These past two weeks Berlin wasn't only blessed with icy cold and incredibly sunny weather, there were also film lovers running all around the city because it was Berlinale time again! For the 75th time this year! Although the film selection wasn't necessarily the best of all time, it was decent enough and I had the chance to finally satisfy my hunger for lots of movies from around the world despite financial concerns (the tickets get more expensive by the year and it's going off my vacation budget), frustration over sold out showings, and lots of other personal stuff I had to take care of. I'm happy that I was able to join three screenings followed by director interviews, I think two of them were even premieres, and that despite the unsettling collective cacophony of coughing and sneezing and sniffling I made it out halfway healthy.
Let's take a look at the films now, here's my festival in a nut shell!
An explosion of flamboyant colors... Affected acting performances... 90s inspired post-punk music... Nonsensical, but thought-provoking games and sketches... Art installations... Two interludes written by AI and re-interpreted by actors... In The Trio Hall, Taiwanese director Hui-Yu Su assembles a striking assortment of utterly creative and stunningly original show elements which were part of an art performance show that took place over the course of two years in MOCA in Taipei, to make a film out of them.
Partly hilarious, partly seriously political, this movie was like nothing I have seen before. I really appreciated the interview with the director post screening, in which Hui-Yu Su explained the meaning of "Trio-Hall romances" (apparently Taiwanese movies from the 80s which were shot in three rooms - for instance, kitchen, bathroom, living room), the difficulty of editing a project of which even he couldn't envision the end version of, using AI, making his own music, and the importance of staying critical and political in our times. The installation project will be continued in Bogota/Colombia the next two years, so there will definitely be a second round.
The crew of an American documentary show exploring the weirdest traditions and strange things on Earth accidentally ends up in Argentina while going after a story of a musician who lives in a town with a generic name you can find in every South American country. Too late do they realize that this is the wrong country. Since they're already there, they decide to fabricate a story with the people whose acquaintance they already made, and who agree to help them out; it will be the story of a (in reality non-existent) religious cult, whose members wear pink bows in their hair. Meanwhile they have a big story under their noses which could seriously go viral.
The warmth, the cordiality of this movie has less to do with the delightful story and self-depreciating humor than the shots of the Argentinian countryside with its stray animals, kinki graffiti, dusty paths and lovely people, as well as the connections the characters make. Magic Farm was a very low key, sweet movie.
Undocumented Nigerian migrant Isio never thought she'd end in an asylum removal center, but after making it for two years in the UK, here she is in Hatchworth and puts all her hopes into getting a residence permit. Chances are slim, though. She herself, her new roommate Farah, her new friends Nana and Atefeh and everyone else knows this.
While she slowly gives up the hopes of a fair hearing, and starts looking for alternative ways of staying in this country, she also unexpectedly develops feelings for Farah. In a cruel place, in which everybody could disappear at any moment, their love is a beautiful and rare, but fleeting thing.
Ugh, I cried so much... I loved everything about this movie, I also really loved the director and the actresses who came on stage after the premiere, and tell us about their experiences of shooting the movie. They all looked gorgeous and seemed like people super fun to be around and to work with. In our time, in which 20% of Germans have voted for a party that intends remigration, movies like this are important to remind us of the reality of migration and how Western countries handle it.
Following, I watched one movie set in Gaza, Yalla Parkour, in which filmmaker Areeb befriends Ahmed, a parkour performer from Gaza, and through him explores the very harsh reality of life there, the struggles and the wish to escape. Very heartbreaking.
I also saw the French picture La cache (The Safe House) set in Paris, in May 1968 which is about the life of a Jewish family during the legendary student protests. It is a light-hearted comedy about heavier themes, and is based on a novel of Christophe Boltanski.
Geu jayeoni nege mworago hani (What Does that Nature Say to You)
I'm not sure how to describe this movie, which is basically about nothing but a young poet accidentally meeting the family of his girlfriend of three years, and this meeting turning into a catastrophe of small scale.
Donghwa is surprised to see that his girlfriend Junghee's parents own a complete hill, with a big house, a separate container that serves as a man-cave, a shrine to the late grandmother, and an amazing garden. While the young man explores the place, the family dynamics, and the nearby town, the family also explores him and they might even be testing his patience a little. Unfortunately, he fails. If he were my boyfriend, I too would have hidden him from my parents for three years.
Because What Does that Nature Say to You has a super slow pace, and there are peaceful stretches during which nothing big happens, the humor hits all the harder. Further, it is a nice life Junhee's parents are living; doing garden work and shopping daytime, and eating well, smoking, playing the guitar, giggling like teenagers in the evening... If there ever were relationship goals, this must be it. Plus, I loved that garden.
Pa-gwa (The Old Woman with the Knife)
The book The Old Woman With the Knife by Korean author Gu Byeong-mo was all the rave when it was translated into English a couple of years ago, so it doesn't surprise me there's a movie adaptation.
The story centers around Hornclaw, who is a legendary assassin in her sixties. She is part of a "company" which kills people they deem "scum" or "vermin" ever since she was trained by a man who took her in when she was a homeless young girl. Freshly joining her team, Bullfight seems to have all it takes to be a hired killer, even if somewhat hot-headed, but he seems to have ulterior motives, which maybe involve Hornclaw?
This was way too much action and fighting for my taste, though I don't regret having seen it. My main reason to go see it was that my friend Queralt in Catalonia is in love with the male lead Kim Sung-cheol and she told me to "go see her husband". It felt like watching a series though, so I think it will do good on the home screen.
MY WINNER OF THIS YEAR'S BERLINALE!
It is a running gag between me and my sister that the Turkish movies at the Berlinale are so bad that we reserve the very last film screening to a Turkish film, and try to laugh at how bad they are (I am a Turk, I can do that). So I was so surprised when this movie was AMAZING!
The whole country was shaken up when a fateful night in August 1999 an earthquake from over 7 magnitude hit. I remember falling off my bed, and I wasn't even living near the center of the earthquake, but many smaller earthquakes, and the fear whether these are aftershakes or harbingers of an even bigger earthquake coming, shook us all night. Having grown up in the earthquake belt, I should be used to them but earthquakes terrify me to this day. Much like many big catastrophes, after this earthquake too, the atmosphere in the country was bad and repressive, aggressive almost, I remember it very clearly.
Set in this time, the film follows Sabiha, who under the pseudonym of Arzu, works in an erotic call center in Ankara. Minutes after the earthquake hit, a young boy who was prank calling her with his friends is buried and stuck under rubble and just pushes the redial button to call for help. She is determined to help and pulls all the strings, including the political big shot who is her client, but that will draw her into political issues much bigger than she anticipates.
The minimalism provided by one setting only, the call center Sabiha works at, provides an enhanced concentration of the suspense which gradually builds up, and that suspense leads to a message, given so beautifully and emotionally that I cried. It is a film that spoke from my heart and I hope it gets a lot of recognition.
I did have a gap of a couple of hours between two movies so decided to go see this film in the "Retrospektive" category, which I usually don't do.
Fleisch is about newlyweds Mike and Monika, she's German and he's American, checking into a seedy motel in New Mexico and cuts to the chase by immediately introducing an ambulance driven by two guys who beat up and kidnap Mike. Monika, played by Jutta Speidel who looks like a kind of prototype of Gwyneth Paltrow, senses something is wrong and can hide on time. She then is very, very, very, very lucky to meet trucker Bill who helps her track the ambulance down, and discover an organ trade ring which does outrageous things. So outrageous, in fact, that you need to suspend that belief hard.
This is exactly the kind of German movie, idiotic acting, and unbelievable plot that make me dislike the German cinema in general. It was OK as a gap filler until my next movie, but it's actually a shame you have to pay to see this.
The only German movie I like to this day, by the way, is Tom Tykwer's Lola Rennt. And he actually recently said that his new movie Licht which opened this year's Berlinale (but which will soon have theatrical release and can be seen in cinemas all over the country), is like a continuation of it, so I'm curious.
Minden Rendben (Growing Down)
At his girlfriend's daughter's birthday party Sándor witnesses how the little girl falls into the empty swimming pool, seemingly pushed by his own son. Heavily injured, she is taken into intensive care, and in the heat of the moment he says the girl fell into the pool by accident.
But he and his son Dénes know better and there is a raft growing between the father and son which affects the young boy's behavior at home, his performance at school, and his friendships. The director explores this raft and the things we do when we're faced with situations so traumatic that we just want to forget about them.
This was not only my, but THE very last Berlinale screening this year, and I'm glad it was super relaxed, with seemingly only a handful of Hungarian people present in the cinema. Not a big fan of black and white films in general, I'm not sure why it was the director's choice, but the story knew how to hold the attention so that wasn't really a disadvantage. I really enjoyed the quality acting, especially the young actors were great beyond their ages. And I love the language, so it was nice to just listen to in general.
Well, that was that, another Berlinale is over. All in all it was worth it and I wish I could have watched more movies.
Next and last stop of Film February: The Final Girls Berlin Film Festival 10th Edition, which takes place in March this year.
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