Berlinale Diary - More reviews. . .

On Sunday, the final day of the Berlinale, Filmbrain treated himself to one last film -- a screening of Kubrick's Barry Lyndon. Ahhh...sweet bliss. Just enough time at the moment for one quick review: Ghosts (Gespenster), Germany An incredibly frustrating film. Though there's much to admire about director Christian Petzold's languid pace and the way he tells this dual-edged story, it completely falls flat on its face in the third act. Nina (Julia Hummer) is a troubled teenager -- having spent most of her childhood in and out of various foster homes, she's now an aimless drifter. Enter the beautiful Toni (Sabine Timoteo), who Nina first sees being brutally beaten by two men in a park. A fast friendship occurs, and in the course of a single day, the two will steal from people and department stores, audition for a television program, and make-out a lot. Meanwhile, Francoise is making her annual trek to Berlin to look for her child that was abducted many years ago. Could Nina be that child? The relationship that develops between Nina and Toni begins plausibly enough (somewhat), but that it ends with them sleeping together in the home of a filthy rich and sleazy TV producer is gratuitous, and reeks of Eurotrash-cinema. (It makes one appreciate a film like Secret Things even more.) At the same time, the actions of Francoise and her husband do little to give the film a satisfactory conclusion. Filmbrain is a fan of Petzold -- his last film, Wolfsburg, was very effective in its simplicity, but this one seems rather pointless. My Summer of Love, also seen at the festival, was a far better film about the budding relationship between two young women. Perhaps this tainted Filmbrain's opinion somewhat.

Comments

[msic]

Did you, um.....Did Filmbrain happen to see (or hear from anyone who saw) Sokurov's latest? I'm....um, sorry. Michael Sicinski is quite intrigued with his Sokurov's apparently controversial, sympathetic take on Hirohito. Please dish whatever Filmbrain has got.

[dave]

Filmbrain - Based one of your old, old posts I picked up a VHS of Harry & Tonto. I loved it. Thanks for the recommendation!

[Filmbrain]

Yes, Michael, I did see the Sokurov film -- am hoping to finish up my reviews this coming weekend when I am back in the States.

[roland]

Something about this reminds me of a soft version of Base Moi

[Shikaku]

About "The Sun", also I'm waiting for your review and writing on Japanese response at my blog. I can't imagine what is the film like though I'm a Japanese.

[Wayne]

Filmbrain mentioned that he'd seen the Pawel Pawlikowski film 'My Summer of Love' (for the film's website, click here). As I live in the area where the film was shot, I watched it with some interest. However, I found it rather slight. Its aesthetics are conventional and pedestrian, leaving us with just a straightforward individual-level narrative to follow. This is enjoyable enough, but it connects with no wider matters beyond the narrow world of the depicted characters and possesses little depth; it is soon forgotten, I fear.

The showing I attended was followed by a discussion with Helen Cross, the author of the book on which the film is based. She suggested that the film had made both the characters, the events and the locations more glamorous than those in her book. This process of re-shaping rather confirms the strongly mainstream aesthetics of the film, I think.