anywhere out of the world

Berlinale 64: German food stands and actors, Danish nymphomaniacs, a few teddies, Austrian gentlemen and an American scoop…Ah, and a few parties...

....Berlin Spring 2014...First a few over the top films:
FREE RANGE – VEIKO ÕUNPUU (FORUM)

… If the author of The Temptation of St. Tony wanted to do an absurd,

Dadaistic take on life in Estonia,

then this is his film.

Besides that, he turns the tale into a dark comedy dressed

as a 60’s “summer of love”.

He uses here some fantastic cinematography -16 mm and slow motion sections included.

And the oxymoron works perfectly…

… and what we get is an absolute masterpiece of a film.

…Õunpuu’s film is, in my very personal view, the best film on Berlinale so far.

…what follows is a nonsense parade of film mastery.

Nothing gets solved;

nothing works out..

“Free Range” deserves a place in film history.

In FORUM: JOURNEY TO THE WEST – TSAI MING-LIANG

This 51 minute film, where a monk walks

in a really slow pace
among different places in the world,
a wonderful piece of reflection.

…and with one of the most picturesque photography
ever done in Tsai’s work.

It opens with a close shot of Denis Lavant’s troubled, meditative face,

a five minute shot (approximately)

which drives him to tears

(somewhat reminiscent of Claire Denis’

Beau Travail dance scene).

What follows is Lee Kang-Sheng as a monk,

slowly drifting
along the streets of Marseille.

Journey to the West by Tsai Ming -liang could easily be shown as part of a museum exhibition:

….the roaming of human being

across the land…

where the path is more important

than the destination…

and then...
…One day (February 12^th?) I was watching the latest jokes in “Mo Jing” (That Demon Within) by Dante Lam,

when I receive an sms

from my new german actor friend:

“What about a short parenthesis for a glass of red wine at my house?”…

One cannot refuse that…

But first the movie, a cop story…
with a policeman that assists in a hospital to the
recovery of a man
that we discover to be
the most villain of villains in that city…

head of a gang of diamond smugglers…

A weird guy to which you’d never donate blood…
Dave the policeman does it,
and he will have to pay harshly for his gesture,
caught between his Internal Affairs colleagues and the Mafiosi…

But it is not so much this cat and mouse struggle

that fascinated me.

I mean not just now…

Even though I have to admit the guys from Hong Kong truelly know

how to create an atmosphere

and to bountifully use all the million lights of Kowloon

as one of the most beautifull harbours of the planet.

But they are also extremely good at what follows…

I was then and there taken by the story

of this guy who would never again be able

to live like before...

Enclosed among his responsabilities, in his office.

But who from now on

will know what means to make a blood deal with the enemy,

having it in his mind and in his bones…

A psychological thriller, almost a noir…

and then...
....Out from the Zoo Palast,

glittery and moving at the same time

with that gigantic bear covered in lights,

... it rains cats and dogs…

My actor friend gives me indications for finding his apartment…

My broken GPS shows me the right way…

It is close by, but that street is huge

and I don’t really know where I am. “Metropolitan girl”…

I arrive outside of a white condominium.

The wine and the actor's friends

are upstairs

and they are all waiting for me.

I am accounting on this film.
.....

....This is also part of the Berlinale…

And then....

…I mainly hate parties.

But surprisingly this has been pleasant.

I am now sort of a party correspondent
on Film Festivals
for friends
who put their kids in bed at 8pm…

It's not a very hard job.

It's definitely not like being a miner
or a nurse.

…This is now my third slight hungover,

having dragged my jogged body

and tired eyes

through five parties
in the past few days…

… there was the Nick Cave after-party, which contained Nick Cave…

the Retrospektive reception,

which featured free quite-good wine

being slurped
by a herd of anxious academics…

...the Festiwelt night (an umbrella for all of Berlin's festivals)

which had shouty, glittery live acts…

...and then...the Match Box uber formal party (and the blue gritty eyes from the brazzzilian movie)...

....and something at the Bassy venue that I can only remember

as noise and sweat....

And then....

...It all culminated last night in a cellar

on Torrstraße
at a party

I'm not even sure had any connection with the Berlinale,

but was saturated

with the World Cinema Elite…

It's a bit like speed-dating,

except
instead of getting to know each other,
you have 60 seconds

to realize
how important your conversation partner is,

and then calibrate your own level

of niceness...

Tricky exercise,

because it means that a lot of people
just panic
and say they are either a producer or director
or actor
or screenwriter…

Like a verbal reflex,
in an attempt to keep the other person interested
for the next 30 seconds…

The only response is to try to impress

your interlocutor

with all the things you've done

that had something to do

with being in the film industry…

...until the whole house of cards
collapses
and you have

either won or lost.

I suppose you could call all this quite shallow…

… Thus I spent last night in a dark cellar steadily inhaling cocktails and wasabi …

Lots of tall German women

with an air of imperial disgust

for the cheap bourgeois trappings

of modern life…

and I did meet my actor friend, in a hat…

And then...

…Well,

well,

well...

Who saw that one coming?

We plunged into the Valentine’s spirit

with a midday screening of

the Lea Sedoux/Vincent Cassel

Beauty and the Beast redux…… a dreadfully indulgent

€33 million Babelsberg production,
with little apparent meaning …

For the day that’s in it,
perhaps Nymphomaniac would have made
a better choice...

but then,
I digress...

After the screening,

I meandered

(in wait for the uber master)

to CinemaxX

in the bizarre February sunshine

like it was the last day of school,

from 33 million

to 35mm

(the only such projection

I’ve spotted

outside of this year’s Retrospektive section)

and the final press screening

of this year’s Competition.

The film is The Little House by Yoji Yamada.

It’s melodramatic

and sincere…

...how desperately unfashionable!!!!

... but,
completely out of the blue,

it is,
without question,

the most moving piece of work this competition has offered…

…Whether it was religion,

family, love or sex,

much of this Competition’s offerings

have been swiming in cynicism.

…Yamada’s film,

which has come so late in the day,

provides a remarkable breath of fresh air. The director is 82

and that fact is wonderfully evident

in his deeply sincere

and traditional form.

The score is basic

and touching…

he shoots head on

like the great Yasujiro Ozu…

… he seems obsessed with the physical contact taboos of Japanese society of the time,

and films even the briefest

of touches

in tender close up.

It’s so tragically old fashioned

and yet it makes you hope

that there’s still room
in our dry
disillusioned
world

for such simple heartfelt sentiment!!!!...

And then...
…Somehow I missed the Teddy reception.

Or there was none.

Or the word reception here

just meant

show up early

to do the same as everywhere:

buy drinks
and keep mingling.

So I’ll just talk
about the gay films.

…The Teddy winners

were a bit of a mixed bag.

The Teddy short went to “Mondial 2010”,

a film I passed up.

I’m sure it was lovely...

Best documentary/essay film: Der Kreis.

A half talking head,

half re-ennacted portrayal

of a gay magazine office in Switzerland

in the 1950s,

that eventually led to queer insurrection.

All done with rather conventional filmmaking methods.

But One idea:
fight the power=good.

Bruce LaBruce got a coup
with the special jury award prize
for Pierrot Lunaire. ..

I thought this was
the most contemporary of any films
up there for a Teddy I saw,
with the narrative from a 1912 opera
and a true crime FTM transgender murder case from 1970s Toronto.

Compared to the Teddy feature winner,
it was absolutely 2014,
possibly beyond.
Which is why I can’t understand why
the tender film The Way He Looks
won the best feature
over 52 Tuesdays.