Hotbed Goes to Berlinale

Unsu and Stokes in Berlin

Recently, Stokes and I made a resolution to hit 3 or 4 film festivals this year. We realized that our busy lives often made us forget why we make films in the first place. Going to film festivals is a good way to get out of our routine and immerse ourselves in an environment where films hold an almost supernatural power over people. It’s a good boost for any filmmaker’s ego.

We decided to hit the Berlinale first. Now in its 59th year, it takes place in February every year in the cultural metropolis of Berlin. It has a reputation for having a political slant, and this year was no exception. Some of the Q&A sessions were intense. At times, we felt like we were at a UN tribunal instead of a film festival. One audience member stood up and proclaimed that the film we just watched was “propaganda” and “an insult to my intelligence”. As a result, I have decided that I need to get PhDs in History and Political Science before submitting a political film to the Berlinale.

We watched 10 films over four days, chosen from a vast programme by dint of curiosity, chance, and instinct. This comfortable schedule left us enough time to drink lots of beer in between films (absolutely necessary for our emotions to recover and reset), and to discover some interesting things about Berlin, which we’ll cover in a future blog post.

The 10 films were:

[*] Mammoth (Sweden, Germany, Denmark)
[*] The Private Lives of Pippa Lee (USA)
[*] Beeswax (USA)
[*] Defamation (Israel, Austria, USA, Denmark)
Little Soldier (Denmark)
My Dear Enemy (South Korea)
Aguas Verdes (Argentina)
The Shock Doctrine (UK)
Rachel (France, Belgium)
[x] Absolute Evil (USA, Germany)

[*] Worth going out of your way to see
[x] Stay as far away from this film as you possibly can

Here are some non-professional reviews to give you a taste of the current direction of cinema.

MAMMOTH directed by Lucas Moodysson
A film about a family living in New York who have a Philippino nanny. Stars Gael Garcia Bernal and Michelle Williams. The film intercuts between New York, Bangkok (where the husband has to go to work), and the Philippines. It forces us to stop thinking about globalisation in abstract terms, and deals with its social impact at the level of the individual family. This film feels representative of our globe-trotting generation.The director’s Swedish background can be felt in the choice of music, and I could be imagining it, but the film was definitely moody. The characters could be going through the most ordinary, everyday ordeals, but it felt like it was going to be the end of the world. Cinema at its manipulative best.

PRIVATE LIVES OF PIPPA LEE directed by Rebecca Miller
Huge cast that includes Robin Penn Wright as the lead, Julianne Moore, Maria Bello, Monica Belluci, Keanu Reeves, Alan Arkin and Winona Ryder. Rebecca Miller also wrote the screenplay, and she lives up to her pedigree as playwright Arthur Miller's daughter. It’s a really well-told story about a woman, Pippa Lee, who is married to an older man and trying to deal with her wild and crazy past. It's hard to pin down the one thing that makes the film seem fresh. It has lots of great dialogue, both witty and profound. There are some sexy scenes involving Pippa in her younger days. And there are fascinating revelations about her character, whose story arc goes from a disturbing childhood to a drug-ridden teenage existence to her present-day attempts at being the best mom and wife in the world.

BEESWAX directed by Andrew Bujalski
It may not be for everyone, but it’s worth checking out because it’s part of a new film movement called ‘mumblecore’. Beeswax has very naturalistic dialogue and doesn't really have an ending. It just kinda trails off. It’s set in Texas, and according to Stokes, the characters are very representative of people he grew up with. You feel like you’re just spending some time in the company of real people. The director was very articulate and poised during the Q&A. The funny thing was that a lot of the people asking questions rambled on and on, just like the film itself. The director refused to explain the meaning of the title.

DEFAMATION directed by Yoav Shamir
This is a documentary about anti-semitism. The filmmaker had incredible access to the Anti-Defamation League, which raises awareness about anti-semitism around the world, with questionable consequences. The filmmaker, who is from Israel, wants to know if anti-semitism is a real threat to his people, or if it’s possible that the threat has been overblown by various interest groups. He narrates and does all the interviews himself. He comes across as a fair-minded inquisitor wading into a sea of entrenched opinions. There wasn’t a dull moment in this film. The interviews were incredible, including a hilarious one with the filmmaker’s grandmother. The Israeli Ambassador was in the audience, and Stokes was worried we were going to get bombed.

ABSOLUTE EVIL directed by Ulli Lommel
Stokes and I walked out of this one, the only film we saw in the festival that justified such an extreme reaction. 40 years ago, the director appeared in Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s first film, Love is Cold Than Death. This film was framed as a homage to that award-winning film. It was even shown in the same theatre as Fassbinder’s film. There the comparison ends. It was terribly shot on video, with a bad script and bad acting. I’ve seen better student films. It’s a shock that the Berlinale was presenting it. You know a film is bad when you can’t even learn from it’s mistakes. The title is the only appropriate thing about this film.