45 Years

(Originally appeared in EXBERLINER on Sep. 10, 2015)

As linear and contained as it is freewheeling and expansive, British writer/director Andrew Haigh’s 45 Years tackles the progression of relationships, albeit from a fixed, microscopic point of view

Counting down the last week before the 45th anniversary party of aged couple Kate (Rampling) and Geoff (Courtenay), the film essentially begins as the body of Geoff’s first girlfriend Katja is discovered in the icy embrace of the Swiss Alps. Memories are unearthed, old feelings of guilt, jealously, suspicion and insecurity released. But surely a decades-long marriage can withstand the strains created by the whispers of a distant ghost – or can it?

Haigh might have had some trouble repeating the keen eye and subtle touch memorably displayed in his breakout arthouse hit Weekend, as certain scenarios here strike one as forced, motivated by reasons more petty than profound. However, there’s no denying the leanness and cleanness of his approach, the scalpel-like sharpness of his attention, which combine to set the perfect stage for a pair of veteran performers to flex their acting muscles. And they do not disappoint. Rampling, in particular, dazzles with the quietly devastating portrait of a woman in doubt. Taking full advantage of the brilliant final scene, where the camera lands on her face amidst a merrily ignorant crowd, she gives the audience such naked access to her character’s inner turmoil it feels almost intrusive to watch. Time, you realise then, may help cover one’s tracks, but it always preserves the evidence for a later day.

Knight of Cups

(Originally appeared in EXBERLINER on Sep. 10, 2015)

Relationships are organic things. They evolve, adapt, blossom and, for one reason or another, perish.

Building on this premise, legendary filmmaker Terrence Malick uses the theme of journey to examine the metamorphosis of a man on his quest for love and fulfillment in the LA-set Knight of Cups. This being the City of Angels, our protagonist Rick (Bale) is – of course – a screenwriter, whose life is marked by –what else? – excess and emptiness. In answering the question “Where did I go wrong?”, more aspects of Rick’s past are revealed, including failed marriage to Nancy (Blanchett) and a budding romance with model Helen (Pinto),before we find him having an affair with the equally unhappy Elizabeth (Portman), who might turn out to be his one chance at salvation.

And so we witness the various incarnations of love, from the hormonal rush of courtship to the bitter scars left by a divorce. Technically echoing his recent work like To the Wonder and The Tree of Life, Malick goes about telling the story in a highly fragmented, freely associative way. Characters drift into the picture unannounced, only to drop out again unexplained. Seemingly random shots of geological formations or snippets of performance art are inserted at irregular intervals. In short, those who look for conventional narrative logic in their movies will not be pleased. That said, this film is propelled by such a strong sense of rhythm – the cuts so intuitively yet precisely timed, the changes of pace so masterfully controlled – you can’t help but get swept up in its maker’s momentous, psychedelic, thoroughly compelling stream of consciousness.

And not unlike the waves off the coast of Malibu, heavily featured and beautifully photographed by two-time Oscar-winning cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki, our lonesome hero’s musings on searching and finding seem also to culminate in an exquisite sigh of regret, a tentative hope for change.

Queen of the Desert

(Originally appeared in EXBERLINER on Sep. 3, 2015)

Tastefully designed and exhaustively told, this biopic about British explorer/archaeologist Gertrude Bell traces her uncommon upbringing and extensive travels throughout the Middle East at the dawn of the 20th century. While at no point betraying egregious filmmaking incompetence, as a whole the linearity and sheer bulk of the narrative give the ultra-old-fashioned picture a cumbersome, airless feel.

Kidman is in fine form here, carrying decades of an iconic life on her regal frame, communicating through a calm, oceanic voice the dispassion of someone who calls the desert home. The handful of private moments featuring her lost in introspection, heartbreak or solitude are quietly moving. Whether the broadly staged scenes of Bell’s various romantic pursuits send the story to its emotional heights or tip it over to eye-rolling territory, however, will be largely dependent on the beholder’s threshold for schmaltz.

Covering the regional history and geo-political tensions surrounding the demise of the Ottoman Empire while chronicling the extraordinary journey of a woman far ahead of her time, this character epic is all scale and little subtlety. It showcases impressive craft, both technically and performance-wise, but lacks the blood flow that could make something this informative engrossing as well.

Interview: Gerd Conradt (Une jeunesse Allemande (A German Youth))

(Originally appeared in EXBERLINER on Jun. 11 , 2015)

Can you talk about your relationship to the film?

Well, it was an intensive one. The director [Jean-Gabriel Périot] came to me about five years ago and said he wanted to make a film on Holger Meins. I, of course, went to the DFFB (German Film and Television Academy Berlin) with Meins and had already made a film about him: "Starbuck – Holger Meins". So the director asked me where he could find archive material on this subject. Six months later, when he had seen everything and had more questions, we met again. In this way I supported him through the making of the film. On the one hand I was a historical witness, on the other hand I was someone who knew his way around the archives, particularly on this subject.
 
What was your first reaction when a French filmmaker came to you for this project?

I was surprised. I thought it would be difficult for him to bring another RAF film to the market and to get funding from German TV broadcasters or other organisations. Then I thought it could be an interesting idea, because he had a completely different point of view.

Until now he had made mostly short films and tended to be experimental in his approach. So I actually expected him to use maybe just a small amount of imagery from this time period and put them together in an experimental way, like a musician who composes a piece with a motif.

And how was your reaction when you first saw the film?

When I saw the film properly for the first time at the Berlinale, I cried. I saw so many acquaintances and friends who have passed away, people like Ulrike Meinhof, Holger Meins, Gudrun Ensslin – wonderful people who were just chasing after an idea. That made me very sad. The film made no explicit statement at the end. It just let it be. So for me it's interesting to see how people who haven't experienced these events would react to the film. People to whom it's all ancient history, like the first World War or the Weimar Republic to me. Or the GDR to the younger generation. Therein I definitely see the film's value.

As a filmmaker yourself, what do you think of Périot's approach?

It's quite radical. It's an attempt to create a portrait of an era solely out of archival materials.  I also find it interesting that he uses a mixture of documentaries and narrative features. He also confronts us Germans with the fact that we have such a rich reserve of materials in the archives. Over, say 60 years, our television has collected so much footage on everything that we actually don't need to shoot anything new. He had to put in a lot of work just to sort through all that, find what he needed and watch it all.

Can you still learn something new about the history of the RAF by watching a film like this?

I think you definitely learn something new about this time period as a whole, not just the RAF people. In the movie there's a snippet of a film I made, in color. When I saw it, I thought to myself: "We were quite a crazy bunch back then!" Very courageous and experimental too. A lot of what people thought about, they also just went ahead and did it. We thought: "Oh, we should go have a demonstration today." And we would just do it. We'd make and distribute flyers. Before you knew it, the marchers would be there already. There was no internet, no cell phones, but there were other ways of communication and there was this readiness to act. The film also shows the creativity of the generation back then. So I think it's not just about the RAF, but also about that time.

When you see Ulrike Meinhof on this talkshow, for example, you can tell all the other guys were astonished by this attractive, intelligent young woman who was so eloquent about her clear, militant ideas. She'd just sit there and smoke! The film really says something about Germany back then.

Do you think people nowadays talk about the RAF too much or too little?

I think people are too fixated on a few RAF figures. There was the extra-parliamentary opposition movement, the anti-Vietnam War movement, the beginnings of the feminist movement, and the discussions about the justice system. It was completely different back then how one could get arrested and be held in police custody. We had to learn about all these institutions and about how the state worked. We learned that we all had rights, and that we needed to exercise these rights to defend ourselves.    

65th Berlinale festival report

(Originally appeared in Film International on May 11, 2015)

The Berlin International Film Festival- or the "Berlinale"- celebrated its 65th edition earlier this year (Feb. 5- 15). Locked in bitter, continental weather with little sunshine and no palm trees, Berlin is no match for Cannes both in terms of glamour and prestige. In the past decade, the growing presence of the Sundance Film Festival, which takes place merely days in advance, also threatened to steal the thunder away from the German capital. The challenge for festival director Dieter Kosslick to put together an exciting, unexpected, important selection is thus understandably huge. So it should be reported with a sigh of relief that, despite the inevitable bombs, the first A-list European film festival of the year is still going strong and its crop of premieres should be more than enough to jolt cineasts everywhere awake, probably even shape the rest of the festival-year.

There's no shortage of seasoned masters in the competition lineup. British provocateur Peter Greenaway returns with "Eisenstein in Guanajuato", an unconventional biopic of famed Russian filmmaker Sergei Eisenstein. Focusing on the last days of his year-long stay in Mexico during the early 1930's, the comedic drama is as much biographical as it is fantastical. With split screens, swirling camera, interjecting shots of wildlife, illustrations, historical photographs, archive footage, images fading in and out of color, sped up and slowed back down, the entire first half of the movie bursts at the seams in terms of style and directorial whims. It's a welcome feast of stimuli that culminates in the bound-to-become infamous deflowering scene which depicts- at length and in great detail- Eisenstein's sexual initiation through expert seducer Palomino Cañedo. Both breathlessly graphic and hilariously allegorical, it's a sparsely but boldly staged centerpiece that juxtaposes the movie's themes of carnality, mortality and liberty to uproarious effect. Maybe that kind of intensity just can't be sustained though, as the movie's manically talky second half, in which the two exuberant, committed leads Elmer Bäck and Luis Alberti struggle to keep up, slowly dwindles down to uninvolving eccentricities.

Also uneven is legendary German director Werner Herzog's "Queen of the Desert". Starring Nicole Kidman as British explorer/anthropologist Gertrude Bell, the decades-spanning biopic is surprising only in how thoroughly unsurprising everything about it is. Sprawling, straightforward, sentimental, it's a throwback to earlier times when linear narrative was embraced and unabashed romanticism considered cool. Of course the roughened and proudly indie-minded critics and bloggers today don't see things that way. So professions of eternal love and panoramic shots of the heroine locked in passionate kiss with an earnest-faced James Franco, for example, didn't go down well with the press to put it mildly. At the risk of sounding defensive of a stuffy, needlessly exhaustive movie that's too conservative for its own good, the acting and technical details are actually solid here. Exquisite production design, especially of the posh residences and bustling bazaars, is easy on the eyes. Kidman is very much in full command of her expressive faculties, scoring with the textbook "breaking-down-while-getting-bad-news" scene and compelling with her deep-voiced, oceanically calm narration. Ultimately uninspired, this grand, by Herzog's standard curiously sane film could nonetheless please fans of old-fashioned storytelling or squarely educational cinema.        

Kind words can't be found, however, for French veteran Benoît Jacquot's "Journal d’une femme de chambre (Diary of a Chambermaid)" or German maestro Wim Wender's "Every Thing Will Be Fine". The latest Mirbeau adaptation starring Léa Seydoux as the feisty, scheming house servant Célestine is a fragmented, ineloquent, tonally schizophrenic mix of drama, comedy, satire and everything in between. Based on anecdotes recollected from the protagonist's life which are so bafflingly assembled as to defy any sense of coherence, what vaguely feels like an early twentieth-century class observation with a whiff of feminist protest functions as neither. Seydoux is reliably sharp but those sparks she and Jacquot sent flying in their last collaboration "Les adieux à la reine (Farewell, My Queen)" (2012) are nowhere to be seen. Everything is also definitely not fine in Wenders' first narrative feature in seven years, a New England-set relationship drama. After a promising start, where the catalyst that sets the whole guilt-themed story in motion is expertly encapsulated in a wide, static shot, the clearly misguided plot dissolves into sappy episodes depicting the lives of those connected by the tragedy. Banally and formulaically written, the film never probes beyond any superficial level of pain. The only curve ball in the script comes near the end, where things take an unnatural turn to morph into a home-invasion thriller. But by that point this feels more than anything like a desperate attempt to raise the non-existent stakes. Considering also the largely unjustified use of 3D photography and the sluggish editing marked by a parade of title cards awkwardly announcing the passage of time, it's hard to think of veritable arguments for the film's inclusion in the competition lineup (albeit screening out of competition) except to coincide with the lifetime achievement award bestowed upon the iconic filmmaker at this year's fest.

Previous Golden Bear winner Terrence Malick, on the other hand, has every reason to be there again with "Knight of Cups", a dazzling, majestic contemplation on the many facets of love. Much like his recent work, the film is highly impressionistic, composed of samplings of the various relationships a man's been in, each taken during a different stage, from courtship to divorce. Characters drift in and out of the story unannounced, unexplained. Neither the causal nor the chronological relation between the segments is apparent. Random photographic interruptions of geological formations or the west coast cityscape further complicate a material, linear understanding. However, compared to "The Tree of Life" (2011) or "To the Wonder" (2012) , both of which did not please this viewer, the strong, seemingly instinctual editing lends the chaos a cadence that transcends literal comprehension and completely captivates. Rhythmic, soothing and ever-building like the fetishistically pondered waves on Malibu Beach, the flow of pictures washes over you in all its variety and the experience is just hypnotic. Though probably too disorderly to rank among DP Emmanuel Lubezki's best work, here and there individual shots, whether racing like speeding light or serene as an old monk's face, still stun with their splendor. The commanding presence and charisma of Christian Bale, whose lines are almost exclusively read in voice-over, also help the film achieve its magnetic pull.

Apparently the international jury chaired by Darren Aronofsky wasn't in the mood to honor old masters though, as none of the films mentioned above went home awarded. Instead, it's mostly the next generation of filmmakers who won their favor. British writer/director Andrew Haigh's follow-up to his widely acclaimed romance "Weekend" (2011), another relationship drama which chronicles the unraveling of a decades-long marriage one week before an anniversary celebration, aptly titled "45 Years", won both leads Tom Courtenay and Charlotte Rampling statues. Seeing that it's a very stripped-back, performance-driven piece about two people discovering each other anew, the fact that its acting gets noticed doesn't come as a surprise. Especially in the case of Rampling, whose icy stare still cuts through glass but is mellowed here by a touch of insecurity and suppressed panic, the validity of the choice is unquestionable. Courtenay's work as well as the film as a whole, however, don't necessarily stand out. Too fixated on the appealing but simplified idea of a freshly defrosted ghost from the past testing and rocking a lifelong bond, the elegantly lean script has believability issues and comes across as petty from time to time. To his credit, Haigh does manage to stage a marvel of an ending shot, which quietly closes in on the dancing hostess while laying bare her doubts and desperation twirl by casual twirl until we're given such naked access to her inner turmoil it feels revelatory, almost intrusively so.  

Sharing the silver bear for artistic contribution are German romance-turned-heist thriller "Victoria" and Russian sci-fi drama "Под электрическими облаками (Under Electric Clouds)", both enormously ambitious undertakings and just the fourth narrative feature of their respective helmers. Although the movies are nothing alike, the achievement in cinematography being lauded is easy to recognize in either one of them, which incidentally both clock in at around 140 minutes. Shot in one single, unbroken take, Sebastian Schipper's "Victoria" boasts bold and edgy camerawork by Sturla Brandth Grøvlen which, if nothing else, injects a dangerously volatile energy into the proceedings like a live wire (reviewed in detail previously). "Under Electric Clouds" by Aleksey German, son of German Senior, is a different beast altogether. Told in chapters that bear minimal temporal or contextual relations with one another, it's a cryptic, fable-like collection of moving images deliberately, moodily photographed by Sergey Mikhalchuk and Evgeniy Privin. As languid and surreal as "Victoria" is immediate and dynamic, the film will arouse the suspicion of pretentiousness and test the patience of many with its dizzyingly nonsensical dialogue (to the extent that disconnected monologues addressed at each other can be called dialogue). When viewed as a piece of visual tapestry, however, the merit of its handiwork is indisputable. Aided by superb production design that weaves together elements of the past and the future, the daringly framed, enigmatically lit pictures work up a proper sense of sophisticated nihilism. So whether one is history-savvy enough to appreciate its veiled reflection on contemporary Russia, it's hard not to get sucked into this dreamscape of electrified, baffling beauty.  

Harder to justify is the other tie on the winner's list, the awardage of the best director prize to Radu Jude for his b&w western/historical satire "Aferim!" and Malgorzata Szumowska for her spiritualistic drama "Body". While both films are quite innovative in their approach, they also come with more evident lackings. Chronicling the journey of a father-son duo to catch and bring back a runaway gypsy slave to his master in 19th century Wallachia, "Aferim!" is colorful in every sense but one. Loud, physical, featuring tortuous acts and politically incorrect expletives of every kind, it depicts the matter-of-course practice of slavery in such a broadly theatrical manner you don't know if you should be offended or amused. While atrocious wrongs are being committed on screen, Jude opts to capture it all through a documentarian's keen but level stare suggesting some innocent cultural observation. This stark contrast, betraying neither a straight condemnation nor an outright parody, is disorienting. It leaves you with the impression of having seen something ostensibly crude yet secretly coded, and for that heady trick the direction should be applauded. However, the formally venturesome film meanders for a considerable amount of time in its mid-section. At several points amidst the hateful speeches and violent encounters, the excessive hysteria threatens to drown out all context and turn the whole thing into a costumed farce. Also showing promise but failing to deliver is the largely dismissed "Body". The movie features three vividly drawn main characters- a prosecutor mourning the death of his wife, his estranged, anorexic daughter and her rehab supervisor who also happens to be a medium. Szumowska does a remarkable job acquainting us with these lonely souls drifting in the cold belly of modern-day Warsaw. Through anecdotes and smart, optical suggestion we get inside their heads to experience the empty drive that steels a man against the most heinous crimes, the dry retch that takes hold of someone crippled by the sight of food, the desperate need for company that reaches beyond the boundary of rationality. And by constantly shifting the focus between the three while pursuing the dual themes of body image and bodies as vessels for spiritual contact, she comes up with a blend of relationship drama and supernatural thriller that's uniquely suspenseful. It's too bad, then, that the film falters in its second half as the parallel narratives, despite running tantalizingly close to each other, never find a perfect place to meet. Costing it even more goodwill is the unwarranted shot of sentimentalism towards the end.

The fact that the Berlinale has been a champion of Szumowska's career (invited three times in the past five years, twice in competition and once opening the sidebar section Panorama with "Elles" (2011) ) may have tipped the scales in her favor somehow. Same goes for another female filmmaker who has long got the festival's endorsement, Isabel Coixet, whose latest effort "Nobody Wants the Night" technically didn't win any award but was given the honor of opening this year's festivities. Also widely, maybe even more vocally jeered by the press, the dramatization of an unlikely and treacherous journey to the North Pole by Josephine Peary in search of her husband- famed British expeditionist Robert- actually fares pretty well up to its halfway mark. The heroine, portrayed by Juliette Binoche, is a confident, educated woman who, at the beginning of the 20th century, can easily hold her own in a room of gentlemen. Her exceptional combination of intellect, elegance, ambition and less-than-clarified motives for tracking down her spouse lays the groundwork for an interesting character study. Gorgeous cinematography showcasing textured sets and costumes drenched in honey-colored sunbeam or endless, ruthless terrain covered in fifty shades of white certainly doesn't hurt either. But the last hour of the film is fatally reduced to the story of Josephine and an Inuit girl she befriends in the wilderness, played by an off-form Rinko Kikuchi. Spatially cramped and emotionally gratuitous, the protracted, clunkily described process of the two women's mutual cultural acclimation unfortunately seals the fate of an otherwise respectable piece of work.

Echoing the strong presence of Latin American cinema at the Berlinale this year, two of the top prizes eventually went to Spanish-language productions from that continent and they are both more than deserved. Guatemalan writer/director Jayro Bustamante took home the Alfred Bauer Prize for his feature film debut "Ixcanul", a tender familial drama/coming-of-age tale about a 17-year-old Mayan girl rebelling against her predestined path for a chance to see the world outside. The starting point of the story is a familiar one: marriage by arrangement to an older man with the guarantee of financial security or elope with the young, good-looking farmhand who doesn't have a penny to his name? The choice might be obvious, but what happens after the heart has had its way is told through a series of unexpected plot twists that inform us so much about young Maria, her family, and the daily struggles they face. In addition to the compact, perceptive script, Bustamante's direction and the performances by his non-professional cast evoke a richly indigenous fragrance that permeates the whole film, successfully overcoming the unevenness of its visual realization. Opening and closing with the blank visage of a bride silently getting prepped, this heartfelt, gently affecting film breathes and pulsates just like the Ixcanul Volcano looming in the background, a constant reminder of all things impermanent, unknowable. On the other end of the scale for gentleness is the Grand Jury Prize winner "El Club (The Club)" by Chilean director Pablo Larraín, a scathing, ruthlessly comical indictment of the Catholic Church. Brilliantly plotted, paced and performed, it's also inarguably one of the highlights at this year's fest (reviewed in detail previously).    

Finally, after travelling to Arabian deserts and British countryside, Romania's past and Russia's future, we land in a cab on the streets of present-day Teheran. Looking out through a featureless windshield via an ordinary, grainy POV shot, the ride in Iranian writer/director Jafar Panahi's "Taxi" begins on a mute note. In the course of the next 81 minutes, during which the driver picks up, chats with and sends off customers, this leisurely, quotidian look and feel would persist, making it all the more delightful when the movie ends up delivering such an eloquent, resounding discourse on justice, integrity, freedom of expression and the place of the arts in an authoritarian society. Episodically structured with intricate links built in to ensure consistency and momentum, the screenplay is a masterful construction. On one level, the deceptively simple, banter-like conversations add up to a kaleidoscopic montage of everyday life that reflects the changes, dilemmas, and a general lack of consensus Iranian citizens today have to contend with. And as per usual now, Panahi creates another level of perception by consciously blurring the line between reality and fiction. Playing the role of the taxi driver himself as himself, a famous filmmaker forced to earn his living elsewhere after being banned from filmmaking, his well-publicized predicament feeds back into the story, teasing with the immediacy of fact and the distance of representation. This formal inventiveness not only invigorates a logistically restricted narrative but also gives off a good-natured playfulness that softens the accusatory tone which might otherwise be too pointedly political. Just as extraordinary is Panahi's direction. The economy of his compositions, the skill and fluidity with which he switches between perspectives, his impeccable timing that allows the peripheral elements in a scene to speak, all contribute to an ending that's the epitomy of modesty but so precisely staged it pulls various thematic threads together and drives them to a transcendent, ironic close. Addressing difficult, fundamental issues with intelligence, compassion and a miraculously light touch, "Taxi" is funny, poignant, and the rightful winner of the Golden Bear.    

When all is said and done, Berlin has put up a more than worthy lineup featuring established names and new voices, artistic achievements and humanistic statements. Although the film selection is altogether a tad less accessible than last year and might not see any of its picks fly as high as "Boyhood" or "The Grand Budapest Hotel", it remains an interesting, provocative, vitally eclectic one. So now the pressure is on the Croisette and the Lido to hold up their end of the European trifecta in the coming months.

El Club (The Club)

(Originally appeared in Film International on Mar. 26, 2015)

When "No" (2012) took the festival circuit by storm and eventually won a Best Foreign Language Film Oscar nomination some years back, there were probably a handful of us who remained unconvinced or even slightly mystified. The historical drama about the ad campaign that brought down Pinochet's military regime was certainly substantial, informative, ably told, but that all-decisive spark of genius, that masterful sense of ease or vitality might have been wanting. It's comforting and doubly exciting then, to see Chilean director Pablo Larraín return with a bona fide tour de force of a movie that delivers on all that promise so many saw in him.

Premiering at the Berlin Film Festival earlier this year, the ruthlessly dark and acidly funny film opens unspectacularly enough. We see a man playing with his dog on the beach as he keeps throwing a bait tied to a fishing rod around in wide circles, keeping it ever just out of reach of the eager but hopeless hound. We see the same man, joined by three other similarly inconspicuous, middle-aged to elderly compatriots and an unassuming woman, silently dining together. And we see them follow a dog race in town closely, albeit somewhat surreptitiously, where their well-trained pet does them proud and finishes first. All this is shown while the temporal setting is not clear, the location nondescript and the arrangement these people live by unexplained. Within the purplish, foggy first frames of the picture, which optically give the impression of being softly out of focus, everything seems still, routine, calmly resolved. Yet at the same time, the pacified appearances speak a disturbing oddness that can't quite be contained. In fact, it might just be the careful hush that gives it away.
     
The mystery of what's really at stake is temporarily kept alive with the arrival of Father Lazcano, a new addition to the "community". Some details do surface as rules of the house are relayed. We learn these are all clergymen and -woman. They must abide by a punishingly strict code of conduct which practically isolates them from the rest of world. It's obvious too that they don't enjoy any intrusion or attention, a fact made notable by the unannounced visit of a drunk drifter, whose mere presence and loud, unseemly accusations against the freshly settled Father Lazcano from outside the residence bring on tremendous distress inside. The movie essentially starts when the demanded confrontation ends in tragedy and another priest is sent down to investigate the incident.

Screenwriters Guillermo Calderón, Daniel Villalobos and Larraín himself are smart in their approach to telling a story about secrecy. In gradually, almost reluctantly revealing plot elements and character histories, the viewer is relegated to the role of a true outsider, constantly intrigued by but excluded from this group of five. We get to first spend time with these curiously blank faces, observe their tenuous, rarefied existence, experience them as human beings with their fair share of quirks and penchants- context-free, judgment-free. A moral dilemma is thus created when the icky background of how they ended up in this semi-self-imprisonment is introduced and, seeing this once so harmless-seeming bunch in a brand new light, one must decide whether or not and, indeed, how to side with them any longer.

The verbally explicit, tonally chameloeonic screenplay makes no apologies for its ridicule and attack of the Catholic Church, landing joke after joke about the backward thinking and perverted logic passed down over generations. At the same time it exposes the human devastation wreaked by such restrictive dogmas coupled with habitual lying to work up some palpable, righteous rage. By turns ironic and angry but always based on a solid, juicy plot which often can't be found among the lofty affairs shown at film festivals, this is highly satisfying auteur cinema with that exceptional audience appeal. When, in the final act, all the dirty laundry is laid bare and the dimension of potential disaster is made clear to the investigating priest, we get to watch first-hand how the survival instincts of a thousand-year-old institution click, sealing off every leaky opening and chopping down loose ends like a well-oiled machine. It's a stroke of brilliance in screenwriting that, paced like a thriller, brings the absurdity and wretchedness of the situation home. By letting the audience in on the rotten secret from within, it's also quietly saying: "Welcome to the club".

Larraín is a patient, wickedly skilled storyteller who knows he's got a great tale up his sleeves. While fully aware of the gravity of the subject matter, he dips into it deceptively light, facilitating an easier immersion in the particular circumstances and, in the process, allowing for a vivid, more open-minded look at the condemned. Instead of victimizing the perpetrators or trivializing the atrocities committed at their hands, however, this unsensationalistic, almost relaxed treatment uncovers the sick psychology behind the veil of holiness even more tellingly. For sure, overall the movie is not without its bumpy stretches, marked sometimes by a lone cello score that arguably lays it on too thick. But compared to "No", Larraín shows significantly boosted confidence and a playful dexterity here, drifting in and out of comedy, delighting with a blasphemously dry humor. Through this partly comic-like quality plus emphatic motifs and iconic visual cues, he also helps the movie obtain a fabulous, almost mythological air. This last achievement is of course not possible without the contribution of a superb team of actors, each bringing a distinct brand of unnameable peculiarity to the character ensemble. Among the many fine performers Alfredo Castro is fearlessly committed as the withdrawn, proudly repressed Father Vidal who now finds his life's purpose only in a greyhound. And Antonia Zegers gives the chillingly composed and resolute Sister Mónica the inner fire that makes her status as the guardian of the group believable.  

Unsurprisingly and entirely deservedly, the film won the Grand Jury Prize at this year's Berlinale. No doubt it will offend many people's sensitivities and it probably won't be Vatican's favorite movie of the year, but wherever one stands on the issue of systemized abuse within the Catholic Church, this is first and foremost an engaging and uniquely powerful cautionary tale about hiding, ignoring, self-deluding. It's about the terrible cost of concealing so much so long until, as a character says at one point, "you don't know who you're covering up for anymore."

Berlinale: Victoria

(Originally appeared in Film International on Mar. 9, 2015)

Calling German writer/director Sebastian Schipper's "Victoria" the runaway sensation at this year's Berlin Film Festival is overstating it a little bit, considering how critical response to the film was not nearly as unanimously amorous as to, say, Jafar Panahi's "Taxi" or Andrew Haigh's "45 Years". That said, if sensation is to be defined by that jolt of electricity a film sends through the audience's collective minds simply because it's so fresh, bold, recklessly charged, then "Victoria" definitely fits the bill. For all its failings and divisive choices, this is a movie that wows.

Set in present-day Berlin, where a young Spanish girl could plausibly be dancing to deafening club beats at half past four in the morning and trying to flirt in broken English with a bartender she just assumes to be Swedish, the movie follows its titular heroine (played by Laia Costa) as she navigates the thrills and dangers of the German capital during one fateful night. Picked up by the drunk Berliner boy Sonne (Frederick Lau) and his gang of friends as she's leaving the anonymous underground paradise, Victoria gradually finds herself drawn to the world of the marginalized represented by these guys, a place of quiet disillusionment and stolen bliss, unquestioned camaraderie and pure chance. When the casually flirtatious predawn hours take an ugly turn, she might already be in too deep to call it quits.    

As prominently proclaimed in all its press materials, the film is shot in one single take. And unlike the newly-minted Oscar winner "Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)", which only has the appearance of an extended, continuous shot but is in fact edited together, "Victoria" actually unfolds in real time and its director of photography Sturla Brandth Grøvlen has had his hand on the camera for the entire duration of the film. For better or worse, this will remain the defining characteristic that makes the movie so exhilarating and frustrating at once.

Obviously it's hard not to gush about a full-length, 140-min-running feature film done without edits. Inherently unusual and compounded by a dynamic storyline which sees the characters drift/flee from place to place in situations relaxed and dire, the feat of the never-breaking gaze is not just tremendously difficult to pull off here on a logistic level; psychologically, the sense of spontaneity and risk it brings also feeds right into a narrative about life's unforeseeability. Whether observing close-range the budding affection between Victoria and Sonne in some quiet moments or chasing down staircases and open streets in panicked, violent pursuit, the camera never blinks or pauses for breath. In so doing, it mirrors in visual terms the path taken by the protagonists, one that has no return nor a safety net. Versatile, volatile and vibrant, it's not exactly a surprise that the international jury chaired by Darren Aronofsky ended up awarding the cinematography of this film a Silver Bear for outstanding artistic contribution.

However, it needs to be pointed out that, as daring and expressive as this approach is, it also leaves the technical insufficiencies of the camera crew plainly exposed. While there are sequences in the film that are captured with undeniable excellence, be it the short bicycle ride about town that spells a wondrous ease as we glide along or the electrifying intro where the face of the heroine is slowly picked out from a raving crowd and purposefully tracked, the picture quality of a significant chunk of the movie is less than optimal. Often hurried and underlit, the supposed "rawness" of the imagery proves disorienting in the long haul and cannot compare to the balance of urgency and clarity, authenticity and majesty achieved by Emmanuel Lubezki on "Birdman". When the cameraman strains with palpable difficulty to push his way in and out of a crowded elevator or up and down a narrow ladder, for example, with the focus blurred and the view shaking terribly all in service of continuity, one wonders if a bit of stubborn bravado has compromised the creative value of the choice.  
 
An even bigger problem attributable to this dare of a directorial decision is that the writing is just not up to par. From a story by Schipper and Olivia Neergaard-Holm, Eike Frederik Schulz, the film is most likely not scripted but extensively improvised. The improvisation is by itself not an issue, but when you can tell the actors are making things up to say on the spot pretty much all the time, it gets painful. Long-winding chitchats lacking structure and low on substance take up stretches of screen time, during which you hope nothing more than for somebody to cut the filler out, reorganize the words into meaningful dialogues and snap some life into things. Paraphrased: it's the best argument for the invention of editing. As the not negligible amount of walk-outs at the film's press screening at the Berlin Film Festival would suggest, it's not this reviewer alone who finds various meandering talks between the protagonists insufferably mundane and padded.

Even when judged independently, the story is not nearly perfect. Plot-wise, the transition around the 2-hour mark that sees the film switch to full-blown Bonnie-and-Clyde mode feels slightly awkward, resulting in 20 subsequent minutes plagued by implausibility and a pettiness typical of German run-of-the-mill crime TV. Also hurting the movie is unsatisfactory characterization of Victoria. Although we do get a peek into her backstory about how she landed in Berlin with dashed dreams longing for a new start, many of her decisions at the following turns of events remain mystifying if not downright improbable. And without connecting with her motivations every step of the way, the emotional investment of the viewer, including the payoff at the end, is regrettably held in check.          
Despite these rather harsh critique, "Victoria" is ultimately a film well worth seeing and bound to find fans. Beyond the sheer effort that went into enabling this unbroken optical illusion, both the director and his principal cast show unmistakable promise. Schipper is at his best when crafting fleeting moments of happiness. The aforementioned bike ride scene is supplemented by a deliberate vacuum of sound and the sudden touch of music, which add to the sense of freedom, carelessness, and in their transience give the interlude a sigh-like quality. These sentiments are anything but random too. They reflect with striking accuracy what urban Berlin has come to stand for. It's a refuge for the young and lost, detached and unsettled. By capturing such feelings of cherished impermanence, Schipper has the pulse of a great city firmly in his grip. Both Costa and Lau are strong. To watch them perform from the highest of highs to the most desolate of depths, unedited and ever-evolving, is like witnessing a live stunt act. Although they've not been given the material from which a performance could really take flight, theirs are technically superior work that's all the more impressive for the challenge posed. As summarized in opening, "Victoria" is not going to please everybody. But even its most ardent detractors would probably admit to being knocked sideways by this abnormally, almost foolishly ballsy experiment of a movie.

Berlinale 2015

The 65th Berlinale is over. Of the 53 (!!) movies I saw this year, these are my personal favorites.

Best film: "Taxi"
Runner-up: "El Club (The Club)"
honorable mentions: "Knight of Cups", "Ixcanul (Ixcanul Volcano)", "Superwelt (Superworld)"

(Mysterious housing arrangement in Chile that hides unspeakably dirty laundry and would go to any length to keep it hidden (top); from courtship to divorce, all the stages of love as interpreted and woven together by Terrence Malick (left); young girl caught between family, tradition, her own heart, and a lot of snakes in Guatemala (bottom); retirement-age woman who awakens from the stupor of life only to find a world that's not so super (right); freedom, art, morality dissected in an exercise of perception and forms conducted by Jafar Panahi (central))


Best director: Jafar Panahi ("Taxi")
Runner-up: Pablo Larraín ("El Club (The Club)")
honorable mentions: Terrence Malick ("Knight of Cups"), Walter Salles ("汾陽小子賈樟柯 (Jia Zhang-ke, a guy from Fenyang)"), Karl Markovics ("Superwelt (Superworld))


Best lead actor: Ian McKellan ("Mr. Holmes")
Runner-up: Frederick Lau ("Victoria")
honorable mentions: Christian Bale ("Knight of Cups"), David Oyelowo ("Selma"), Christian Friedel ("Elser (13 Minutes)")


Best lead actress: Charlotte Rampling ("45 Years")
Runner-up: Ulrike Beimpold ("Superwelt (Superworld)")
honorable mentions: Elisabeth Moss ("Queen of Earth"), Bel Powley ("The Diary of a Teenage Girl"), Nicole Kidman ("Queen of the Desert"), Victoria Schulz ("Dora oder Die sexuellen Neurosen unserer Eltern (Dora or The Sexual Neuroses of Our Parents)"), Catalina Saavedra ("La mujer de barro (The Mud Woman)"), Dakota Johnson ("Fifty Shades of Grey")

(A teenage girl discovers sex together with all its joys and consequences in the 70's; famed British traveller/archaeologist Gertrude Bell's journey to the east revisited; a Chilean woman returns to an old work place prepared for violence; a woman celebrating her 45th wedding anniversary realizes she hardly knows the man she's dancing with; a supermarket cashier about to retire senses there's something wrong with everything; a girl with Down Syndromes fights for a chance to love and get hurt like everybody else; a timid college student falls under the spell of a handsome billionaire with very particular playthings; a young woman retreats to her best friend's place for peace and solace but sinks ever deeper into insanity)  
(It's an incredibly strong year for female roles and performances. Even with 8 lead actresses nominated, it still leaves out Regina Casé ("Que Horas Ela Volta? (The Second Mother)"), Laia Costa ("Victoria"), Juliette Binoche ("Nobody Wants the Night"). Crazy!)


Best supporting actor: Lars Eidinger ("Dora oder Die sexuellen Neurosen unserer Eltern (Dora or The Sexual Neuroses of Our Parents)")
Runner-up: Alfredo Castro ("'El Club (The Club)")
honorable mentions: Rainer Wöss ("Superwelt (Superworld)"), Milo Parker ("Mr. Holmes"), Alexander Skarsgård ("The Diary of a Teenage Girl")


Best supporting actress: Kristen Wiig ("The Diary of a Teenage Girl")
Runner-up: Antonia Zegers ("El Club (The Club)")
honorable mentions: Katherine Waterston ("Queen of Earth"), Janet McTeer ("Angelica"), María Telón ("Ixcanul (Ixcanul Volcano)"), 呂雪鳳 (Lu Hsueh-Feng) ("醉．生夢死 (Thanatos, Drunk)")


Best screenplay: "Taxi"
Runner-up: "El Club (The Club)"
honorable mentions: "Superwelt (Superworld)", "Mr. Holmes", "The Diary of a Teenage Girl"


Best editing: "Knight of Cups" 
Runner-up: "Taxi"
honorable mentions: "El Club (The Club)", "Пионеры-герои (Pioneer Heroes)", "汾陽小子賈樟柯 (Jia Zhang-ke, a guy from Fenyang)"


Best cinematography: "Cha và con và (Big Father, Small Father and Other Stories)"
Runner-up: "Victoria"
honorable mentions: "Knight of Cups", "Пионеры-герои (Pioneer Heroes)", "Exotica, Erotica, Etc."

(Endlessness of the sea and endless longings of the sex workers waiting for their sailors' return (u.l.); pristine suffocation of the Soviet years and crushing void of the Muscovite metropolitan existence (l.l.); desires and pains coursing through the feverish nights of Vietnam (central); 140-min real-time adventure in Berlin's dangerous underbelly (u.r.); excess, gloss, emptiness and zen of an A-lister's life in L.A. (l.r.))


Best art direction: "Под электрическими облаками (Under Electric Clouds)"
Runner-up: "Queen of the Desert"
honorable mentions: "The Diary of a Teenage Girl", "Angelica", "H."


Best costume design: "Angelica"
Runner-up: "The Diary of a Teenage Girl"
honorable mentions: "Queen of the Desert", "Nobody Wants the Night", "Mr. Holmes"


Best film music: "Queen of Earth"
Runner-up: "Als wir träumten (As We Were Dreaming)"
honorable mentions: "The Diary of a Teenage Girl", "Life", "ダリー・マルサン (Dari Marusan)"

(Looseness, nostalgia, careless cheer of 70's groove (top); raging techno from the last days of East Germany (left); light, sentimental jazz pondering James Dean's cool (bottom); unexpected use of synthesized, energetic J-pop (right); modern composition at its eeriest and most unpredictable (central))


Best sound: "Victoria"
Runner-up: "Knight of Cups"
honorable mentions: "H.", "ダリー・マルサン (Dari Marusan)", "Под электрическими облаками (Under Electric Clouds)"

Berlinale: 天の茶助 (Chasuke’s Journey) / Superwelt (Superworld)

(Originally appeared in EXBERLINER on Feb. 13, 2015)

Every culture has its idea of the hereafter and the Divine, its way of explaining our purpose and life's transience. These existential questions of course also make for potent subjects in filmmaking, to be approached from very different angles.

The Japanese competition entry "天の茶助 (Chasuke’s Journey)" pictures heaven as a place with an army of writers who pen the destiny of every living soul on scrolls, to be followed through down below. Which is why somebody who serves these hardworking authors of fates tea every day and gets a peak at the stories they come up with, would know how each of us came to be and where we will end up. As the tea-serving Chasuke finds out that one of his favorite "characters" is going to die an immanent death and decides to intervene, all kinds of madness ensues.        

The easy hook and wonderful quirkiness of this premise is evident. So even when the movie doesn't start off looking very appealing – yellowish, steamy, coarsely photographed – you still expect to be swept away by something intricate or profound. Director Sabu more or less delivers on that promise in the first half hour, as the protagonist arrives on Earth and calmly recounts the peculiar backstories of the people he meets. Not only veritably funny, these anecdotes play with the notion of a scripted life and become even more intriguing with the possibility of an intervention.

Sadly, the movie doesn't seem to know where to go from there, introducing a series of contrived, ineffective plot developments and some truly wild mood swings. From screwball comedy to hardcore violence and unabashed romance, the narrative focus and the tone of the picture are just all over the place. Collapsing steadily into meaningless farce while still not looking particularly pretty, the last act of the movie is characterized by a stratospheric level of ridiculousness. Whoever wrote this hopefully did not come from Heaven.    

The Austrian deity, on the other hand, doesn't seem to have a plan for its subjects. In fact, when supermarket cashier Gabi, after spending the better part of her life in unquestioned mundanity and now all but set for retirement, actually pauses to think about the meaning of it all one day, panic threatens to uproot a lifetime of false contentment.

Written and directed by Karl Markovics, "Superwelt (Superworld)", screening in the Forum section, is a thoroughly observant, quietly affecting film about seeing past distractions and being truly aware. While there is an uncomfortable whiff of new age-y spiritualism in the story, overall it captures a sense of void and dread felt by someone trapped in the unbearable neatness of a suburban existence brilliantly. Sprinkled with comedic interludes that are as funny as they are insightful, the film exposes the tragic hilarity of being and the flimsy hold we have on sanity. Anchored by a magnificent lead performance by Ulrike Beimpold, whose facial expressions – by turning quizzically, desperately and calmly blank – are a constant revelation, the cast boasts great versatility and unlabored authenticity, complementing one another to delightful effect.

Shot with minute attention to the associative power of images, the movie is thoughtfully, deliberately framed and lit, using strong contrast to provoke and suggest. Although the muted ending isn't quite the home-run one would hope for, this gem of a cosmic protest surprises with how much it has to offer.      

Berlinale: Elser (13 Minutes) / H.

(Originally appeared in EXBERLINER on Feb. 13, 2015)

When a film clearly has its heart in the right place, doesn't make particularly damning mistakes and is all-around likable, educational, even a little purgatorial, you obviously want to endorse it. But a technically accomplished and thematically important movie like "Elser (13 Minutes)" could also feel so standard, rehearsed, so exasperatingly safe you just can't seem to get worked up about it.

Screening out of competition, German director Oliver Hirschbiegel's latest work sees him returning to WWII territory which helped him gain worldwide renown in "Der Untergang (Downfall)" a decade ago. This time around the focus is on Georg Elser, a fun-loving everyman from the south who ventured one of the most famous assassination attempts on Hitler. The film starts literally with a ticking bomb, as we see Elser secure dynamite and a detonation device in place. Of course the plan didn't pan out and our hero ended up in detention. Convinced he couldn't have pulled off the attack by himself, NS-officers proceed with extreme interrogations, shedding light on an ordinary individual with an extraordinary life in the process.

In many ways reminiscent of this year's Oscar contender "The Imitation Game", this movie occupies itself with a personality well worth knowing and does so with skill and great care. The narrative is meticulous and orderly, guiding the viewer ever closer to an unlikely resistance fighter. The performance by lead actor Christian Friedel as a womanizer-turned-political-assassin is technically sound and the mood-setting score appropriately brooding/menacing. On the whole, however, the storytelling is so conservative it evoke serious Nazi-film-fatigue, as in the case of the Benedict Cumberbatch-starred film with traditional Oscar-season biopics. Although its opening scene is charged with an exhilarating, unexpected thriller sensibility, the film slowly but surely sinks back into a very familiar arc that does what it's supposed to do but affords no surprises whatsoever.
   
On the other end of the spectrum we have films that are wholly unconventional, that follow no customary narrative pattern and don't care if you can keep up. One (not so extreme) example at this year's Berlinale would be the futuristic/existential drama "H.", which screens in the Forum section.

Written and directed by Rania Attieh and Daniel Garcia, the film is told through two parallel storylines both featuring a main female character named Helen. An old woman fixated on nursing plastic babies finds her husband missing after a fishing trip in one. In another, a young couple coping with the disappointment of a false pregnancy starts experiencing physical changes after a meteorite strike. Stringing its total of four chapters together are furthermore shots featuring the head of a large sculpture. In short, you learn very quickly the three-act routine is probably not in order and logic might not be the best way to approach this thing. Without those safety nets, it takes an open mind to experience something this foreign, instinctual, entirely its own.  

While it's certainly a little frustrating, for some even downright infuriating, not to have all the questions answered in a movie, the two filmmakers here are able to describe a visual landscape pregnant with meaning by using a highly evocative cinematic language. The sleek, wintry art direction keeps you constantly intrigued, as do the numerous symbolic icons scattered throughout the picture. And although this kind of idiosyncratic experiment with narrative and style tends to allow for multiple, open-ended interpretations, the movie's central themes of loneliness, detachment and the overpowering need to escape are conveyed with impressive clarity and urgency.

Berlinale: 一步之遙 (Gone with the Bullets) / 醉．生夢死 (Thanatos, Drunk)

(Originally appeared in EXBERLINER on Feb. 11, 2015)

To be fair, a high-minded film festival like the Berlinale is scarcely the right place to launch a movie like Chinese competition entry "一步之遙 (Gone with the Bullets)". Its broad humor and mainstream sensibility are strictly targeted at the multiplex-goers, however insulting that might be to the intelligence of the film-consuming public.

Set in early 20th century Shanghai, the story starts with a money-laundering scheme in the form of a global escort competition. Glitzy song-and-dance numbers pile on one another before the awkward crowning of the best working girl in the world. What happens next just keeps topping your expectations of the least plausible and most cringe-worthy development possible, all written with breathtakingly bad humor and virtually zero sense of timing. It's essentially a parade of failed gags that proves tortuously unfunny and misfires in every way.

Celebrated director Jiang Wen made a name for himself by telling gritty tales of survival and human endurance ("鬼子來了 (Devils on the Doorstep)", 2000). Though he made an evident adjustment toward populist entertainment with his last movie "讓子彈飛 (Let the Bullets Fly)" (2010) – the spiritual prequel to this unqualified disaster – at least his directorial ambition and signature style remained intact. In this case his foray into the slapstick appears to be so misguided as to render him completely paralyzed. The embarrassing writing aside, the direction has no pulse or spark. The performances from the cast, which includes Jiang himself and long-time collaborator Ge You, are equally uninspired. The production design, which manages to make every automobile, house facade and street lamp look fake, and the costume design, which is low on texture and high on vulgar colors, give the obviously costly production a decidedly cheap look.    

Vision-less, art-less and tasteless, this is a catastrophe of monumental proportions that ensures the Golden Bear won't go to China two years in a row.

Across the Taiwan strait, there's no merriment insight in director Chang Tso-Chi's Taipei-set "醉．生夢死 (Thanatos, Drunk)". Screening in Panorama, the drama begins on a pretty suicidal note and ends in an even sadder place. Which is not surprising considering Chang's illustrious but consistently dark filmography. Only this time around the film itself is a lot less skillfully crafted and the moaning rarely feels justified.

Either jobless or working in the sex industry, all the main characters lead a somewhat marginalized existence. The young-ish Rat helps out at a vegetables stand to earn a few extra bucks but mostly just hangs around playing with ants or messing with the wrong kinds of people. His overachiever brother Shuo returns from the US seemingly unable to find professional or emotional fulfillment and jobs as a go-go dancer in the evening. Since the tragic death of their mother, the two have become estranged and have nothing left for each other but blame. As their affinity to another man from the red-light milieu deepens, more misfortunes follow.

The script is loosely structured, drifting from one incident to another with less elasticity than a simple lack of premeditation. Outbursts of rage, acts of debauchery, bouts of violence pepper the proceedings but seldom leave an impact in the absence of a sensible context. Ever the master of bleak, hopeless aesthetics, Chang shows in a couple of scenes that he can still make a lot out of very little. A dialogue-free sequence early on features images simmering with a yellowish sheen while some sorrowful jazz plays in the background. It's a lovely interruption whose poetry in design and execution is not repeated elsewhere in the film.

Acting-wise there's also little to salvage the movie. The three male leads don't have the charisma to sustain an underdeveloped screenplay. Supporting actress Lu Hsueh-Feng, who plays the alcoholic mother with tremendous authenticity and empathy, is the only highlight, but her role is too limited to really help matters much.

Berlinale: Под электрическими облаками (Under Electric Clouds) / Пионеры-герои (Pioneer Heroes)

(Originally appeared in EXBERLINER on Feb. 10, 2015)

By a certain point at any major film festival, the viewer's patience inevitably starts to wear thin. So the ample amount of walk-outs at the press screening of the 140-minute Russian Competition entry "Под электрическими облаками (Under Electric Clouds)", in which nothing ever makes much sense, doesn't really come as a surprise. With no noteworthy plot to speak of, it's a vast, mystifying, nihilistic contemplation on history and the essence of being that would prove a tough film to sit through.

Divided into seven chapters with different sets of characters that share the flimsiest of connection, the elusive, insubstantial quality of the film is further exacerbated by the fact that even within any individual section, people tend to talk in circles, talk to themselves, talk over one another and generally just say the strangest things. It's a regular occurrence that someone would declare, unsolicited, something as impenetrable as "I just had a dream about diseases and now I don't eat tomatoes." And the response to that might well be the still more confusing statement. Overall a lot is spoken but there are precious few meaningful conversations. And although a couple of commonalities, or just symbolic cues like nosebleeds and construction sites can be established between the individual segments, it'd be a stretch to claim correlation or God forbid, even coherence.
What writer/director Alexey German Jr. manages to achieve, however, is communicating a languid, trance-like atmosphere that transcends reality/fiction and approaches something immaterial but vital, indescribable but timeless. It speaks to the past and the future as well as the repetition and the futility of human endeavors. Through striking production design that places surrealist structures of every kind throughout the picture, the sense of wandering in an all-encompassing realm of dreams and sighs becomes all the more pronounced.  

Discontinuous, random and utterly impenetrable, this movie might come across as a giant heap of gibberish to most. Having said that, this is a gutsy attempt at experimental cinema which demonstrates, if not yet a full-fledged directorial vision, then many of the exciting prerequisites thereof.

Another movie from Russia that deals with the past and especially the disillusionment of the present is Natalya Kudryashova's "Пионеры-герои (Pioneer Heroes)". Centered around three lifelong friends from the last generation before the collapse of the Soviet Union, it's composed of two parallel narratives that show the trio in their school years, determined to become the worshiped pioneer heroes fighting for the socialist cause, and now, when they're in their thirties, disoriented by the complexities of a changed world and desperate to hold on to a last glimmer of those childhood aspirations.

Viewed from its conclusion alone, some may find faults with the simplistic dichotomy between the rosy communist society and the merciless capitalist one. But at the heart of the story it's actually more about coping with adulthood and the realization that many promises in life will go unfulfilled, which should strike a universal chord. The script is not marked by subtlety but conjures plenty of endearing details about growing up in a party state. The extensive and tireless propaganda is not mocked but looked on with nostalgic tenderness, its only crime the unrealistically big dreams it made the children dream. Kudryashova, who makes her directorial debut here, moves things along with impressive fluency and makes her point succinctly, if at times a bit too forcefully. All six actors playing the three lead characters are fine, with a particularly winning young Olga whose innocent, absolute faith in the flag is quietly devastating.      

Berlinale: El Club (The Club) / I Am Michael

(Originally appeared in EXBERLINER on Feb. 10, 2015)

Chilean director Pablo Larraín's dark and darkly comical competition entry "El Club (The Club)" is set in a seaside apartment that houses five clergymen and -woman. It's not immediately clear how this living arrangement came to be, although you do sense there's something off with this group of people who dine in silence and seem to have an uncommonly keen but carefully disguised interest in dog racing. With the arrival of a new priest who's determined to get to the bottom of a fatal incident that has transpired on their doorstep, all the dirty laundry hidden behind those walls finally comes to light.

This is a remarkable movie not only because of the all-around superb storytelling, but its pointed, ruthless indictment of the Catholic Church. Whether for the archaic dogmas, the countless acts of sexual transgression or just its habitual, firmly programmed tendency to cover things up, the Vatican is attacked, condemned, ridiculed on all fronts and no one from the church comes off clean. Through partly comedic portrayals, we see the absolute misery and psychological wretchedness in which people both sides of the altar live. And the accusatory, almost hopeless tone reaches its incendiary peak toward the end, when the figure seen as the conscience or even salvation of a rotten institution decides on a rather unexpected course of action. Suffice it to say this film is not going to win any favors with the Pope.          

The daringly confrontational stance aside, this is simply a wicked story expertly told. All major characters are vividly drawn. From someone so repressed as to project his need for attachment on a dog to another who's willing to risk everything to preserve what little sense of community and purpose there's left, these unfortunate souls are distinct, memorable creations that leap from the screen and linger in your imagination. The wonderful cast of actors including Alfredo Castro and Antonia Zegers swims in and out of parodic territory with ease and collectively makes this eerie, sad club feel even more iconic. That the deadpan humor would work so well in a film this heavy must be credited to Larraín, though. It's those unlikely touches of lightness that complement the tragic core of the story and take the whole film to another level.

Though not without its faults – the photography is occasionally underlit and the cello-dominated score gets a bit overbearing at times – "El Club (The Club)" wows with the force of its cinematic strokes and dares everyone to picture the horrible fates at play inside any ordinary-looking residence.

Screening in Panorama, American writer/director Justin Kelly's "I Am Michael" is also very much about sex and church, seeing that it's a biopic of gay activist-turned-Christian pastor Michael Glatze. Chronicling Glatze's life over a decade-long period, it tries to make sense of this drastic change, promising explosive material if done right.

The sad news is, then, that it's done not quite right. To begin with, the narrative is straightforward in an uninspired way, giving the impression of merely connecting the dots of the various landmarks in our protagonist's life. And the few times where the director actually breaks away from reenacting a biography to try some tricks, it doesn't have the desired effect. Instead these flashbacks or imaginary scenes expose an inexperienced hand behind the camera still looking for a style. The actors, including James Franco as Glatze, are passable, if never truly outstanding. Franco is mindful of not taking the theatrics too far, but one never has the feeling that he has shaken off his own skin to become somebody else. As his one-time partner Bennett, Zachary Quinto's performance is decidedly one-note and doesn't leave much of an impression at all.

What makes this film nonetheless interesting is, besides the unique personality at its center that's well worth knowing about, the fact that it manages to retain some level of political ambivalence regarding homosexuality. Strangely reminiscent of Clint Eastwood's "American Sniper", it could conceivably be interpreted as ideological munition for both the conservative and the liberal. It's not necessarily the anti-gay movie nor the anti-anti-gay movie. Exactly that flexibility of perspective hints at a tantalizing, if ultimately unrealized potential of creating someone complex and three-dimensional.      

Berlinale: Mr. Holmes / Angelica

(Originally appeared in EXBERLINER on Feb. 9, 2015)

As part of the official Competition lineup but screening out of competition, "Mr. Holmes" tells the story of the world's most famous detective fighting against senility and trying to restore the truth about a case that had eventually sent him into retirement.

The plot is richly layered and carefully structured. Starting from present England, where Holmes, now 93, is a grumpy, testy old man living in a countryside house no longer bothered by other people's problems. It soon becomes apparent, however, that he can't find peace in his twilight years of chronic forgetfulness without figuring out what had actually transpired more than 30 years ago that broke his heart so and effectively ended his partnership with Dr. Watson. Thus begins a densely-packed journey in and out of memory, fiction, reason.

Ian McKellan is simply marvelous as Sherlock Holmes. Playing both older and significantly younger, his demeanor, speech, expressions change drastically to be convincing in both cases. It's not the make-up that does the trick, but the weariness in his look, the looseness in his posture, the cadence in his voice. The editing is also strong, weaving different timelines into an engrossing, constantly surprising narrative. American director Bill Condon shows an able if not particularly subtle hand conducting this piece of many themes. Minor complaints aside – the actual mystery at the center of the story is strangely forgotten for long stretches of time and finally too easily resolved – this is old-school storytelling at its most familiarly delightful.

The Panorama selection "Angelica" is set in Victorian London. After a taxing birth, young Constance is medically advised and warned to stay abstinent for the rest of her life. Her suppressed sexuality coupled with the accidental discovery of her husband's work releases panic and violent hallucinations in her that only get stilled by the comforting company of a fraudulent medium Anne.

People will be forgiven for hating this movie because of the over-the-top, spottily rendered supernatural scenes. The luminescent virus or the naked phantom are certainly poorly designed and just plain silly. But the film actually uses all that loudly reinforced impression of backward sexual politics and mental health care to illustrate the plight of women living in that era. Seen from this angle, the trashier the effects and hence the more ignorant and hysterical the heroine appears to be, the more emphatically it's making its point. Like the pang of genuine sympathy Anne feels toward her willing prey at their first meeting, the audience is put in the shoes of a choiceless, voiceless woman fighting for the safety of her child and may just be ready to look beyond the hysteria and see a strong, scared soul.

Both Jena Malone and Janet McTeer are more than solid in their roles as Constance and Anne. The former breaks your heart with her feigned composure over the shattered nerves. The latter brings an excellent counterbalance to the screen with her robust frame and steely gaze. Cinematography and costume design are outstanding, bringing all kinds of beautiful shapes and shades to life.                

Berlinale: Mariposa (Butterfly) / How to Win at Checkers (Every Time)

(Originally appeared in EXBERLINER on Feb. 8, 2015)

The Panorama section of the Berlin has always has a strong focus on LGBT films and this year's no exception. A sample of the Teddy contenders from the 2015-lineup reveals the interesting trend that sexually graphic portrayal of the gay lifestyle is no longer the mark of queer cinema. On the contrary, homosexuality is increasingly used as just another plot element to tell a story, drive a narrative.

First case in point is previous Teddy winner Marco Berger's "Mariposa (Butterfly)", a parallel-reality drama/romance that features a group of young people from rural Argentina in two sets of amorous constellations – as the extended consequences of an act of (non-)abandonment. A boy and a girl who would have ended up as adoptive siblings become strangers in a separate/imagined universe and are thus free to pursue their desire for one another. This deviation leads to a chain reaction where friends, acquaintances all inhabit a different version of themselves and their game of hearts finds a whole new outcome – or will it?

In short, it's a "Sliding Doors" / "The Butterfly Effect" revisit, only with a homosexual angle. In comparison to Berger's "Ausente (Absence)" or "Hawaii", however, that aspect is significantly toned down here. Although there are still unmistakably homo-eroticized scenes and one might argue the playful, sexually easygoing, somewhat fatalistic tone is altogether gay-friendly, the curiosity and attraction between two male characters is treated here as no more than one facet of a larger plot construct. In so doing, lust, whether hetero, homo, bisexual or even semi-incestuous, all gets its share of attention and a kind of stigma is quietly lifted.

On a technical level, the editing of the film is obviously of vital importance and it didn't disappoint. After a pretty rough start, where the constant switching between the two storylines gets a little mundane, the cuts get ever more confident and inventive, letting the alternative narrative pick up at unexpected places. The direction is also effective, especially in those many moments of tingling uncertainty. So even though the film's ultimately a rather pointless exercise in imagination, at its laziest it's a lot of harmless, flirty fun.

Hailing from Thailand, writer/director Josh Kim makes his feature debut with "How to Win at Checkers (Every Time)", a coming-of-age drama centered around 11-year-old boy Oat. Growing up parent-less, he's dependent on big brother Ek, who's the very symbol of worldliness and competence to his young eyes. As the date for the military draft lottery draws near and Ek faces a real possibility of having to leave home to serve, however, Oat learns not only about the fragility of his lifelong protector/idol, but also the dirty, disappointing workings of the adult world.

Once again, the homosexual element of the story is prominent but not zealously harped upon. The fact that Ek has a (rich) boyfriend and one of their best pals, Kitty, is a transgender person is taken as a given, enacted without much fanfare. Plot details such as Kitty's special treatment at the military draft lottery do inform one of Thailand's liberal awareness regarding sexuality. But that's also used mainly as general backdrop and not a focal point of the story. The film concentrates instead on the relationship between the two brothers and the loss of innocence that would shape the character of a child.

As refreshing as the normalcy afforded to homosexuality is, this movie comes up short in most technical aspects. The cinematography is patchy. Aside from the overall warm, pinkish-earthy tone of the imagery, the camera operation is less-than-inspired. Both the editing and the acting are rough, unable to shake the cartoonish out of the funny or find a more fluid rhythm. That said, the subject matter is well chosen and, at a festival with all kinds of high-minded auteur works, something that wears the heart on its sleeves like this actually offers a welcomed respite.    

Berlinale: Victoria / Härte (Tough Love)

(Originally appeared in EXBERLINER on Feb. 7, 2015)

Just minutes into German writer/director Sebastian Schipper's competition entry "Victoria" and there's no mistaking where the movie takes place: club beats, disco strobe, graffitied surroundings, anonymous bodies dancing in reckless euphoria at 4 in the morning as a young girl from Spain tries, in accented English, to flirt with a bartender she takes to be Swedish. Welcome to Berlin.

As it turns out, Berlin would serve as more than just the geographical setting of this story, which sees a group of youngsters first embracing then fleeing the night, but also a sort of spiritual underpinning if not justification for the craziness that goes down. During the first scene where the titular character Victoria has a heart-to-heart with the male lead Sonne, it's revealed that she's left behind many a dashed dreams and wasted years back in Madrid to land in the European capital of drifters and dreamers. Although this fact alone can't nearly explain her motivations and reactions later on in the film, where things spiral down to some pretty ugly depths, it's one of those cases where a city is so closely connected with a type of mindset it begins to directly help shape characterization. We get the sense that Victoria has made the leap to Berlin to actively turn back on her old suppressed self and seek liberation. Might this be the reason why, even when it's clear that the guys she meets outside the club are trouble and when their requests of her get fishier and nastier, she still plays along without much protest?

Asking questions along these lines is fun but not enough to sustain a feature film, let alone one that runs 140 minutes. A significant chunk of this movie, which proceeds in real time and is done entirely in one take, is spent on silly, insubstantial bantering between the characters. These long, at times interminable-feeling sequences are not only grating for their stupidity and repetitiveness, but do nothing to involve or raise the emotional investment of the viewer. So even when there are places where a potent feeling of empathy threatens to break out, that never truly happens and we're mostly left wondering just how foolish one has to be to do the things these kids do. This serious lacking in screenwriting aside, "Victoria" is not without its merits. Schipper is a fine director with an assured command of mood and atmospherics. The couple of sequences where he pulls the sound and inserts a soothing, cosmically tender music are great touches, releasing a breezy, wondrously youthful energy in the night air. It's just unfortunate that whenever the speaking resumes, everything becomes instantly less interesting.

Both leads are strong. Laia Costa displays an impressive reserve of explosive feelings she's able to tap into with great immediacy. Frederick Lau has proven time and again he's good at playing the marginalized/asocial and as the stunted, hard-boiled Sonne he gives yet another performance full of instincts and quirks. The camerawork is of course the biggest selling point of the single-shot film. Unlike "Birdman: or the Unexpected Virtues of Ignorance", however, the cinematography here is not technically flawless nor rhythmically hypnotic. While the accomplishment of clearing the thousands of logistic hurdles faced by such a project is no doubt formidable, this decision to make no edits doesn't always feel necessary and leaves a slight hint of childish bravado behind.                      

Another, very different Berliner film which opened the Panorama Special this year- Rosa von Praunheim's unconventional biopic "Härte (Tough Love)"- provides this year's Berlinale with a healthy dose of WTF-eccentricity that any self-respecting international film festival must serve. Detailing the life story of local martial arts celebrity Andreas Marquardt, the film is composed in equal parts of candid interview footage (of Marquardt as well as his longtime partner Marion) and dramatizations of his troubled past.

Making no excuses for its kitsch factor and positively delighting in being comically in-your-face, this movie magnifies its own loopiness through preposterously fake set pieces, exaggerated emotional cues and ultra-cheesy camera angles. Shot in hollow, cheap-looking black and white, the overall effect of the staged part of the film is that of a poorly produced telenovela mocking its own lack of taste.

As laughable as the blunt cinematic strokes may come across, this is certainly a story worth telling and knowing, if for no other reason than how krass Marquard's life is. From a sexually abused and physically assaulted child to a pimp with pathological hatred of women, from a sentenced and imprisoned criminal to a Karate instructor for kids, this is one heck of an eventful ride. And it might possibly be argued that in order to process memories fraught with such trauma and unspeakable horrors, an approach as outrageous as this would actually be called for.

In that case, production and performances would of course be impossible to judge by regular criteria. One could just see the film at their own risk. If the enthusiastic response at its premiere screening in Zoo Palast is any indication, however, not a few should be won over by its very peculiar brand of charm.      

Berlinale: Queen of the Desert / 45 Years

(Originally appeared in EXBERLINER on Feb. 6, 2015)

Legendary German director Werner Herzog returns amid fevered anticipation with a biopic of famed British traveller/archaeologist Gertrude Bell to this year's Berlinale. What turns out to be most surprising about "Queen of the Desert" is not the fact that Herzog, known predominantly for his male-centric, hot-blooded filmography, decides to train his focus on a female protagonist for a change, but just how unapologetically, almost gooily old-fashioned his approach to the project is. After a quick set-up of the geopolitical backdrop surrounding the collapse of the Ottoman Empire in the early 20th century, we jump 12 years back in time to find a young, rebellious, fiercely intelligent Gertrude suffocated by the prospect of a domestic life. Her father indulged her wish to be out in the world and sent her to the British Embassy in Teheran. Little did he know this would be the beginning of a lifelong, ever deepening passion to explore and perhaps, to escape.

The narrative is strictly linear, at times pedantically so, moving from one milestone to the next. And with all the stations of her life the film tirelessly chronicles, it does get caught up in details and can be pretty exhausting. What's potentially an even bigger turn-off for viewers is the grand emotions that are poured into many of the scenes. Shot against vast deserts, gorges and other literally awesome geological formations, the words and gestures of affection the characters share often prove even larger. And the way Herzog milks every last drop of romance out of candlelit interiors or windswept exteriors might be a bit much for those with a low sugar tolerance level.

That said, there's plenty to admire about a production that so painstakingly recreates the opulence of a bygone era and so earnestly seeks to make sense of a woman's lonesome path. The art direction of the film is superb. From the granite baths and silken drapes of the various estates or diplomatic agencies to the fragrant bustle of a Persian bazaar, the set pieces look exquisite and are often cast in a delicious, soft glow. Nicole Kidman carries the film with great confidence, reminding you in just a handful of key scenes- notably the textbook "devastation-upon-hearing-tragic-news" reaction shots-  what tremendous, nuanced control she has over her physicality. As the love of her life Henry Cadogan, James Franco is also in fine form, with his usual smarm reduced to a rare minimum. All in all, it's a worthy competition entry that should delight some for being pretty, thorough, dreamily traditionalist and draw the derision of others for those same reasons.

Coming off the success of critical darling "Weekend", British writer/director Andrew Haigh's comes back with another relationship drama "45 Years". Again it's all about two individuals and the changes in their understanding, appreciation of each other. Only this time it's a man and a woman at the center, and instead of marking the beginning of an affair, it maps the downfall of a decades-long marriage. Kate and Geoff Mercer are a week away from celebrating their 45th anniversary when the news comes that the body of Geoff's previous love Katya has been found frozen in a Swiss glacier. For him this stirs up all kinds of buried memories and regrets, but it might prove even more difficult for her to come to terms with a man she suddenly sees in a new light.

The premise of the story packs an instant hook and promises all kinds of insight into the human mind. In execution it's significantly less exciting, as Haigh fails to fully substantiate or make relatable the doubts and fears of these characters. Hammering repeatedly on a phantom from half a century ago that should all of a sudden become the unnamed shadow of their married life and deal the final blow to their relationship is not entirely plausible, making their sulks, distress, breakdowns look like a petty case of jealousy. The insufficient plotting also contributes to a padded feel, damaging for a film running just over 90 minutes. In contrast to "Weekend", which was also a simple story with few complications, this time around the emotional force that should drive forward the narrative mostly just isn't there.

As Kate, Charlotte Rampling is her old magnificent self. Her portrayal of someone slowly unraveling is technically impeccable and as always a joy to behold. Smartly ending the film on her face, the film manages to capitalize as much on that mystical, slightly unsettling appeal of hers as possible, but eventually the limitations of the role prevent this performance from being a clear knock-out. As Geoff, Tom Courtenay fares considerably less well, coming off strangely robotic in many scenes. On rare occasions the strengths of Haigh and his cast do come together though. The last stretch of the film, for example, offers a couple of penetrating looks inside Kate's seriously ruffled psyche, sending jolts of electric currents through a restrained if lax narrative. It's a shame, then, that these moments are too few and far between to piece together an altogether more compelling picture.