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Berlinale 2014, Day 6 (Arrete ou je continue)

After waking up early for “Tui Na”, I was thrilled that today’s first film was going to start at 5pm. Of course that still meant that I went to the box office early to get tickets, but at least I could spend most of the morning resting. Overall, I think I would prefer a Berlinale day with 3-4 movies that starts at 12pm and ends at like 9pm, but that is so difficult to achieve. At this Berlinale, we only managed a nice schedule like that on Friday, on day 8.

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Arrête ou je continue (If you don’t, I will)
France 2014, Sophie Fillières, 102′

Pomme and Pierre are in the kind of marriage in which they feel like they spent too much time with each other. While they still do things together like going to art galleries and weekly hiking trips, there is the strong doubt that there is still love left in that relationship. Frustrated, Pomme decides to not go home after one of the hiking trips and just stay in the forest for awhile to sort out her feelings.
Death count: 0.

I don’t actually watch a lot of relationship films anymore, but back in the day they were my favorites. Bergman’s “Scenes from a Marriage” and Linklater’s “Before…” series are probably the best examples, and I think they both are masterpieces. Nowadays, I still enjoy these films but I don’t hold them in such a high esteem anymore. Even so, “Arrete ou je continue” is a perfect example for it.

I think my views on relationship changes on something like a yearly basis. Back when I was a teenager it probably changed on like a monthly or even weekly basis. When I watched “L’Eclisse”, I think I ended up crying because the estrangement between the characters reflected the estrangement I felt in my own relationships. Today, I don’t even know what I would think about “Jules et Jim” anymore. What I’m trying to say is that my impression of relationship films are always tainted by my current feelings on relationships, and so my view on the films are strongly biased and dependent on the exact time I saw them. Not really a good foundation to write a blog post on, I think. Strangely enough, it bothers me when I know exactly that my blog posts are not timeless, and it appears that I do strive for some sort of timelessness, I want to think of my own opinions as something that doesn’t jitter around.
Well, “Arrete ou je continue” is about two people who think about ending their relationship. My current stance on ending a relationship is that if a relationship is fine, it will not end. To be honest I thought that the protagonists here had a fine relationship. They never really had any problems to begin with, they are faithful and do activities together that both enjoy, and they were able to have a reconciliatory moment towards the end. So I guess I was a little surprised and iffed by the ending. Luckily that ending only lasted some two minutes, so I could just as well pretend the entire film ended two minutes before. It helps my enjoyment of the rest when thinking that way.

Otherwise, the film is absolutely marvelous. It totally hit home even though my own relationships seems to be the exact opposite of theirs. But the things couples say to each other – when the dialogues are written right, they seem so universal. It’s as if every single couple in the world quarrels in the same way about the same things and makes the same mistakes. I find it beautiful to watch Emmanuelle Devos and Mathieu Amalric do that, and it was indeed the two of them who were the reason I watched the film in the first place. As you all know, I am a little afraid of overly intellectual talky French films, but the combination of those two promises to be brilliant, and it was. I think it was lovely to see Emmanuelle Devos’s character in her mid-life crisis, and Mathieu Amalric’s slightly helpless character tumble through life.

The best reason to love the film is that it is set in Lyon. You don’t really see much of Lyon, but I could tell it was Lyon by the bus going to Croix-Rousse at the very beginning of the film. French films are so set on either Paris or the countryside, nobody seems to realize that Lyon is actually the best French city and I am glad that this film goes against the tide there.

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Berlinale 2014, Day 5 (Short Films: Absolute Film)

It is also a “tradition” for every Berlinale to have one interesting short film collection. This year, it’s clearly the collection of the Retrospective. With that said, what makes the Berlinale this year so worthwhile and special is clearly the incredibly vast collection of good classic films. While we always perceive the Berlinale as a festival where new films premiere and don’t see that many old films, this year there are many old obscure titles for which we get the chance to enjoy them on a big screen.

This is especially for silent films like “Faust” or some of these shorts: They come with live piano accompaniment! For “Faust”, we had Günther Buchwald who has a very classic style (we saw him many times before at the Stummfilmfestival) and for the shorts, Stephen Horne was playing. Most of the shorts are quite avantgarde, and so the piano accompaniment was similarly crazy. He used multiple instruments and – my favorite – in a dance scene, he put a Berlinale program magazine onto the strings of the baby grand he was playing on, to create an amusing sound effect. I was thrilled, and we went to see multiple more films (“Nasake no hikari”, two Sessue Hayakawa films and “Jujiro”) just to see Stephen Horne play again.

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Rhythmus 21 + Rhythmus 23
Germany 1921/1923-25, Hans Richter, 4’+3’

These two shorts were essentially geometric shapes and figures moving around. The short film collection is called “Absolute Film”, which essentially translates into the concept of making movies for the sake of making movies, without any plot or even any sort of meaning. It’s just about the image and, well, shapes. For seven minutes, especially with capable accompaniment, I had a lot of fun seeing these almost video-installation-like films.

Entr’acte
France 1924, René Clair, 20’

I think this part was my favorite. When I saw the screenshot you see above, I immediately knew that I wanted to see this collection of short films. Avantgarde 1920’s short films with dance sequences, yay! Of course I couldn’t have known that the film didn’t actually have any dance sequences in it, but I got recompensated with other fun scenes.
“Entr’acte” had some sort of story, but not really, and there was something overtly playful about this collage of scenes. Everything just looked so 1920’s style, reminding me of the fact that those times were amazingly fashion forward. It feels like European culture made a huge jump in these Weimarer Republik days, only to crumble again after the 1929 depression and the subsequent rise of fascism. So sad.

Emak Bakia
France 1926, Man Ray, 21’

Man Ray was another reason why I was interested in this short film collection. I have seen a lot of his works in museums before, and without really understanding them I was always fascinated by his sense of esthetics. Plus I liked that he dabbled both in film and photography when both arts were still rather young, and I find his works strangely timeless. Strangely, I don’t perceive “Emak Bakia” as a typical Man Ray work. I thought it was a lot of fun, but very similar to “Entr’acte” it’s not much more than fun film even though it made me laugh a few times.

Jeux des reflets et de la vitesse
France 1925, Henri Chomette, 6’

This little short was essentially a camera speeding through Paris – on the roads, in the metro, over the bridges onto the river going on and on. It was actually quite fast and head-spinning, and the 6 minutes felt like they were over way too quickly. It’s a fun, very simple little film and so so French.

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Berlinale 2014, Day 5 (Faust)

It’s Zeughauskino time again. After seeing “Tui Na” early in the morning, I spent the rest of the day at home and only went out to see “Faust” and the shorts from the Retrospective section at 7pm and 10pm respectively. Besides waking up way to early, that actually made my day quite pleasant with reasonably little stress. Shocking!

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Faust. Eine deutsche Volkssage
Germany 1926, Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau, 108’

In order to save people from dying from the pest, the old professor Faust makes a deal with the devil. But after the devil turns him into a young man, he discovers his libido and seduces rich women. One day, he falls in love with Gretchen, your generic innocent, pious country girl, which he pursues and subsequently impregnates. Gretchen gives birth to a baby who freezes to death, after which she is condemned to die, and it is only then that Faust realizes what he has done.
Death count: 4.

I have to confess something here: It’s been 10 years since I read Goethe’s “Faust I” (I never finished “Faust II”), on which the film is based on, and I must have forgotten large parts of it. Back, the story in Goethe’s “Faust” seemed meaningful to me and I thought touched upon existential questions, but it seems that I barely remembered what happened. I used to really like Gretchen’s character, the way she spoke to Faust and I thought her love for him had something exemplary, almost allegorical. When I saw the film, however, most of the storyline drawn from Goethe’s “Faust” seemed almost dumb to me. It almost made no sense to me how obsessed Faust was with his youth when he started out as the wise professor, and I don’t know why I had the impression that Faust was dealing with an existential problem when he’s just acting upon his lust for Gretchen. Even in Gounod’s “Faust” version, Faust and Marguerite’s love made more sense to me. Perhaps this is all due to the fact that this is a silent film without all that much dialogue. When you don’t know what actually goes on in Faust’s mind, not only does it seem unbelievable how he turns from good old professor to delinquent youngster, but Faust and Gretchen’s relationship also get reduced to something very physical and superficial looking.
With that said, I especially hated the way that baby died, incidentally a deviation from Goethe’s “Faust” in which she drowns her baby on purpose. For Goethe, Gretchen actually becomes crazy and actively kills the child; in Murnau’s version, she is a terribly pitiful person who begs people to save her dying baby and then hallucinates in an long, drawn-out tearjerking scene. Ugh.

Apart from that, Murnau’s directing is so incredibly awesome. I loved the first part of the film to pieces, essentially everything before Faust meets Gretchen. Much like in “Der letzte Mann”, the dark atmosphere in this first part is splendid, and I strongly doubt there are many directors out there who can use images in such an intense way as Murnau does. Just for those images, it was worth seeing this film, and it perfectly makes sense to me why “Faust” is perceived as a classic.

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Berlinale 2014, Day 5 (Tui Na)

After years of not having been there, I finally saw the Friedrichstadt-Palast from the inside again. Last time I was probably a little girl, accompanying my parents to see a regular show there. The interior is pretty much exactly what I expected – kind of dark and outdated looking, with many many inconvenient seats at terrible angles at the screen.

The good about seeing “Tui Na” in the morning is that not so many people were there, and I got a pretty good seat. On the last day, 45 minutes before screening there were huge lines going all the way down the stairs because people knew how early you had to get there to catch the few reasonable seats. However, I sat further to the side twice (for “Chiisai Ouchi” and “La belle et la bete”) and I didn’t think it was that bad – both films were suspenseful enough for me to ignore the bad angle.

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Tui Na
China/France 2014, Lou Ye, 114’

Xiao Ma was in a car accident which killed his mother and made him blind. When he grew older, he attended a school for blind children and got educated in doing massages. Shortly after, he joins a massage practice run almost entirely by blind people and falls in love with another colleague’s fiancé. A complicated love polygon with many, many sides ensues.
Death count: I forgot, but I think it was 0.

To be honest, “Tui Na” is perhaps the hardest title to blog right after “Calvary”. There are few films in the entire festival that I wanted to love more than this one, yet it is one of the hardest to love.

First of all, I must mention that I loved “Suzhou River” to pieces. On a superficial level, the two films seem to have nothing in common, but if you think about it, both are about rather obsessive relationships. Strangely enough, however, “Tui Na”’s strength does not lie in these relationships (it’s a pretty generic A and B are a couple, C is in love with B, D is in love with C, E is in love with D story), but rather in the unique choice of blind characters. Everybody of relevance in the film is blind, and the film contemplates the consequences of being blind with a certain thoughtfulness. The voice-over says a lot of somewhat philosophical things about being blind, and while it sounded like ramblings at times, I got the impression that much of it actually made sense. In the story itself, we see many aspects of these blind people’s daily lives and their struggles with the world full of people who can see. We are dealing with a protagonist who tries to kill himself over his blindness at the beginning of the film, and never laughs until the end where his laughing face is the last shot of the film. I thought it was a cute way to show that he was finally able to find happiness, which brings me to the cinematography. I understand why the cinematography of the film received a Silver Bear for it, because it is certainly unique and made a big impression on me. However, I am not sure what this particular cinematography is trying to transmit, artful as it may be. Essentially, we often see shots in which filters and other methods are used to make our vision of the world blurry or generally difficult to see. But that looks nothing like what a blind person sees, right? Even someone whose vision is very bad most likely sees the world differently than what this camera work suggests. So the cinematography can only be understood as figurative at best, and I thought that was rather odd because everything else in the film is rather literal.

The bold choice to make a movie about blind people, and treat their condition with seriousness, is one which I applaud, hence my desire to love the film. But then there is the story itself, and I couldn’t quite get behind it. The character’s feelings seem unmotivated even when keeping in mind that love doesn’t really make sense, most of them had no chemistry with each other whatsoever I had a hard time getting into the characters and caring for them in any other way besides feeling a certain degree of pity. Furthermore, did the main character really have to get saved by a prostitute? Judging from “Suzhou River”, this seems to be an idea the director really likes – the prostitute as an angel. Finally, the worst aspect of the film – and here it seriously bothered me – were those gratuitous sex scenes. You can make a decent love story without all that provocative panting disguised as passionate love, but Chinese directors these days seem to think they are not cool unless they put in some graphic sex.

All in all, I thought “Tui Na” was worthwhile to see, and definitely gives a fresh perspective on the art of film-making and draws attention to an unusual topic. But it may not have been the most enjoyable story to watch in the world.

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Berlinale 2014, Day 4 (Akibiyori)

I am glad that Shii was able to start and end his Berlinale with the best and second-best film he saw respectively. It was unfortunate that we couldn’t see “Aimer, boire et chanter”, but in the end, “Akibiyori” was a very good substitute.

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Akibiyori (Late Autumn)
Japan 1960, Yasujirou Ozu, 129’

At the funeral of Akiko’s husband, the friends of the deceased decide that they want to help her 24-year old daughter Ayako to get married. However, Ayako refuses to get married because she does not want to leave her single mother alone. So the friends make a ploy to have Akiko marry to one of the friends as well.
Death count: 0.

“Akibiyori” is the fourth color film by Ozu I have seen (besides Floating Weeds, Ohayo and An Autumn Afternoon). He didn’t make very many of them, but incidentally I saw more color films of his than black and whites (namely the older Floating Weeds and Tokyo Monogatari) and so far, I think that I prefer late Ozu by far. Somehow I think that color totally helps Ozu’s esthetics, the colors are rich and beautiful and enhance the splendor of the interior he designs.

The story of “Akibiyori” is Ozu’s favorite topic – a daughter who does not want to marry out of concern for her widowed parent. It was the same in “An Autumn Afternoon”, and I know that “Late Spring” is another one of these. I have to admit that I am obsessed with the concept too. I even liked “35 Rums” for its subtle Ozu homage, but I don’t really know why that is. There is something very artificial about this story, just like how the immensely clean and proper Ozu world is somewhat artificial too. But I just love it so much? Ozu’s late films always make me want to live in his world – the colors are beautiful and the characters have this very posed way of dealing with each other. I don’t even mind his sexist jokes (they are what I call Altherrenwitze (old man jokes) and I kind of enjoy them when they are harmless) in comparison to his younger films in which I perceived Ozu as outright misogynist. But late Ozu has a certain lovable self-indulgence and wisdom, an adoration for subtle feelings and tradition which I can totally get behind. The mizuwaris, the sake, the sushi, the polite speech – late Ozu is the pinnacle of romantic Japaneseness, and I am in love with those visuals.

The only aspect I really hated about the film, incidentally, is Setsuko Hara. Now I realize it was her who ruined “Tokyo Monogatari” for me, she just has this incredible punch-me face. Her over-the-top Japanese politeness is unbearable to me, whenever she says something it makes me want to throw up and her smile is just terrifying. Luckily, she was not the only character in the film but only one amongst many lovable ones. Sushi girl is the best! Her lovable, fierce character compensates whatever Setsuko Hara is destroying in the film.
With that said, the biggest surprise to me was how many actors from “Doshaburi” showed up in this movie! Like… 4 people at least? I am counting Yuriko, one of the wives, one of the daughters and of course Ayako’s love interest. It shows how versatile a lot of these actors are, and they really were brilliant.

When I realized that Ozu made two more color films, “Equinox Flower” and “The End of Summer” (these seasonal titles in the English translation for Ozu films is horrible… it makes them sound like they are all the same?) I totally want to see them now, even if they have Setsuko Hara in them. :D

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Berlinale 2014, Day 4 (Mo Jing)

The last two films of the day were chosen by Shii. To be honest I was surprised that he chose “Mo Jing”, and in the end it turned out to be a very classic Hongkong film, a very good example of its genre. As a result, most people in the audience did not seem to like the film very much and they flocked out the movie theater after the film was over. Or maybe everybody was just hungry and needed to get food before the next film started, like us.

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Mo Jing (That Demon Within)
Hongkong/China 2014, Dante Lam, 112’

Dave is a nice police officer who leads a simple life when decides to give blood to a wounded man who comes into emergency. It turns out that the guy is one of the most brutal gang leaders in Hongkong, having robbed and killed multiple policemen. While Dave tries to grapple with what he did, he sets out to destroy the gang by himself, but in the process, his dark past is slowly being revealed.
Death count: Many.

Like I said, everything in the story is pretty much standard Hongkong thriller fare, including the end which conveniently explains everything. In the credits at the beginning, there is a “choreography” and a “car choreography” entry. That made me expect big car crashes in the film until at the very end, it finally delivered. Boy, that car crashing into the gas station scene was quite impressive. Drawing upon a long tradition of Hongkong action movies, that scene’s visual splendor is far superior than your average Hollywood action flick’s. Story-wise, I thought “Mo Jing” was rather intricate, the revelations in the film happen slowly and as confusing as it may have seemed at first, everything in the film contributes to its dramatic ending, with a final flashback explaining what actually happened in Dave’s past. I even loved that last scene of the film, in which we see Dave helping out an old woman… it may all be a genre cliché, but within the genre it’s very well done.

“Mo Jing” is definitely a film that cannot be explained, only seen. There is so much going on, but none of it is particularly meaningful. It’s just a feast for the eyes and a suspenseful story, really. Much more than your average Asian film, “Mo Jing” necessitates a certain familiarity with Hongkong films to make sense, and you would only like it if you liked the genre in the first place. It’s like watching a film noir or a Western – when you are dealing with a genre, you have to be into the genre’s rules, even if you don’t take them seriously.

Originally, I was interested in the film because of Daniel Wu. I had seen him in “Europa Report” before, in which I thought he was terrible. But he is a big name actor and so I wanted to see something else to verify. Or maybe I am just into his pretty face. Well, in this main role as Dave, I thought he was absolutely brilliant and totally believable. Perhaps there’s just something wrong with “Europa Report” – every actor in the film seemed terrible, which is surprising because Anamaria Marinca was amazing in “4 months, 3 weeks and 2 days”, Sharlto Copley was great in “District 9” and Christian Camargo was quite good as the Ice-Truck Killer in “Dexter”. So yes, I would definitely want to see movies with Daniel Wu again. At least “Mo Jing” was very satisfying.

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Berlinale 2014, Day 4 (Ninjo kamifusen)

The little one is sleeping, and so I am trying to write a few more Berlinale postings. I want to take these reviews seriously, but I have the distinct fear that it will take me another month to finish them all. There are 20 more to go after all.

Day 4 was Shii’s last Berlinale day, and that is unfortunate because he missed out on quite a few masterpieces. However, generally I would say that the first 4 days had a higher ratio of good movies as opposed to disappointments, of which there really were only two: “We come as friends” and “Ninjo kamifusen”.

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Ninjo kamifusen (Humanity and Paper Balloon)
Japan 1937, Sadao Yamanaka, 86′

Setting: A ghetto in Tokyo. Mori, an evil samurai, forces the daughter of a pawn shop owner into marriage with a man she does not love. At the same time, he tries to get rid of the barber Shinza who is secretly organizing casino games at his place. In order to humiliate him, Shinza kidnaps the girl with the help of his neighbor, who is living in poverty and who has been trying to get Mori’s help in vain.
Death count: 5.

I wasn’t really interested in the story in the first place. I am not a big fan of stories set in the samurai times, both from an optical standpoint (boy those outfits are ugly) and when it comes to characters and stories (I just don’t care for samurai, or prostitutes, or yakuza). But this film fit into our schedule well, and there wasn’t really anything else to see at this time slot. For some reason, I was also drawn to the title of the film – “Humanity and paper balloon” sounds like a great movie, no?

While the paper balloons featured in the film are beautiful and make for a nice mood shot at the end, I didn’t see much “humanity” in the film. In my book, everybody in the film was acting like an idiot, Shinza, that neighbor, the pawnshop’s daughter… were they all having a death wish? Besides a few nice touches, the camera work is mostly shoddy, the quality of the acting is sub-par and the story took a turn to the worse with that kidnapping. It’s even impossible to feel sorry for the characters because I always feel like they could just have acted differently.

To be honest this film made me a little scared of old Japanese films. Perhaps only the great masters used to make good movies after all.

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Berlinale 2014, Day 3 (Ship bun)

All in all, this day 3 was the best day of the Berlinale. I would like to say it was the best by far, but since “The Midnight After” is so amazing, this day is only a little bit ahead. Except for “Calvary”, all of our day 3 films are rather unknown titles, and boy are they awesome and underrated. The better a film is, the more it is difficult to blog about it because of the immense pressure to do the film justice. It’s especially hard for “Ship bun”.

At first, the screening of “Ship bun” did not start in a very promising matter. There were some technical issues delaying the beginning of the screening, which is not nice at a 10pm time slot. Then they made the director give a speech to bridge the waiting time, the film being his first feature film right after graduation you can imagine how awkward and terrible the speech was.

With that said, I want an accreditation and a job in which I can watch as many movies as Mr. Förster here. Even if you only count the new films only, there are 60 of them on this list, so that’s 6 movies per day. O.o Even so, he hasn’t seen “We come as friends”, nor “Tui na”, nor “Arrete ou je continue”, nor “Velvet terrorists”, nor “Praia do futuro”, nor “Nymphomaniac” – the Berlinale just has way too many movies. From my day 3 films, he’s only seen “Ship bun” and didn’t like it. Strange. Maybe he’s too old to understand Generation Praktikum’s struggle with getting a proper job?

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Ship bun (10 Minutes)
South Korea 2013, Lee Young-seung, 93’

Ho-chan is studying to become a program director for TV, which in Korea has a three-stage examination process for most entertainment companies. He is rather seriously minded and aims to produce educational and meaningful content. Unfortunately, as the oldest son in his family, he also has to take care of his younger brother in school, a mother who gets herself into debt and a father who is jobless. To that end, he starts an internship at a public service office and quickly gets an offer to become full-time due to his diligent nature. However, things go awry when someone else gets the job instead and his work life becomes hell.
Death count: 0.

Both Pixelmatsch and Shii wanted to see this film, and I thought it was the most promising sounding South Korean entry this year. Even so, the film absolutely exceeded my expectations. Rarely have I seen a film with so much truth. It hit home more than any other film I have ever seen at a Berlinale, and that is amazing because it’s not a love story and we all know love stories are my life. So many young people start out with dreams but then end up in a hellish office, so many are stuck in internships in which they have to do everything but never get acclaimed for their good work but blamed for mistakes. Shii aptly observed that there are few films on normal people’s workplace drama, and luckily this rare gem does justice to its topic masterfully The film subtly shows the shift of Ho-chan’s co-workers from nice but silly colleagues who want to help him to betraying bitches who humiliate him to save themselves. In fact, while Ho-chan doesn’t have much choice in what he does, the depiction of the colleagues really make the film interesting. While they are by no means likable people, you can easily see that they are not bullying for fun or just for the sake of it, but they actually try to do things in what they think is the right way and all they want is to save their own positions – at the expense of others. It’s despicable because it’s so human.

If you can read German and are OK with being spoilered, this is a surprisingly good review on the film. Most notably, I thought the analysis of the film’s cinematography was totally spot-on. Indeed the film mostly uses very sparing effects or rather almost no effects at all, but that completely changes at the very end, when Ho-chan makes the decision to quit. Ever since that crucial moment until the open end of the film, Lee Young-seung uses over-dramatized, almost action-movie-like camera angles and slow motion shots, suggesting that Ho-chan’s opinion on this place has changed for good. In my interpretation, I take this as a sign that he is leaving the place for good. The only aspect I do not agree with the review is the reference to the Berliner Schule – in my book, “Ship bun” is nothing like it, and it’s not like the Berliner Schule monopolizes scarce camera effects. I have doubts that Lee Young-seung even knows about the Berliner Schule, it seems like a purely German thing without much international impact.

I came out of the film thinking: “Thank goodness I don’t have to work in an environment like that anymore”. But for most people my age, this is reality, and that makes this movie so awesome. I will definitely follow what Lee Young-seung does in the future.

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Berlinale 2014, Day 3 (Calvary)

This movie was something special. Originally, I completely overlooked this film. Without Shii, I would never have realized that this was the new McDonagh. Then, we arrived way too late at the Zoo Palast to get tickets for this film, but then Pixelmatsch randomly realized that there was another open ticket booth with virtually no line. And thus, we saw the international premiere of “Calvary”.

The director was present, and was made to go onto the stage, so he said: “It’s boring to listen to a director talking about his movie for 5 minutes. I think it’s a good movie, and I hope you do too. Enjoy.” Actually his first comment about the huge Zoo Palast theater was “I love these curtains. These are the best curtains I’ve ever had. They’re like Vincente Minnelli curtains.” Brendan Gleeson was also there and virtually refused to say anything about the film at all. He sat in the front row of the second part of the theater, and I mustered up my courage to walk to him to ask for an autograph. According to Shii and Pixelmatsch, the whole audience behind us was staring at me while I did that… uh oh.

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It says: To Felicia, Best wishes, B… G…

To be honest, this was my first autograph experience ever, and such a brazen one since it was not an autograph session, instead I probably surprised the poor guy with it. He looked quite grumpy (not just towards me but the entire time, in fact) and I got quite giddy when he looked me in the eye saying things like “What’s your name?” before writing a dedication into the copy of “The Master and Margarita” that I handed to him. A part of my brain melted and I acted like a 14-year-old, which surprised me; despite my adoration for Mr. Gleeson and his work, he’s an old man and not exactly “my type”. So my reaction was a little intense. What would have happened if I had asked Wagner Moura for an autograph instead? Would I have dripped from between my legs? *insert sarcastic smile here*

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Calvary
Ireland/UK 2014, John Michael McDonagh, 100’

James is a Catholic priest in a small Irish town by the sea. One day, a regular of his church comes to confession and declares that he had been repeatedly raped by a priest when he was 7 years old. In order to seek revenge, he will kill a good priest, namely Father James, and announces that he will leave him a week to sort out his life. Over the course of these seven days, we see how James interacts with the villagers as well as his daughter who comes to visit from Dublin, while he contemplates what to do with the death threat.
Death count: 2, plus 1 dog.

Before the film, the announcing lady mentioned how “The Guard” was a Panorama success when it premiered at the Berlinale. After the film, McDonagh commented how “Calvary” was totally not “The Guard”, but he hoped that was alright. Well, in essence, “Calvary” is about the exact opposite of “The Guard”. The former is a tragedy with comedic undertones featuring a gloomy but serious and good-hearted Brendan Gleeson character, the latter is a comedy with sad undertones featuring a jovial and cynical Brendan Gleeson character. “The Guard” is a crowd pleaser and money maker, while “Calvary” looks like a very meaningful, personal work which the director has probably thought about a whole lot. Shii always says that I need to stop comparing works of a director with his previous works, but I can’t help it, especially when these strong opposites between “The Guard” and “Calvary” call for it. As a result, despite having read the Berlinale description of the film beforehand, I was surprised at how different it really was.

To be honest, the longer I watched the film, the more I was confused. I loved its humor, which was much like “The Guard” and “In Bruges” (and gives me the impression that the McDonagh brothers share many, many insider jokes together), but I was rather confused by the characters. Why was everybody so hateful and mean? Why did the main character care about them? Why did he never get anything done and open up to his daughter for instance? Why did he not just run away? Why was there so much despair in the film in the first place? What for? Well, it didn’t take me long to understand it because both Shii and Pixelmatsch were quick to explain it. Perhaps I just have a hard time understanding the social structures in small villages, always having lived in rather anonymous cities, and I especially do not have anything like a church in my life, where people turn to the church with their life problems. In fact, it was totally lost on me that James’s goal in life was to help people, and that the villagers just didn’t want to be helped.

The premise – a man seeks revenge by killing another innocent man – is rather absurd if you think about it, because it is not likely to happen in real life, yet it feels real and human, which in turn makes the film one a hypothetical comment on humanity. A big part of it is about how people view the Catholic church, but more generally, the film contemplates faith itself through questions on life and death, and of course I loved that. I was touched by how personal this film felt, and how intensely it was written and acted out.

It was also great to see this mix of actors we kind of see here and there: Brendan Gleeson is the only old McDonagh actor, I knew Aidan Gillen from Game of Thrones (of course), Chris O’Dowd from Bridesmaids, Kelly Reilly from Sherlock Holmes and Isaach de Bankolé from a bunch of films.
Did I ever mention that I love “Aidan” as a name but it annoys me that the name is a current fad?

Even without having anything to do with the Catholic church, I loved the film to pieces. And that was certainly not due to Brendan Gleeson’s autograph although that certainly enhanced the experience.

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Berlinale 2014, Day 3 (Einstein and Einstein)

The Generation i.e. children’s section of the Berlinale is so worthwhile because they are only 4 euros (and 2 euros when you have a student ID or something else that gives you half price). Last Berlinale, we also saw a Generation film (Mary and Max) and it was so great that I saw the film again at some point. This year, it seems that we are also following the tradition of seeing one marvelous Generation film.

drrt

Einstein and Einstein
China 2013, Cao Baoping, 119’

Li Wan (her given name is the sign for “play”) is a rather introspective girl who talks about parallel universes and astrophysics all day. She even draws her life philosophy out of this theory – if a parallel universe exists in which we do the opposite thing of what we did, then there is no reason to regret any decision we have made. She lives with her grandparents because her father re-married and essentially cannot be bothered with raising her. Her entire family even hides from her that her stepmother gave birth to a little brother. When her father gives her a puppy to appease her, she responds angrily at this display of bought love. Over time, she gets close to the dog and names him Einstein. Then Einstein disappears, and that event reveals Wan’s frustration of being neglected by her family.
Death count: 1 dog.

“Einstein and Einstein” is a brilliant tale of abuse. Everything depicted in the film is true, and almost everything they do in that family looks exactly the same in mine (with the difference that Li Wan’s family is horribly low class). The most poignant scene was the one with the father’s boss, who is spouting the biggest nonsense in the world and calls Hawking’s books “child’s play”, but because he is the boss, everybody just sits there and nods or even praise his utterings. These nonsensical, seemingly wise but actually empty aphorisms are the pinnacle of the depravity of Chinese culture, and I heard them throughout my childhood over and over again.

Just for its incredible realism, “Einstein and Einstein” deserves more attention than it gets. Even the topic itself – gender roles in China – is an unusual one and its problem manifest themselves only subtly, as it is shown in this film. The only thing I did not quite like about the film was the way it ended. All of a sudden, Wan is depicted as this genius kid who is able to win province-wide competitions. The “main character is a genius” trope kind of ruined the story of Wan as one which could have happened to any girl in China. The truth is that most girls in China experience something like that, but not everyone is able to get out of it like Wan did at the end of the film.
It may be of interest to note that I have never experienced any sort of neglect, or been subjected to your average girl’s upbringing. But my parents made a point saying that they raised me “like a boy”, as if only boys deserve to be the center of attention and are allowed to seek self-fulfillment and speak out their minds.

The director of “The equation of love and death” made another great film, and I will certainly continue to monitor what he does.