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Berlinale 2017, Day 9 (Ciao Ciao)

I had one hour to get from “gog” to “Ciao Ciao” and afterwards I had to run home to attend a family outing, so this was a pretty stressful day up to that point. Thankfully the rest of the evening was nice (and had good food unlike the Saturday before) so this was actually the most pleasant of the social obligations I had to attend during this Berlinale.

drrt

Ciao Ciao
China/France 2017, Song Chuan, 83′

After returning to her Yunnan hometown from Guangzhou, Ciao Ciao gets stuck in a marriage that quickly bores her while she gets close to hairdresser who claims to be from Guangzhou.

OK let’s get over this quickly. This was the worst movie I have seen this Berlinale, and it may in fact be the worst movie I have seen in all Berlinales I have ever attended. I could tell that the film would piss me off since the first 30 seconds, when you saw an overly saturated landscape (so green that it hurt your eyes, and the exact opposite of the pretty green you see in “Mushishi” or, to keep it within the Berlinale, “Honeygiver among the dogs”) accompanied by amazingly terrible Chinese techno music.

The techno music was present throughout the story, and so was the terribleness. The characters are stupid, their actions are inexplicable, their sex scenes cringe-worthy almost to the point of disgustingness and the storyline is absolutely unengaging. The dialogue contains tidbits like “if you love me, you have to give me big gifts, that’s what a man is supposed to do”, and portrays a despicable lower farming class. If I were a farmer in Yunnan, I’d be utterly pissed at how I was being represented in this film: lazy, greedy, treacherous and sex-crazed.

Loris was more forgiving towards “Ciao Ciao” and essentially said that he didn’t get the film, but in my opinion that the film was just so crappy that whatever was incomprehensible about it (like the characters’s motives) was due to the fact that the film failed to make sense. If anything the film serves as a reminder that the bad Chinese films are out there, and how infuriatingly bad they are.

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Berlinale 2017, Day 4 (Call me by your name)

Like most people I know who go to the Berlinale, I avoid the gay movies. Of course I make conscious exceptions like I did for “Love is Strange” (largely because I am into Alfred Molina and John Lithgow and liked the premise a lot), but when it comes to the Berlinale the genre is famously oversaturated so the likelihood of stumbling upon something great (like “Weekend”, in my mind perhaps the greatest gay film ever) is so small that I usually wouldn’t run the risk.

In this case, I completely failed to realize that this is a gay movie. (Can you believe it?) I thought “oh there is a new movie by the director of ‘I am love’ and I have not seen an Italian film in awhile”, and that was enough for me to choose this film without looking at the synopsis too closely.

It was also the first time I saw a late screening at this year’s Berlinale, and the first thing I noticed about the film was that it managed to keep me awake even though I felt really, really tired. Even though I was at the premiere of the film, I couldn’t be bothered to stay for the Q&A afterwards.

drrt

Call me by your name
Italy/France 2017, Luca Guadagnino, 132′

Every year, Elio’s family takes in a young archaeological researcher at their summer villa to stay with them and to help Elio’s father with his research. This year, the visitor is a charming and exceeding good-looking American who first confuses Elio, but slowly they realize their feelings for each other.

It’s difficult not to compare the film with “I am love”, so I will unashamedly do so. What struck me the most was how incredibly unusual “I am love” is as a film, and how straight-forward the love story plot in “Call me by your name” is compared to it. How can a director who cooks up some of the most unusual stories make another movie about something so trivial? Not that it is necessarily a bad thing – boy meets girl (in this case boy meets boy) can be nice and interesting – but I just expected otherwise from this director. I was especially into the family relationships in “I am love”, which I felt was sorely missing here. All the other characters just served as supporting cast to the main characters’s relationship. Literally supporting in fact.

That was another thing that surprised me a little – the relationship has absolutely no challenges outside of itself. That can be nice too, but in this case the parents and girlfriends (!) seemed over the top helpful. The parents freely discuss their son’s relationship: “Oh our 17 year old son’s boyfriend is leaving and he will be heart-broken so why don’t we send them on a short city trip so they can intensify their feelings further before he leaves?” The girlfriend Elio toys with and essentially dumps by not talking to her for 3 days says stuff like “I don’t want to get involved with you. I have a sense that you will hurt me and I don’t want to be hurt” prior to entering a relationship with him anyways (of course), but after getting dumped and after Oliver leaves, she (almost literally) says this to Elio: “I heard about Oliver leaving, and I’m sorry that you are sad. It’s alright, I am not angry at you, I really am not. Can we still be friends? I love you, Elio.” What the heck?

If one accepts that “Call me by your name” is the ultimate gay high society utopia, the film can be thoroughly entertaining (as I hinted before, I did not fall asleep during it) precisely because everything was so utopic and idyllic. Just like “Love is strange” (and also like “I am love”) the characters live in this perfect world of thoughtful intellectuals in which they have a scrumptious breakfast in their Italian garden, with fresh orange (or other) juice, croissants and fruits from their orchard. When the father and Oliver talk about their archaelogical research (and claim that those ancient sculptures of males were erotic), the mother comes in with more freshly squeezed juice in a jug and pretty cups on a tablet. Their cook makes the most delicious looking foods, and they all casually switch between their three languages within any conversation (French, Italian, English). Oh and they are Jews too!

I was amused to see that Louis Garrel’s sister is somehow just completely normal-looking, much like Chiara Mastroianni. The girls in the film are all comparably average-looking, whereas the main characters look more like of a combination of Shii and Louis Garrel himself (Elio), and Don Draper in blonde (Oliver). Alfred Molina and John Lithgow make for a more realistic couple in “Love is strange”, but as I said, you just have to accept the utopia “Call me by your name” lives in, and then the film becomes a fun escapist fantasy. (OK, the sex scenes were boring. At some point 2/3 into the film, the physical aspect of their relationship became important and I yawned throughout it pretty heavily.)

Oh, I also like the gimmick with the title (which I completely failed to realize until it was shown at the end of the film). It’s cute, and it reminded me of “You’re ugly 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 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 2014, Day 10 (Nymphomaniac, Vol. 1)

A month after the Berlinale started, I am finally blogging about the last film. I had a feeling this would happen and I was a little afraid about it. Luckily I have a very vivid memory of “Nymphomaniac, Vol. 1” which ended up making quite an impact on me, I think.

Fittingly for the Berlinale, we were in the Berlinale Palast for the last film, sitting upstairs in the first row in the very middle. Lucky! As you can imagine, it actually provided a great view onto the screen and considering that the film was almost 2 1/2 hours long, this definitely helped.

drrt

Nymphomaniac, Vol. 1 (long version)
Denmark/Germany/France/Belgium/Sweden 2013, Lars von Trier, 145’

On his way home, the old bachelor Seligman finds a woman beaten up and brings her to his home. When she gets better, she tells him the story of her life and how she became a nymphomaniac, as she diagnoses herself. Volume 1 covers the first five chapters, which detail her youth in which she competes with her best friend about who can get the most men to sleep with them; her first meeting with Jerome, the love of her life, an incident; her father’s death and finally how she meets Jerome again.
Death count: 1.

I read up on what happens in part 2, and I’m not liking it, especially the parts concerning Seligman. However, I haven’t seen it and if I see it I may change my mind, we’ll see. Here, we only saw the first part, and I have to say, I liked it. If you look beyond those explicit sex scenes (yeah yeah, they’re provocative etc., get over it, there’s not even that many of them), the characters in the story make a lot of sense. I don’t think Joe’s character is very common or typical or even “human”, if you want, but she must be seen as an individual. Most people in this world are not nymphomaniacs or anything like her, but her character is well-fleshed out, and so it is possible to relate to her. As somebody who is almost uncontrollably obsessed with sex and who seems to have an incredibly built-in desire for it, she is quite aware of what she is doing and what it means. The story is detailed as one in which she made her own choices – she may not have been very good at controlling her desires, but she had full control of her actions. My favorite part was the one with the crazy wife who intrudes into her life with her children and goes on a crying rampage. It was so damn realistic and I loved how Joe ends the story with the fact that it did not faze her emotionally at all. That part was just so fascinatingly realistic, and shows in a striking fashion what consequences her actions have on other people. The matter-of-fact way she talks about her “sins” is nice because honestly, if there is something people are usually absolutely cold about, it’s what happens to other people who sleep with the same person as you, most often those husbands or wives. It’s not even that psychopathic of her, it’s perfectly normal if we were honest about it. I think I am usually a rather compassionate person, but if some guy’s wife did that in my apartment, the only thing I would want to say to that would be “Get out.”
The realism and the subtle feminism (quite typical for Lars von Trier) are this film’s best aspects really. People are getting it wrong, he doesn’t hate women, he loves them.

My second favorite part of the story was the last one, in which she compares her lovers to different voices of an organ. One of them is Jerome, the love of her life. The film’s main quote is probably “The secret ingredient to sex is love”, but even though Jerome may be the only man amongst whom she loves, he is still only one of them, only a part of the “big picture”. It reminded me of analyses of the Don Juan character who I was extremely fascinated with when I was younger, and she is something like a reverse Don Juan with a psychology just as complex.

I really enjoyed seeing Stellan Skarsgard after “Kraftidioten”, especially since he is in such a different role here. Charlotte Gainsbourg not so much, but I don’t think there is any film in this world which could make me feel better about her. Her adoration of Lars von Trier’s dark side also creeps me out.

After disliking “Antichrist” and dropping “Melancholia” like 10 minutes into the film, I had surprisingly high expectations for “Nymphomaniac”, perhaps because of its premise and because I enjoy Lars von Trier’s provocations. I enjoyed the film and thought that it was rather interesting in the way it handled its heroine. At least in parts, Lars von Trier is in parts regaining the depths he has shown in his older films, like “Dogville” and “Idioterne”, and I am glad that he finally did after almost 10 years of dabbling when only his comedies (“Occupations” and “The boss of it all”) were good.

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Berlinale 2014, Day 10 (La belle et a bete)

My original plan was to see this film and Cocteau’s “La belle et la bête” in direct comparison, both of which were shown at the Berlinale. I had scheduled for Cocteau’s version too but then ended up not seeing it. I don’t really feel as motivated to watch easily available old films at the Berlinale, especially when it’s not a silent film with live piano. But since I already had tickets for the newer film, I couldn’t let it go to waste.

drrt

La belle et la bête
France/Germany 2014, Christophe Gans, 112′

Belle’s father is an impoverished merchant with six children to take care of and but only one responsible child, Belle herself. The rest are troublemakers or comic relief. With some variations to the classical Beauty and the Beast tale, Belle starts living at the castle of the Beast after her father takes a rose from his garden, and slowly comes to love the Beast, ultimately saving him.
Death count: As many as there were in the group of thugs, plus a forest spirit.

I have never really understood why people are so into Léa Seydoux. I think she is pretty but she’s just not my type. Other than that, she also doesn’t strike me as a great actress and kind of reminds me of Mia Wasikowska in that respect. That is unfortunate, I think the film would have been quite different with, say, Virginie Ledoyen as the main character.

The film’s biggest appeal is definitely its looks. The scenes in and around the castle are of almost unparalleled beauty, with a clear nod to the Lord of the Rings franchise. Personally, I prefer its fairytale style over the Lord of the Rings, and that means something. It’s just so damn pretty. Belle’s dresses are similarly awesome and prettier than anything Tim Burton has ever designed. The story is fine (apart from the part with the princess) and can be described as lovely most of the time. The biggest problem probably lies with the source material itself – it’s all about Stockholm Syndrome after all. I felt a little uncomfortable when I realized that the women in the story more or less sell their body to men in order to get what they want (“I will dance with you if you let me see my family”, “If you give me a son, I will do as you ask and stop hunting”), which not only means that they are engaging in some sort of prostitution but that in this story, women are ultimately powerless apart from their beauty. That makes this film a little questionable to show to little children (but so does Tim Burton’s “Alice in Wonderland” for its glory to colonization ending).

In the end, I had a lot of fun watching the film and reveled in the pretty visuals and fun action effects. I just wouldn’t recommend the film, and I think that the money spent on the film would have been better somewhere else. Film-makers especially in French cinema need to stop rehashing old, out-dated stories over and over again.

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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.

drrt

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.

drrt

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 (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.

drrt

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 2 (We come as friends)

Today I have been to the Haus der Berliner Festspiele for the very first time. While it looks rather lovely from the outside, with the Berlinale decoration and all, the venue itself is just incredibly ugly and you are damned to neck pain for most seats. It’s almost as bad as the Friedrichstadtpalast, where the problem is a different one – most seats are too far to the side. After this one time, we actively avoided this venue and if possible, I would like to never return.

drrt

We come as friends
France/Austria 2013, Hubert Sauper, 109′

Hubert Sauper makes a documentary on South Sudan, mostly depicting how the world’s bigger forces such as China and the US are colonizing the country in a modern way while at the same time large parts of the population are suffering under malnutrition and soiled water sources.
Death count: Uncountable.

Shii and Pixelmatsch predicted that the film may be the worst one we would be seeing at the Berlinale. To be honest, I knew from the beginning that this would not be the case for me. This is not because I liked the film so much, but rather that the film managed to do what it should – transport information on the political situation in South Sudan and provoke my ire against its colonizers. Especially the part with the American missionaries was positively painful. When they call South Sudan “New Texas” and say “oh yeah, they didn’t like it when we took the land and put a fence around it, but at some point they got over it”, I wanted to throw up and trash the seats around me. In certain parts, the film is pushing all the right buttons with me, and I think that has some merit.

On the other hand, “We come as friends” is just so, so superficial. For the most part, it’s essentially a ploy from the French and Austrian governments to say: “Look at the US and China and how evil they are. They are colonizing African countries like we did 100 years ago!” Hey, France, the war in Algeria was merely 50 years ago. A lot of people involved with it are still alive, but somehow it’s fine to point the finger to others now. The other thing that bothered me with the film was how the majority of the film was spent showing the atrocities the Chinese and Americans are committing, the ones by destroying their land with industrialization and the others by destroying their culture by forcing them to throw it away. But the film never shows this culture, and rarely even shows the people besides the traditional “Look at how poor they are and how primitive it all is” shots. There are some hints at a rich culture in Sudan, but the way the film almost brushes over them only creates pity but never respect with the Sudanese people. The film does not seem to depict them in a good manner, rather as these primitive, poor people who need help.

All in all, I thought the film was worthwhile. I have never cared much for what happens in Africa and know almost nothing, so the way the film analyzes modern colonialism was worth a look for me. Other than that, this is an unpleasantly politically loaded film where way too many people from the Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung were sitting in the audience wallowing in self-adulation.