Translated material
Faust and his children
The last days of Berlinale
The horrors of the library, vulvrosta, bombs "Fat" and "Baby", the frenzy of neurosurgery, Murnau in the gay museum, spoiled Highsmit
Diary of the Berlin Film Festival, ending. The beginning here .
February 13
There is no Russian cinema on Berlinal, but one film hid in the almanac of Vim Venders " Temples of Culture ". Wenders took off the first short story, the history of the Berlin Philharmonic, where the day before yesterday I watched the renovated "Cabinet of Dr. Caligari." Documentary Cinema Wenders is still doing excellently (see the recent film about Pina Baush), his playful has long ceased to work out. Other palaces of culture - the center of Pompidu, the advanced Norwegian prison of a maximum regime (a whole universe of moderate humanism), the opera theater in Oslo. The worst short story - Robert Redford, about the Salka Institute, pompous, with socialist pathos and there are a lot of inconsistencies: the reputation of the Salka is not so radiant, he was accused of experiments on incompetent people; There were problems with the poliomyelitis vaccine that he invented, but Redford does not tell anything, and from his idle talk in his memory there is one detail that Luis Kan, architect of the Salka Institute, died in a men's toilet at the New York station and could not identify his corpse for three days.
The Russian Palace of Culture was shot by the wonderful Michael Glavogger: I love his documentaries about workers (Workingman's Death) and prostitutes. He chose the institution familiar to me - a public library in St. Petersburg. I have not been there since 1982, but since then nothing has changed: the old women have been sitting under the portrait of Lenin and sorting out catalog cards, and on the elevator, even in the time of Anna Ioannovna it is written "does not work for technical reasons." Not a single computer, as if Brezhnev died yesterday. The Glavogger did not want to say anything bad - he likes ancient books, ancient people, ancient parquet, Stalin's binding of the journal "Worker", lamps with green lampshades and an engraving "Creation of the world". Such a film could be filmed with tenderness in the Tibetan monastery. But how scary all this Brezhnev dust looks next to the library of the Pompidu Center, where the sun shines of a new day shines, and visitors are young and spin, like Plushenko in a pan.
Untimely thoughts are inspired by the decorative film by Gorvogger: we need evil Peter I, who will throw the catalog cards of King Gorokh and calendars with Ilyich and kittens into the trash. Fortunately, young rebels represent Russia on Berlinal - Nadia and Masha from Pussy Riot, they hug with Nina Hagen and look from the first lane of the Bilds People’s newspaper. Russia, eaten by a library moth, is cursed every day on Potsdamsky Square, where a rainbow Olympic torch is burning in the Stop Homophobia tent. Before my eyes, the cops under the applause of the square harshly fascinated the genuine, which is not known where the Gomophobe came from (the messenger of the Kremlin?): It is infrequent that the police applauded.
In the name of divine balance after the "temples of culture" went to the film " Vulva 3.0 ". In the old days, such a movie would be considered "scandalous", but now nothing scandalous exists, so there are free places in the hall - a rarity on Berlinal. This is not the history of the female organ, but the history of mockery of it: circumcision, cosmetic operations (in the final-a whole congress of vaginoplast surgeons) and, finally, correction in a porno-pound photochop. A cognitive film, but his main idea (that women are afraid of vulva and ashamed of her) seems controversial to me.
February 14
I liked some films of Robert Lepage: for example, no - about the independence of Quebec, but the fact that he has shot now does not climb into any gates. A neurosurgeon alcoholic, whose hands tremble, falls in love with a patient-patient. She has a brain tumor, and the operation will deprive her of the opportunity to pronounce words, but she can still sing without words. The operation is carried out in a remarkable way: first the surgeon tries to calm the trembling of the hands, then the singer put small squares with letters directly on the naked brain, and while the tumor is removed, the nurse shows the patient the picture and forces to call what is depicted on them: wood, flower, etc., the operated one says worse and worse, and everywhere the giraffe is the shadow of the murdered murdered manner Marius!) It breaks completely. Then, however, he recovers and marries a surgeon, but forgets his father's voice and hires dubbing actors so that they imitate him. Robert, come to your senses! The hall was empty on the press scraise, in the middle of the session came a journalist-Bezmets, took off his shoes, laid his bare legs on his arm and began to loudly comment on what was happening on the screen, something muttering and indignant.
The small retrospective of Noburo Nakamura (last year it turned 100 since his birth). The 1951 film " Native House " about the joys and sorrows of a simple family, which hardly makes ends meet, television series in the capsule. The main concern: the misfortunes of her daughter, her groom died of tuberculosis. Following- a Brazilian film about an old exhausted transvestite working in a gay club. Transvestite hires Gromilu-Gei to kill the navigan-narcomaniac. How far the boundaries of the plots from the time of the "home" were extended!
" Landing strip: the flight of modernism ", another part of the long journey of Hainz Emigolz along the world of concrete and brick is the movement from the statue of the Begas "Prometheus" to the Argentinean supermarket with a carousel and stadium introduced inside the building, at which the junta was trying to political prisoners, and then a flight to the Mariana islands: there it is finallying a Japanese prison and there is a japanese prison and there Sacred places are surrounded by a tourist fence, where two atomic bombs for Hiroshima and Nagasaki - “fat” and “baby” were loaded onto aircraft. As in the previous films of the Emigoltz, a photograph of Wayne Miller appears on board the Ticonderog military vessel - this time she was hidden in the sand on the island, whose garrison, on the orders of the emperor, rushed into the abyss. The lastness of the minute when the bomb had already flew out, but has not yet exploded.
Finally, almost a masterpiece: N - The Madness of Reason . A journey through the encyclopedia of the cat d'Ivoir, composed by the French intellectual Raymon Woe, and the surrounding countries where the most beautiful people live in the world, sometimes making themselves notes on their faces, and then kill each other a machete. A grandiose scene: a playful singer, who performed the song “Twilight” (a marvelous French word Le Crépuscule) in the Grand Fleet, goes on the road barefoot at night, and the same beautiful soldier with a grenade launcher moves towards her.
February 15
The harsh truth of the history of cinema art: Faust Murnau, which is shown in the retrospective "Aesthetics of the Shade" is the best Berlinale film. After him, everything seems fake. I had the same feeling recently in Vienna at the exhibition of Lucien Freud, who was admired by millions. Everything is very good, but you go to the neighboring hall of the Museum of the History of Arts (on Berlinal a film about him), you look at the "abduction of Ganya" or "David with the head of Goliath", and Freud evaporates.
The Murnau Foundation and the Berlin Cinematics arranged an exhibition of private photographs of F.V. M. in Gay Museum . There are no special obscenities, and not the young man at the pool is not amazing, but by the luxury of the Hollywood life of Murnau: the mansion, like in a sleeping beauty, Abramovich would envy a yacht. Among other things, the German edition of Hollywood Babylon was also exhibited: Kenneth Enger wrote that the director died because of the Philippine lover, the Murnau Foundation claims that this is nonsense. There are many pictures from the "taboo", some gossip around Faust, a collection of poems by a friend of Murnau, who died in Russia, but there are no sensations.
" Travel to the West " Tsai Minlyan: the third film about a slow monk, shot to "Wandering Dogs", but shown only now. Glory to the Berlin Sinefiles: for a film without a "plot" (a monk is 50 minutes slowly, slowly walking along Marseille), there are no tickets, and the huge hall is full. Old Denis Lavan walks around Marseille Kanschen, and it seems to me that there was more confidence in the Asian parts of the “monk” in this timeless movement, and the frame was cleaner. "The unrecognized passes Cain with an eczema between the eyebrows."
The incomprehensible Korean film " Dream of Metal ": Director Kelvin Kun Kun Park writes a letter to the nun about the problems of the steel industry! The gigantic crane at the Hyundai plant (the rebellious workers occupied it in 1990 and sat on the top for 13 days), and then shamanistic dances and puzzles of whales.
Met a flock of international film critics. Adam Cook says that the "Journey to the West" is the best that Tsai Minlyan took off. Meanwhile, the jury awards some worthless films that we all boldly ignored. It is good that Alain Rene receives a premium for innovation, he is really newer than all new ones.
February 16
Despite the fact that conversations with film critics about the fate of the universe and incomprehensibility of the jury's decisions ended at two in the morning, I am going at 9.30 to the praised " Crown Path ", which received a prize for the best scenario. And I curse everything in the world. The film, which is compared with Zaydl and Haneke, turned out to be a false garbage. This is the most unbearable type of pseudo -reward cinema, where poorly invented characters make the memorized replicas make it out, and the myth (in this case, Calvary) will be fastened to an inaccurate story. A stupid plot, suitable for a discussion in a magazine for housewives. The hall applies.
At the Academy of Arts, the exhibition of Hannah Shigullah, small films. Mother wanted to call her the Nordic name Dagmar, but, contrary to time (1943), chose almost Jewish Hannah. The first film is about the monument to the killed Jews, in the second hall - Shigullah with Fassbinder, a young blonde, and in the last - the old lady stands in a boat in a black cloak and says: "Youth has passed, beauty has disappeared. I live? Work!" Work! " Sorry for her, but regret us too. At the exit from the restaurant of the Academy of Arts, where there was no spinach chick, he discovered the forgotten "Prometheus" of the Begas, from which the Emigolts film begins. Behind the door is a monument from the film Shigullah, from the rear surrounded by inappropriate fast food and souvenir shops.
In a small retrospective, Nobor Nakamura " Form of Night " (1964) is a film about a factory girl who became a prostitute through the fault of a lover, a small bandit. The impressive scene of group rape at the headquarters of Yakuza and an unexpected turn: the brutal pimp after a blow to the groin lost male strength and gender confidence, began to buy food and wash. The actor is similar to Franco Chitty, and in general this is a mixture of "Akkaton" and "Live Life", all the beauty of the 60s.
" Two Faces of January "-the last film of Berlinal at the last session in "TsOO-Palace". The novel by Patricia Haysmit is hopelessly spoiled. 50 years ago, Haismit could not directly explain the nature of the connection of Rail and Chester, as well as the heroes of the "strangers on the train", which Hitchcock filmed, but the reader could guess. Chester's wife, who seemed to be carried away by Rydel, is only a hindrance, because she dies so that she does not interfere under her feet. Today it was necessary to pull out this line to the surface, then a real drama would have turned out. But Hossein Amini made a simple -minded movie with anxious music playing in alarming moments, and it turned out that the young forgiveness is in love with the aging tourist and throws his girlfriend for her - well, who will believe it in their right mind? The whole invented hiSmite the structure collapsed.
February 17
The last day is a festival installation in the Church of St. Agnes, I have recently seen the most interesting work in the Vienna Secession: a detailed shooting of five figures of Egyptian gods-dark green, beautiful, ominous. In the wonderful gallery of the C/O, which moved to a new place, to the TSOO station, an exhibition of young photographers working on Berlinal was opened. When we come to power, the Berlin festival will go all year round. On the way home I make a list of the ten best films:
1) German Concentration Camps Factual Survey (1945-2014) is a terrible document about the first days after the release of concentration camps, shot by British, American and Soviet film operators in 1944-45, but completed only after 70 years.
2) Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari (1920-2014). Robert's Wine masterpiece, restored from copies from movie archives of different countries, including Uruguay.
3) N - The Madness of Reason . Traveling on the encyclopedia cat d'Ivoir, composed by the French intellectual Raymon Borremans.
4) The Airstrip - Decampment of Modernism . Architecture a minute before the fall of the atomic bomb.
5) Butter on the latch . Josephine deer's stunning debut. Love and death at the forest festival of Balkan music in California.
6) Aimer, Boire et Chanter . Alain Rene is younger than all.
7) XI You . The slow monk arrived in Marseille.
8) Que Joie Demeure . The menagerie for machines and people who control them.
9) Cheol-ae-kum . A letter to the nun about the Korean steel industry and whaling.
10) Le Beau Danger . The great Romanian writer Norman Manaa tells how he stole chicken in childhood.
Giraffe among bears