The retrospective strand this year is Larger than Life a presentation of the 70mm large screen format. A great selection of films included West Side Story, Ben Hur and Lawrence of Arabia. With trying to see so many new films it feels too much of a treat to settle back and see a classic. Although I always remember the year when I couldn’t make sense of what was on – never mind which day it was – and noticed that Ridley Scott’s Alien was screening. I went to see it and was blown away by Scott’s audacity in pacing and filming (the extreme close up of the cats eye and reflection of the alien, comes to mind). In can be like rediscovering cinema.





Back to this year, I noticed that Stanley Kubrick’s monumental 2001: A Space Odyssey was part of the Larger than Life season and made note in advance to treat myself to taking this opportunity to see it in the scale it was meant to be seen. There is a real difference to the impact and meaning of a film when it was intended for such an epic scale. The screening was on at the International Kino, a classic of soviet style 60s architecture in the middle of the old East Berlin at 9.30 in the morning. A bit of a trek but worth it to see Kubrick’s classic film.

I had asked the day before for a ticket but was confidently told “that’s a free screening and you do not need a ticket” – you know where this is heading! I turn up to a huge queue of eager young folk buying tickets with eager anticipation. Delegates get a lottery ticket, mine is 175, they let the first 15 in. It’s difficult at these moments not to punch something or specifically the person who told me I did not need a ticket. I leave deciding that thinking positive is better for my health, look at the schedule and see that there is a screening on in the Forum back at Potsdam Platz in a couple of hours. Taking the time I walk through previous East Berlin socialist town planning paradise, through Alexanderplatz where I discover great public art celebrating the working woman and onto Unter Den Linden one of the great European roads which was sliced in the middle at the Brandenburg Gates by the wall.



The film I am planning to see is called Beeswax and they keep delegates back whilst a steady stream of paying punters walk past us. It is completely full. I decide a letter to Festival director Dieter Kosslick might be in order when I am reminded how much was paid for the pass. This constitutes a crisis: having been knocked back from two screenings. A film must be seen and what is next up The Pink Panther 2. It shocked me to see that it was in competition and it shocks me even more to find myself inexorably heading for the press screening in the main Berlinale cinema but I have to feel the lights go down and the images start. Never have I laughed so little. Why? oh why?… from the sublime to the ridiculous in one cross city walk.



The afternoon is markedly more successful and better quality (it could only be after such a low) and leads back to the sublime with the 80 year old Andrzej Wajda’s masterful new film Tatarak (how could this be in the same competition progamme as aforementioned PP2!?) and Johan Grimonprez’s witty and astute Double Take which weaves parallels between Hitchcock and body double with the battle between TV and cinema in the 50s and the rise of East/West tensions. Never has the Avant Garde been so entertaining.



The 59th Berlinale comes to a close with the reflection that the most interesting cinema is most definitely coming from out with the mainstream. They are challenging in that they tell thought provoking sometimes difficult stories in unconventional ways and, unlike the Pink Panther, they will find it much more of a challenge to find their way to cinema near you. There is much work to be done. Til the next one Auf Wiedersehen

home

From promising prospects, the view from mid way through the 59th Berlinale is one of acute underwhelm, certainly in the main competition. I have heard nothing but bad things about Swedish director Lukas Moodysson’s new film Mammoth. I was and am a big fan of his earlier films – Fucking Amal, Together and Lilya 4 Ever but parted company there. The avant-garde ramblings of Container was enough the test the mettle of even the sturdiest film goer. Mammoth we were all hoping might see the return of this evidently talented filmmaker. Unfortunately, I have to report that it is not to be. I had a conversation with a film critic who claimed that it was worse than Sally Potter’s Rage. I found this hard to believe until I reached three quarters of the way through Mammoth and had to leave having come over quite nauseous at its increasingly saccharine musings on globalisation and the fate of the family. Whether it was at the point where Gael Garcia Bernal’s character – a seriously rich internet games wunderkid – says on the phone from a beach in Thailand to his wife in New York “I need to do some charity work, maybe set up an orphanage” or when he buys a Thai prostitute out of her trade and discusses reincarnation in the Buddhist temple, I will never know.



It was initially refreshing to see the new Claude Chabrol film Bellamy. He is a true master of cinema and the confidence with which he moves the camera and allows the story to reveal itself is exquisite. Gerard Depardieu is the retired cop who cant keep himself out of cases. Depardieu is great, a big bear of a man who is evidently enjoying himself as in nearly every scene he is either drinking or eating. But - it’s terrible that there has to be a but - there doesn’t seem to be enough happening to sustain the nearly two hours. This seems to be the name of the game.



From the distance of a couple of days and more, films somethings are becoming evident: Ozon’s Ricky begins to diminish. There is a really interesting idea in there but I’m not convinced it pulls it off. Although the baby with wings flying about the council flat banging itself against the window, was funny and added a whole new dimension to bringing up babies. Salvation is really in the Forum and Panorama strands where new voices are being discovered. As mentioned previously Romanian Happiest Girl in the Worldand Can go Through Skin are the strongest to date. Little Soldier would be my contender for main award at the moment although, we still have a whole load of films to go including new ones from Stephen Frears and Polish director Andrez Wadja, so still plenty of promising prospects.

In between the films, I manage to make it to the Swedish dinner - one of the festival’s annual social highlights - which takes place once again at the charming Café Einstein. I catch up with Asa Garnett who works at the Swedish Film Institute, also bump into a convivial David Robinson who was enthusiastic about our recent Slapstick festival and is trying to get the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain film event to his festival in Pordenone in Italy this October. It would be interesting to see how the Italians will respond to seven ukulele players playing to eccentric quirky archive British short films. During the evening, I make my way to the toilet wherein I come across a choir rehearsing in the corridor. I love the Swedes and I love their parties.

Is when you you have lost your all important accreditation badges and any sense of significance is quite quickly wiped away - forget sartre, forget camus - when it comes to the meaning of being: I have festival accreditation therefore I am! And so it was that once welcoming cinemas, ticket offices, festival staff said no. As i sat ruminating my fate in my second home - cinemaxx cafe - the mobile rings and a pleasant woman tells me that I have been found and that i should make my way to the Berlinale Visitor Centre and be reunited with myself. Relief beyond belief. My life is back to cinematic normality and the cinema doors are once again open.

When You're Strange is also the name of the of Tom Decillo's documentary on The Doors which uses newly discovered archive footage to tell the story of the the band and the tragically shortened life of their lionised front man Jim Morrison. I was never a big Doors fan but after the film have more appreciation of the musicianship (particularly John Densmore's jazz influenced drumming) which provided their increasingly erratic front man with a musical safety net whilst he was either provoking or collapsing onstage. The newly discovered footage is from a film Morrison made in the late 60s and there are discussions about that film getting a release on the dvd.


Thats Doors' drummer Johns Densmore on the right

A low point so far has to be Sally Potters new film Rage about the fashion industry. I saw it at its late night premiere and lasted all of 20 mins. The great film critic Robin Wood once wrote a brilliant essay entitled Smart ass and Cutey Pie which was a brilliant critique of the films of Robert Altman. It came to mind as I exited Rage.


Steve Buscemi arrives for premiere of Rage

The annoying thing was that I left a delightful dinner reunion with two jury members of last year's Encounters British Jury. As we ate, texts were coming through of news from the BAFTAs and the great news that Bristol based Esther May Campbell who they had picked for Best British film at the festival won the BAFTA for short film. We toast the success of Esther (and praise the BAFTA jury for their exquisite choice!)

Ricky Premiere

Difficult to know where the beginning was even after only two days. Already saturated in cinema notching up 4 or 5 films a day whilst trying to work your way through the 200 odd screenings per day across who knows how many cinemas and screens nestling within and without the Potsdam Platz. In the celluloid – or is that now digital – haze reality blurs and you could and can be convinced that a baby has wings and can fly courtesy of Francois Ozon’s new film Ricky or that war is over in Iraq courtesy of the NY times via the Yes men - of course none of it is unfortunately true but at least you are allowed a glimpse into a world of utopian possibilities.


Ricky


War is Over - If you want it

Back to reality and the very real task of sorting out what to see, when and where. We are here with two Berlinale virgins – Adrian and Vicky. How anyone arriving for the first time can work out where anything is, never mind what is on where is a mystery that is passed down from generation to generation. We go from registration to ticket collection to market to cinema accumulating bags, catalogues and tickets ending up in the all important Cinemaxx café bar where we dive into the programme to begin to work a route through the 59th Berlinale.

First up, as far as I can remember, as I’m writing this three days into the festival, was the Dutch film showing in the forum strand Can Go Through Skin; a powerful, initially disorientating film which tries to get inside the head of a woman who has been seriously assaulted, possibly raped, who retreats to the country to escape and withdraw. It is a very accomplished piece in all areas – acting, directing, editing and sound (a minor detail but I could have done without the songs which were too literal for such a visceral experience.) I noticed that the sound was done by someone called Geesin and given its naïve dissonance, I can only think that he must be related to Ron Geesin (note to self – follow this connection up). As I say, it is an immensely powerful and accomplished film but will it get released in the UK?


A Strasse of Berlinales

Telstar is a film that’s passed through my radar sometime ago, not sure where and when. It’s about music producer Joe Meek who was in at the birth of UK rock n roll and given Adrian’s interest in music it seems a good one to try. I know nothing about Meek apart from some of the music he produced and of course the title song. What I realise is that he is the UK’s Phil Spector with all the pioneering creativity, eccentricities and erratic temperament to match. Meek’s story however is even more tragic if that were possible. The film starts off a bit straight out of 1950s/60s central casting and props but the performance of Con O'Neill as Meek is outstanding and is the glue that holds the whole film together. In conversation with tony jones for Cambridge Film Festival, it transpires that there is documentary which is even more illuminating on Meek's music creativity, influence and unlikely background in the Forest of Dean.


Writer in Residence

A while back, I did a podcast – I think – wherein I talked about the Romanian filmmaker Radu Jude. He made the utterly wonderful short film The Tube with the Hat which won loads of awards around the world and, indeed won the best international short film at Encounters in 2007. We screened his latest short film Alexandra in 2008, which was equally brilliant. What I was saying was that I can’t wait to see what kind of feature film he would make. What do I see listed in the programme? The Happiest Girl in the World directed by Radu Jude. So with great optimism and a little trepidation (on my part!) we go the world premiere. Once outside that most simple yet difficult of questions – What did you think? Unfortunately, I am underwhelmed (and of course assume everyone else will be!) but delighted that Adrian and Vicky thought it was brilliant! The thing is, I realise, to watch without too much expectation – how to do this is the problem!