn’t relate to its message.

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Amadeus Amadeus!

adventureland

Adventureland

The most fascinating thing about Kristen Stewart is how incredibly good she looks in kiss scenes. Besides having a very beautiful profile, she got that “I am really into you and I am the hottest woman in the world even though I am just looking naturally myself” look down perfectly. Maybe it’s because she’s just that young and essentially playing herself here, but unlike most others, she simply can do it. (Just compare her to Natalie Portman, who is a fabulous actress but utterly fails at “sexy”.) I can’t even describe what it is, but to me, she looks right when she does it, and it gives her a stronger identification potential than any actress I have ever seen. (No, I don’t identify with her beauty, but certainly with that “I am so troubled but I can’t help but kiss you” look.) I think she got the Twilight part because she looks so amazing in kiss scenes.

A big part of “Adventureland” actually survives on Kristen Stewart being that kind of girl. Since Jesse Eisenberg’s character is basically just a tumbling idiot in the story (albeit a likable one), she is the truly interesting character of the story, even though she isn’t all that messed up if you think about it (but she surely feels very, very confused about herself). Of course they are all teenagers with teenage problems, but Stewart made it relatable and go beyond the teenage movie fun. She turns the film from teenage comedy to coming of age drama.

With that said, the movie works amazingly as teenage comedy too. Lisa P! Everybody in the story is lovable, to be honest I even liked Frigo (who ended up being an actual friend) and Connell who was able to respond with sympathy and understanding when Emily breaks up with him. Perhaps only James’s parents were unbearable but they had no big part in the story besides setting the premise, thank God.

I am not sure I can admit it so easily, but I am in love with “Adventureland”. So many aspects of its youthful plot just spoke to me, and I want to pick up Kristen Stewart’s skill of sexily going through her hair.

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Humanity

sevenpsychopaths

Seven Psychopaths

Sometimes a string of bad movies makes me get bored of watching movies in general. It happened a few times, and sometimes even as low as two bad films could produce such a phase. This time, I completely stopped watching films ever since we came back from Singapore because so many things were going on (and because “Mad Men” and “Game of Thrones” continued airing). However, it had nothing to do with bad films and everything to do with how films didn’t really fit into my life anymore. It wasn’t that I was so busy (though this has happened in the past too) but rather that something totally crushed my ability to blog. Maybe around this time in life, I was writing so much (chatting, e-mails etc.) that it made me not want to write anything anymore. But then again I had other phases in life in which lots of typing on the computer occurred. I don’t know.

Case in point, my backlog is full of really enjoyable films, and “Seven Psychopaths” might have been the most enjoyable of all. I have been eyeing the film for a long time, but Loris told me he thought the film was so-so. I can kind of see where he is coming from, as this one is lacking the immensely sympathetic and interesting characters of the other McDonagh films whereas the protagonist here is rather bland. But to me, there was much to love in this film: I like the general premise of a screenwriter with a writer’s block (obviously I can relate to that), I totally loved the story of that monk, the way it started out completely absurdly and ended in a beautiful fashion, I really liked the ending which turned aforementioned bland protagonist into someone a little more interesting, and I ultimately enjoyed how the story was told very much. I have a thing for these gangster stories with many characters and absurd twists, and “Seven Psychopaths” was brilliant at it.

By the way, is every movie with Woody Harrelson a good one? I wonder about that. It surely makes me look forward to the second season of “True Detective”, even though Harrelson won’t be in it anymore. Conveniently, Colin Farrell will be in it (but I am not actually a fan of this guy despite all the great films he was in).

“The McDonaghs can do not wrong” is what Pixelmatsch said after we saw this film. So far, I get the impression that this is absolutely true. If my main criteria for a film to appear in my top 30 is whether it says something poignant about humanity, then every McDonagh film is a strong contender for it.

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1001 postings

I am the kind of person who crumbles under pressure. For the longest time, I thought it was the other way around, because pressure actually helped me in many aspects in life (like working 10 times harder and being productive when faced with a deadline) and led to almost every success I have had in life. Even my stubbornness actually helped, because you have to be stubborn to ask for what you want again and again. Nowadays, I think the three values I cherish most in life could be summed up with gratitude, empathy and simplicity. I even think these are the things that make a blog great: Appreciation for the people who read it, the ability to understand how others perceive the world and adapt to it, and a simple organization and writing style.

I was under time pressure when I wrote my last posting over 2 months ago, the celebratory 1000th one. It was probably the preparation for our Singapore trip, but I don’t even remember. What I remember quite clearly is how I was generally satisfied with the way I wrote the posting, but not what I wrote. I managed to cram what I thought was every relevant memory of the Berlinale (which was not too personal to blog about), but I completely failed at even mentioning what I actually wanted to write about the most: A reflection on this blog, the journey (haha buzzword!) of this blog until today, and, most of all, to show my gratitude to everyone who has been accompanying me here. I perceive you guys who are reading this blog as eternal, even though experience shows that friendships dissipate and interests and hobbies don’t last forever (I don’t read manga anymore, can you believe it?) Perhaps I am simply taking things for granted, but I don’t think that must necessarily be true. The romantic belief that this blog and its readers will exist forever no matter how crappy my writing and how deep my writer’s block shouldn’t keep me up from feeling grateful to you, my readers, for being in my life. Instead, both of these feelings are grand and meaningful to me, the first makes me feel secure and the latter makes me feel lucky. I don’t really know how to express these in words (poetry is so not my thing), so I will try the simplicity route: Thank you for having me. Please make my dream come true and continue to be there.

With that said, my goal is to kill my backlog before the PIFF begins on May 28. There, I said it. Publishing goals are supposed to help with maintaining them, so now I shall go back to doing what I do really well: Keeping a deadline.

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Berlinale 2015, Afterthoughts and statistics

After Pixelmatsch pointed out to me that this would be our 1000th posting on About Chocolate Parfaits, I spent days agonizing what to write here. I wanted it to be something special and – since these are the afterthoughts – something meaningful. And then the unavoidable happened: My feelings of the Berlinale this year began to fade. It was very reminiscent of last year’s Berlinale where I had very similar feelings. It feels lame to quote myself, but it’s so true for this year as well:

About one month after it happened, I look at it with fond memories, but I already see that they are less vivid than when it happened.

On top of that, last year’s Berlinale was a blast. It was stressful and it was during a time when O still needed much care and attention (whereas this year he went to daycare, though that mean that I had to be there to take him there and back from Monday to Thursday), but in many ways it totally blew my mind. We saw some amazing films (this year’s best films would be perhaps comparable to last year’s 7th or 8th ranked film), had tons of silent films with live piano accompaniment and spent such an incredible amount of time in movie theaters. It was just amazing. Therefore it’s rather unfair to compare this way, but my honest feeling is that this year was overshadowed by last year’s experience: Getting tickets was annoying as hell, it was “only” 20 films in 9 days vs. 27 films in 10 days, my terrible cold made Berlin’s weather feel even worse, and the number of interesting titles for me was much smaller this year. While last year had some 50+ titles I thought were interesting, this year had perhaps 30+ or so.

Nevertheless, I cannot so easily write off an event I have been spent basically a month of my life on: Preparing for it, watching films and then blogging them. We had some great surprises (“Under Electric Clouds” is so incredibly brainy and sophisticated, it’s Russian filmmaking at its essence, really, and reminds me that I need to check out Zvyagintsev’s other films), a few disappointments (ugh “Ten no Chasuke” and “Der Geldkomplex”) and most generally things went very smoothly (no long delays and the likes).

This year, Shii couldn’t make it to the Berlinale (*still crying about it*) but luckily 6451 came to visit! Despite a relatively short 4 1/2 day visit, he managed to see 2 operas and 13 films, now how efficient is that? It’s unfortunate that I wasn’t able to see all of these with him, but even though some of the films we saw were not so great, just having seen them together made me enjoy it. I think the presence of 6451 would even make “The Prince” enjoyable (and actually I reminisce fondly about our experience of seeing the film in the AMK Hub, even though the film itself is total crap), and that makes his visit the definite highlight of this year’s Berlinale. I am so glad we ended up getting some take-away food at the end and hung out at Pixelmatsch’s place, eating delicious köfte, drinking tea, looking up stuff on the internet and – most importantly – talked about the films we saw, life and everything else. We even talked about our fear of death, to which 6451 made one of the wittiest, most memorable jokes I have ever heard in my life.

Another nice side effect to the terrible wait at the ticket lines was my coffee and lunch with the old guy I met, who I really enjoyed talking to. I have basically already said everything about this in my posting on “Koza” though, hm.

My dream is still to have one Berlinale with plenty of good films where the entire PIFF can attend!

Finally, here are the statistics for this year’s Berlinale. Unlike last year, we were happily able to go to the Berlinale Palast, the Zoo Palast and the International, but only Pixelmatsch made it into the Cubix (twice even!) Neither Pixelmatsch nor I have been to the Friedrichstadt-Palast or the Haus der Berliner Festspiele this year, but 6451 saw screenings there. I miss the Cubix hahaha. After I missed out on the International last year, I had 3 screenings there this time, and if I happen to catch another Berlinale in my life again, I will make a visit to Cubix 9 a top priority.

Continue reading “Berlinale 2015, Afterthoughts and statistics”

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Berlinale 2015, Films we did not see

This year was much unlike last year where I had a huge list of films (42!) I wanted to see, and then ended up seeing significantly less of it (27). This year, I pretty much saw almost everything I wanted to see even though I “only” saw 20 films, except for the films that Pixelmatsch saw and blogged (Otouto, Enjo, Yukinojo Henge, The River, Mizu no koe o kiku, Que horas ela vola). There were a few more films which I considered but didn’t watch:

  • Corbo – Canadian film about a radically activist boy, could have been wonderful or terrible
  • Alice in den Städten – From the Wenders hommage, recommended by Gorp
  • Der amerikanische Freund – From the Wenders hommage, not recommended by Gorp but I am irrationally interested in it
  • Wonderful World End – Gothic lolita teen movie? Surely it will be on the internet one day
  • Le dos rouge – Bonello sure does weird stuff; I totally think this film could be very awesome or very terrible, even Loris was interested in it
  • Gone with the Bullets – My dad told me he didn’t like the movie and it’s so sad because it sounds great, so I refrained from seeing it
  • Sworn Virgin – The old man I met waiting in line for tickets recommended this one to me, so technically I didn’t consider it beforehand but the description of the film did catch my eye

Besides Pixelmatsch’s films (which now all sound so attractive to me except “Dari Marusan”!), there are also tons of films that 6451 saw but I didn’t. I am surprised there actually ended up only being 5 of them:

  • Mr. Holmes – I was going to watch this film too, but I didn’t want to use my precious Berlinale time for it. From the looks of it, it could be the best film of the year.
  • Der letzte Sommer der Reichen – Weird Austrian black comedy on high society… or something, but I still think it sounds like fun
  • Woman in Gold – If this was a German film, you’d think it’s a lame attempt at a “tu quoque” towards the Austrians who apparently were terrible about giving back stolen artwork
  • El Club – 6451 said he wanted to see a film from Latin America, but since Pixelmatsch has always been disappointed in those films so far (minus Brazil, where movies are apparently awesome) I am not surprised he didn’t like “El Club” that much
  • Tell spring not to come this year – Afghanistan documentary, apparently nice (it also got some awards)

Besides “Gone with the Wind”, there basically were no more Retrospective films I would have wanted to see. But amongst newer films, there are quite a few major productions which I hope to catch later on:

  • Als wir träumten – This one is actually already in theaters, it’s about kids in the former GDR or something
  • Are you here— A comedy by Matthew Weiner
  • Every thing will be fine – The new Wim Wenders, though it did not do well with critics it seems
  • Life – The new Corbijn, apparently people in Berlin were excited to see Robert Pattinson while I have never seen him on screen
  • Little Forest – Based on a manga I really like, this would have been a must-watch if it hadn’t been shown in the culinary section (way too pricey)
  • Nobody wants the night – The opening film of this year’s Berlinale did not gather a lot of good reviews, but I am mesmerized by the Greenland shots
  • One & Two – Kiernan Shipka outside of “Mad Men”, I am so intrigued
  • Queen of the Desert – The new Werner Herzog film; I have never actually seen anything by Herzog, but one has to start somewhere, right?