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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 4 (Koza)

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

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

drrt

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Berlinale 2014, Day 6 (Velvet Terrorists)

We are back at the Delphi, and successfully purchased tickets like 20 minutes before the show started. We just couldn’t get there any earlier after “Nasake no hikari” was over. The movie theater was actually reasonable well filled, considering that the Delphi holds 1000 people. Ah, the Delphi… with “Ai no Mukidashi” we saw the best Berlinale film of all times here. Even though I always felt their organisation is pretty terrible, I generally like the theater. It’s beautiful and evokes memories of a wonderful movie, and the only Q&A where I have ever posed a question.

drrt

Zamatoví teroristi (Velvet Terrorists)
Slovak Republic/Czech Republic/Croatia 2013, Peter Kerekes/Pavol Pekarcík/Ivan Ostrochovsky, 87’

In this three-part film made by three directors, each director is following the lives of a former terrorist in the 80s while they talk about what happened at the time and reflect upon their terrorist acts. Stano tried to blow up a Communist party viewing platform out of a whim, and has been doing odd jobs after coming out of prison. In his free time, he likes to blow up things. He tries to date, and after a few humorous failed attempts finally meets a woman who seems to share no interest with him, but they find bonding moments anyways. Fero tried to kill the president of Czechoslovakia within a small, organized group. Having lost contact with his girlfriend at the time, he has since married and teaches his two sons how to make bombs and drive cars dangerously. When he tries to contact the past girlfriend again, she refuses to speak to him. Vladimir’s battle is still very much alive. He believes that the system today is just as rotten as it was back in the day, and takes a young female apprentice whom he gives military-style training, teaching her how to fire weapons and defending herself.
Death count: 0.

Personally, I thought the best part of the film is its humor. Of course I was interested in the stories and the characters and especially the past of these people, but what made the film so brilliant was definitely its humor. The most iconic element of the film is probably the cute little “pling” you hear every time there is an explosion (instead of the actual sound of the explosion). Apart from that, many comical scenes are interspersed throughout the film, showing the absurdity of both the characters and the socialist regime they were fighting against. What they do doesn’t always make sense, and the tale of their failed terrorist attempts mirrors their failures in life. With this combination of humor and political seriousness, the characters are portrayed as lovely losers, and as such they have a lot to show us.

The directors were at the screening, and there was a Q&A afterwards. Unfortunately the questions were pretty bad, and the answers seemed very awkward. The worst part was that the directors did not have an easy time answering the question “what is documentary and what is fiction in your film?” Honestly, I think it’s pretty easy to tell what is real and what is not. Everything that looks like scriptwriting, everything that is overtly funny, everything that is a “story” in the film is obviously scripted. Everything the people say, like what they think about their acts of terrorism etc. are obviously real life occurrences and real reactions. This combination actually makes the film really precious, because it’s executed so well. I don’t know why the directors couldn’t just say that, why they really wanted to stress how everything in the film was “true” – how all the dialogue was having people talk and run the camera, how their funny sound effect is related to something in real life. I didn’t want to hear that. I love a good mix between fiction and documentary, and this film executed such a concept wonderfully. Perhaps I should ignore what they say about their own film, and just enjoy the film itself.

Overall, “Velvet Terrorists” was a great surprise. It totally doesn’t take itself seriously, and I laughed multiple times during the screening. When I read about what the film would be about political terrorists talking about their past, I was afraid it might be one of those extremely boring political documentaries, but didn’t anticipate that it would be so funny. This was another great success in the Delphi!