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Berlinale 2017, Day 6 (Kurzfilme Kplus 1)

The event I have been anticipating for weeks is to attend a screening of the Berlinale with O. I saw that it’s recommended for 4 year olds (the only screening recommended for this young age group), and I was pleased to see that, of course, there would be plenty of overly eager parents with their 2 and 3 year olds. After 2 1/2 Berlinales of leaving O with my parents so I could attend the screenings, I am finally able to share the experience with him, yay!

We spent a very calm morning, took a nap from 10.30am to almost 1pm and got to the venue almost 45 minutes early. In fact, we were able to get in first and snatch two of those booster seat cushions such that Oskar’s head was almost at my height and he could see very well despite sitting in the comparably deeper (but very comfortable) special seats that you normally pay an additional fee for. The seats were so big that O asked “Have to put on your seat belt?”

It’s embarrassing to think about it, but when the Berlinale opening sequence was playing, I teared up, that is how much it meant to me that I am finally able to show the Berlinale to O. Ever since, O recognizes the Berlinale logo on all of my Berlinale bags…

As expected, O loved the experience. This was his first time in a cinema theater ever, and I was afraid he would be scared of the movie theater becoming very dark. I warned him beforehand and he saw that all the kids around him were not scared either, so it went very well. It helps that all the films were short, so even though there were some that he didn’t like as much (the second and the second to last) he was fine because he was anticipating the next story.

By the way, I ended up kicking out all other short film screenings from my Berlinale schedule this year because I somehow felt more like watching feature films this time. I saw a bunch of great short films with Shii in Uppsala, and I had doubts the Berlinale selection could surpass that.

After the film, we did not stay for the Q&A because O’s German is not good enough for him to understand and enjoy it, but we were able to get some postcards stamped with the adorable stamps by the same lady as 2015. O loved those stamps so much that he declared her film as his favorite – sounds like her marketing machine is working even better than I expected.

Later on, O was very excited all evening and it took him awhile to get settled for sleep, so I ended up leaving much later for my evening screening than I anticipated.

drrt

Sabaku
Netherlands 2016, Marlies van der Wel, 3′

A bird loves to sit on top of other animal’s heads, but whenever he opens his mouth, a huge loud trumpeting sound comes out and chaos ensues. Finally he gets to meet an elephant with whom he becomes best friends and they trumpet together while the bird sits on his head.
The kids loved aforementioned ensuing chaos, and O liked that there were lots of animals involved, but he didn’t seem to find it as funny as the other kids. I thought the film was cute, and a nice allegory on how everybody can find a suitable friend.

Dziedošais Hugo un vi?a neticamie piedz?vojumi (Singing Hugo and His Incredible Adventures)
Latvia 2017, Reinis Kalnaellis, 9′

Hugo, a chicken in a chicken coop, dreams of becoming a big star but his singing disturbs the other chicken and gets him abducted by chicken thieves. He gets sold to various places, a crazy chase ensues and Hugo accidentally ends up at a circus performance where he finally fulfills his dream.
I thought the story itself was enjoyable and nice, but the character design is significantly less cute than for most of the other segments, so O was less into it. I doubt O was a big fan of the action (or the sleazy human characters) either.

Odd er et egg (Odd is an egg)
Norway/Portugal 2016, Kristin Ulseth, 12′

Odd is the child of chicken and his head is essentially an egg that may break and thus needs a lot of attention and care. As a result, Odd has no friends because he can never play along with their dangerous ball games and the likes. One day, he meets a girl who dresses up like a bee and whose free spirit inspires him to shake off his fears, and she becomes his first precious friend.
When I saw that the story would involve an outcast school-aged child, I was worried that O would think the topic to be boring. I was so wrong, because the story was mostly about Odd and Gunn becoming friends – and O loves that! Even though he understood relatively little about what was said in the dialogues, he grasped that this is a heart-warming tale of two children becoming friends and doing fun things together, and that made him happy. I thought it was adorable too, even if the premise and the ending are also a little silly.

1Minuutje natuur (1Minute of Nature)
Netherlands 2016, Stefanie Visjager/Katinka Baehr, 7′

The film consists of five little segments of children talking about something of their lives for one minute, with some matching animation using stick characters and real-life objects as backgrounds.
I was not too into the style and O didn’t get how the animation illustrated what has been said. This film is actually a little more advanced than the others, but without really saying that much if you ask me. It was OK.

Der kleine Vogel und die Raupe (The Little Bird and the Caterpillar)
Switzerland 2017, Lena von Döhren, 4′

The little bird from two years ago still cannot fly, and befriends a caterpillar in this story who helps him get away from the mean fox.
Just like last time, this was extremely cutely animated and it surely helps for O that it had no dialogue at all. It seems like the films about the little bird are favorites with the audience every time. As for me, I already forgot what happened in the story, but I am glad that O had a good time and treasures his stamped postcard so much that it’s now hanging on his wall.

Hedgehog’s Home
Canada/Croatia 2016, Eva Cvijanovic, 10′

The hedgehog lives in modest housing within the forest. One day, the fox invites him to his house and offers him to stay over, but the hedgehog still prefers to go home. It’s a little tale about how your own home is always the best.
This is a classical fable with lots of dialogue and the animation is often dark and a little intimidating looking, especially with a bear, a fox and a wolf as characters. No wonder O wasn’t too into it, even though I thought the story itself was actually fine.

Jazzoo
Sweden 2016, Adam Marko-Nord, 9′

In these ultra short segments, various animals are doing fun things accompanied by jazzy music.
To me, this was the most humorous part of all of them, O really liked the colorful animation and the animals that were involved (in fact, it seems like he had a dream concerning one of the segments afterwards and then claimed he saw it in the cinema), and we were both very into the music. Sadly the parts were also so short that the content was ultimately not very memorable, but even so I remember I found it to be one of the best and most entertaining short films in the selection.

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Berlinale 2017, Day 2 (Bihttoš, Kaisa’s Enchanted Forest)

I have never actually seen a film in the NATIVe section before. This year, there is a focus on the arctic region and the groups of people living in those cold areas. I was drawn to these two films because they had animated components in them (I am such a sucker for that), and because they seem to be very personal stories by female film makers. The director for “Kaisa’s Enchanted Forest” was actually present, and she is this cute lady dressed in a Sami-inspired blouse and skirt (which is OK and not cultural appropriation when she does it) who repeated several times how happy and honored she was to be at the Berlinale. It was a lovely showing overall.

drrt

Bihttoš (Rebel)
Canada/Norway 2014, Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers, 14′

Being the daughter of a Sami father and Blackfoot mother, the director tells the story of her parents and how she finally learned about her father’s history which led to his lifelong depression.

The animation in this film was OK, but nothing to write home about. Maybe I should just accept that a low budget typically doesn’t allow for very good animation, and perhaps my expectations for animation is just too high. Other than that, the story was lovely, but also nothing to write home about. The director’s family is definitely very special and unusual, and their lives are so tragically scarred by the fact that they are indigenous people. Even though the film was far from being in your face activist, the message was still strong. At the same time, narratively this was essentially like a woman telling her family’s life story in 10 minutes at a dinner party, so despite the actually interesting family background I am not surprised the film is merely a short film.

drrt

Kuun metsän Kaisa (Kaisa’s Enchanted Forest)
Finland 2016, Katja Gauriloff, 86′

Similarly to the preceding short film, “Kaisa’s Enchanted Forest” is a partially animated quasi-autobiographical film (in this case about the director’s great-grandmother) telling the story about Kaisa’s friendship with a Swiss writer who ended up helping the Sami people after they lost everything during WWII.

While I thought the film was very interesting, it was actually one of the few times at the Berlinale when I explicitly felt like the film was slow. This is notable because I usually avoid the slow artsy films at the Berlinale (or they don’t feel very slow to me because the slow pace matches my enjoyment of the film). A part of me really loves the film and its topic, and another part thought that it was strangely paced and at times almost boring because of that. I’m also not entirely sure what to think of Kaisa, which is actually a compliment to the film because it depicts her as just a human individual and not just some indigenous person without a specific personality attached. On one hand she is awesome, on the other hand you can tell that she’s “no angel” either, as the film says. In some aspects she reminded me of Vivian Maier who seems like she was an amazing woman yet somehow a monster at the same time.

I have to admit that I have an almost racist fascination with Sami people (which is another reason why I ended up in this screening). Just like how as a little child I had trouble understanding why Jewish people were ostracized and persecuted because in my mind they looked like Germans, I am surprised by the level of hostility towards the Sami because to my eyes they basically look like other white people. I learned through the film that they are Orthodox and of course have a very different culture from other Scandinavian ethnic groups, but I guess I just don’t have enough of an understanding to what makes a group of people treat another group badly when they could just as well co-exist in a friendly manner.

Just like before, I was actually not particularly into the sloppy and dark animated parts, though the story Kaisa tells is kind of cool. I think my favorite parts of the film were those in which you could see glimpses of Sami life, and I was deeply touched by the hardships they went through during WWII. So props to that movie for getting its point across.

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Berlinale 2014, Day 10 (Kraftidioten)

Pixelmatsch is a huge fan of Hans Petter Moland ever since he saw “En ganske snill man” at the Berlinale. I always thought that his Tarantino-like qualities were enticing, so “Kraftidioten” was a must for us to see, hence we got the Sunday tickets just to make sure.

I was already in the Friedrichstadtpalast for “La belle et la bete” right before, so I had the opportunity to secure pretty ideal seats for us. Yay!

drrt

Kraftidioten (In Order of Disappearance)
Norway/Sweden/Denmark 2013, Hans Petter Moland, 115’

When Nils hears that his son supposedly died of a drug overdose, he doesn’t believe in it and vows to get behind what happened and take revenge. Behind everybody’s backs, he finds out about the mafia deals his son got into, and starts killing the people involved one by one until he finds Greven, the boss of the organization, a megalomaniac, organic-food-and-pink-cupcakes-obsessed eccentric who is not afraid of random killing. Greven mistakenly thinks the Serbian mafia are responsible for the murders of his men, who are now plotting his son’s kidnapping.
Death count: Hehe, if I could remember. If I had to guess, 15.

I recently read a comment from somebody saying that the Scandinavian culture is rooted in violence and sadism, as can be seen in films like Lars von Trier’s. If you add in all the death metal scene, I can easily why someone would think that way. But then again, by that logic all of Japan is made up of pedophiles and Koreans are just as into violence too. I would be careful making such assumptions, even if they seem to make sense at first glance. But the truth is that the majority of Japanese people probably has nothing to do with pedophilia, as manga and anime give a skewed view of the country. I suspect this is the same thing for Scandinavia’s supposed propensity for violence. It just so happens that the kinds of Lars von Trier and Hans Petter Moland make it to the Berlinale, and perhaps they do make better films than their colleagues, but more than anything they just make for better headlines. It’s just like what Park Chan-wook’s films do for Korean cinema, even though many others (Bong Joon-ho, Hong Sang-soo, Lee Chang-dong) are at least just as great.

Actually “Kraftidioten” is not even that violent. Sure there is a lot of death, and it’s part of the film’s title. But it’s a black comedy, and as such, “Kraftidioten” is even funnier than “The Midnight After”. The violence comes from the amount of people dying (a lot) and the circumstances they die in (pretty random), but it’s not like you see a lot of blood or anything. “Kraftidioten” draws a thin line between film noir, Scandinavian deadpan comedy and revenge film, so death is almost inevitable. On top of that, almost every death case is important to the plot or at least has been foreshadowed. It’s a very well-crafted, stringent plot in which nothing happens just randomly, even though I just said that people die in random fashion. I blame the English language – people die in this film almost without any reason (which makes it a little shocking and perhaps hard to watch), but within this story everything has its place and every single “disappearance” advances the plot. (Except at the end where I am glad that they all got wiped out.)

One of my favorite aspects of the film is its use of snow and the stunning Norwegian landscapes. There is so incredibly much of it, and Nils’s profession (plowing the snow to clear the streets) has something very fitting for the film. It’s like the snow is another comedic character in this film’s ensemble.

I want to see “En Ganske Snill Mann”, and my high expectations for “Kraftidioten” were fully met. I don’t think I have laughed this much in awhile.