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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 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!