Berlin
|
Written by Leigh_S
|
|
Sunday, 22 February 2009 13:06 |
BERLINALE 2009 – SHOOTING STARS
It’s apt that the first encounter with this year’s Shooting Stars in Berlin, is watching these young stars-in-waiting on a studio photo shoot. As the hyperactive photographer blasts out rock music and straps on bunny ears to relax his slightly nervous subjects, who wait around in thick toweling dressing gowns or pick at the buffet table in-between being asked to grin, jump and sometimes grin and jump, it’s a fascinating insight into their first time on the fast track.
As they have for the past ten years, a professional jury and European Film Promotion (EFP) have selected ten of Europe’s rising young actors to bring to the world’s attention at the Berlinale. As the press release says, the ten are “encouraged to see themselves as the new ambassadors for European cinema and filmed entertainment”, though what that exactly means is still open to interpretation.
“It really is a compliment,” says Ireland’s Sarah Bolger, who most audiences might remember as the older of the two young girls in Jim Sheridan’s In America. “It’s so crazy I work for a charity at home, Barnardo’s and I’m an ambassador for them and it sounds very cool – actor slash amabassador – now if I can put it on my passport..!”
What’s more certain is that Shooting Stars has helped bring exposure to some of the actors who have gone on to huge success both in Europe and across the globe. The likes of Daniel Craig and Rachel Weisz from the UK, Franka Potente and Daniel Brühl from Germany and Ludivine Sagnier and Cécile de France from, naturellement, France, have all benefited from the patronage of this initiative, supported by the MEDIA Programme of the European Union.
Inevitably given the widespread release and / or hype surrounding various films, some Stars have shot off in the public consciousness more than others. This year’s obvious high-profile talents are the UK’s Carey Mulligan, whose star making turn in Lone Scherfig’s An Education was a big hit at Sundance and has already led to a role for Michael Mann in Public Enemies opposite Johnny Depp; and Germany’s David Kross and. Kross, whose leading role in The Reader isn’t just stirring up controversy over its Holocaust guilt theme and multiple award nominations, but has also just screened out-of-competition at the Berlinale.
“I think that’s one of the great things about this film,” says the affable nineteen-year-old, “everyone has their own thoughts and opinions about it. I was very happy to see the reaction [in Berlin] yesterday, the audience was very concentrated and really into it. It was a good screening and they were giving a lot of applause at the end.”
As for today, there are still more photos to shoot, outfits to be chosen and people to meet. Acting will have to take a backseat as the Shooting Stars discover the other side of getting to the top. As Swiss entrant Celine Bolomey observes, “It’s nice, it’s funny. It’s like a kind of game, we are actors not models, but we can act to be models!”
Leigh Singer
|
|
|
BERLINALE 2009 - PART FOUR |
 |
 |
 |
|
Written by Leigh_S
|
|
Sunday, 22 February 2009 13:03 |
|
EVERYONE ELSE... AND EVERYONE ELSE
The winners of Berlin 2009 have been announced and, with the exception of the exceptional Iranian drama ABOUT ELLY, it’s disappointing not to personally have seen the most honoured films, including Peruvian Golden Bear winner THE MILK OF SORROW and runners-up, Germany’s EVERYONE ELSE (ALLE ANDEREN) and GIGANTE from Uruguay. The latter was a surprise choice given its lacklustre critical response, while THE MILK OF SORROW was one of the final films screened in competition, when, given Berlin’s habitual long wind down, to be brutally honest, many journalists have already left. Maybe this will teach us to stick things out to the end next time.
Malian actor Sotigui Kouyate won Best Actor for the overrated LONDON RIVER, though to my mind Ben Foster or Woody Harrelson in THE MESSENGER were far superior. At least ABOUT ELLY (for Asghar Farhadi’s direction) and THE MESSENGER (for director Oren Moverman and Alessandro Coman’s script), the two best films in competition I saw, were also rewarded.
As for other official Berlinale competition entries, I did catch two other English-language films, Stephen Frears’s CHERI, a Belle Epoque drama which reunites the rumpled director with DANGEROUS LIAISONS writer Christopher Hampton and star Michelle Pfeiffer. Adapted from two novels by the infamous Colette, it tells of an aging courtesan and the forbidden love she shares with the foppish son of one of her contemporaries. The older woman / younger man romance is refreshing, Pfeiffer is radiant and as you’d expect from wordsmith Hampton, there are some witty bon mots strewn about the place. But the emotional impact is minor, particularly because the eponymous Cheri, played by Rupert Friend, is such a spoilt brat that it’s hard to feel anything but contempt for him. Still, there’s a nice homage to DANGEOUS LIAISONS in the final shot and Frears himself handles the film’s narration with aplomb.
A bizarre programming choice, Richard Loncraine’s MY ONE AND ONLY is a light, frothy romantic comedy based on the teenage years of perma-bronzed matinee idol George Hamilton, including a cross-US road trip he made with his flamboyant brother and indefatigable mother, played by Renee Zellweger. After years of stalled production, it’s an entertaining, occasionally very funny coming-of-age story, well-acted by Zellweger – who seems more at home in period dress and movies than in contemporary ones – and co, but felt totally out-of-place among Berlin’s heavyweight auteur fare and issue-led social realism. Unsurprisingly it went away empty-handed, but it has to be noted that the warm applause that greeted the film’s end credits stood in stark contrast to earlier flops like MAMMOTH and RAGE.
The role of genuine crowd-pleasers is always a little hazy at the big festivals, all desperate to unearth the next big critical hit. Ironically as Berlin or Cannes embraces a PINK PANTHER 2 or, a few years, GODZILLA, you realise that more modest, authentically entertaining films can easily get lost in the shuffle between arthouse and blockbuster.
Two such films that almost certainly won’t rounded off my viewing experiences in Berlin. AN EDUCATION, Danish director Lone Scherfig’s adaptation (written by Nick Hornby no less) of Lynn Barber’s 1960s-set memoir is sure to be a hit when it’s released later this year. The Next Big ThingTM, British actress Carey Mulligan, shines as the smart schoolgirl whose plans are waylaid by the attentions of a mysterious older man (Peter Sarsgaard), much to the consternation of her father (Alfred Molina). It’s a spot-on portrait of aspirational 60s suburbia, funny and touching and with great supporting turns from Rosamund Pike as an airhead Chelsea high society girl and Emma Thompson as a severe headmistress. But it’s Mulligan’s film all the way and you hope she’s ready for the (over)-hype machine when it inevitably comes.
Lastly a spot of nirvana for musos, Davis Guggenheim’s IT MIGHT BE LOUD pits three generations of guitar heroes – Led Zeppelin’s Jimmy Page, U2’s The Edge (Dave Evans to his Mum) and The White Stripes / Raconteurs’s Jack White, as they discuss their beginnings, their inspirations, their songwriting process and all get together for a matey jam in LA. White’s the biggest showman / show-off, the Edge the most slyly self-deprecating and Page, the eldest, the biggest kid by some way. Amazing to think this giddy, grey-haired charmer was once seriously feared as devil-worshipping acolyte of Alistair Crowley. Anyway, if you like electric guitar and blues-based rock, this is fairly irresistible; and even if you have an aversion to one of the three, there’s enough great archive material and anecdotes from the others to keep on rockin’.
Leigh Singer |
|
BERLINALE 2009 - PART THREE |
|
|
|
|
Written by Leigh_S
|
|
Wednesday, 18 February 2009 10:44 |
HARD CHOICES
The problem with any festival is, regardless of the overall quality assessment at the end, while you’re there, it seems an impossible task to a) judge what will actually be good, and b) schedule the time to see it when it likely clashes with that other film you’ve been hearing good things about…
A case in point this year for me came with Rachid Bouchareb’s LONDON RIVER. Bouchareb’s previous film was the impressive war film DAYS OF GLORY, which shone a light on the key role played by North African soldiers fighting for the French army, despite intrinsic racism and effectively defending a country none of them had ever set foot in. An interview meant I’d missed the first press showing of LONDON RIVER, so I set off the following day to catch the film at the Friedrichstrasse Palast, a grand venue, part London Palladium, part-University lecture theatre, a little way across the city, which screens Competition films a day after they debut at the main Palast venue in Potsdamer Platz.
Frankly, and contrary to much of the critical opinion, it was a wasted journey. Bouchareb’s new film is set in the aftermath of London’s July 7th bombings and pits two parents – a Christian mother from Guernsey (Brenda Blethyn) and a Muslim African father (Malian actor Sotigui Kouyate) – who both come to the city to find their missing young adult children. Inevitably there’s a culture clash between the two, exacerbated when they find their children were in a relationship and learning Arabic together (“Who speaks Arabic?” fusses Blethyn’s sheltered widow). Evidently the film’s heart is in the right place and the two lead performances are solid enough - though Blethyn’s feels very familiar – but scene after scene’s predictability is numbing. Bouchareb’s stolid, flat style generates little cultural insight and in fact, occasionally feels insidiously convenient – Mosques, apparently, “don’t do politics”, the friendly imam tells us, and the iconography of 9/11 – ‘Missing’ posters plastered on walls, seems to have been drafted in, regardless of the reality of London in the aftermath of the attack.
The knock-on effect of tracking down LONDON RIVER meant missing a film that really did seem to garner plaudits, KATALIN VARGA, a Romanian-British-Hungarian co-production, directed by a Brit, Peter Strickland, who apparently had to use an inheritance to fund the film. A brooding, atmospheric rape revenge drama set in the bucolic Carpathian Mountains, despite its rave reception, it surprisingly went unnoticed by Tilda Swinton and her fellow judges. It’s still the Competition film I’d most like to have seen.
|
|
|
BERLINALE 2009 - PART TWO |
|
|
|
|
Written by Leigh Singer
|
|
Thursday, 12 February 2009 10:27 |
ALL THAT GLITTERS…
Competitions are only as strong as their entries and this year’s Berlinale is having to defend itself against strong criticism. With one or perhaps two exceptions, common critical consensus is that the films vying for this year’s Golden Bear are, as a whole, producing more dismaying yawns than roars of approval.
|
|
Read more...
|
|
BERLINALE 2009 - PART ONE |
|
|
|
|
Written by Leigh Singer
|
|
Sunday, 08 February 2009 16:37 |
BEAR NECESSITIES
There’s something reassuring about Berlin. The home of the Golden Bear may take the bronze medal position of Europe’s, perhaps the world’s, three biggest and most prestigious film festivals, but, for me, it strikes a happy medium. By and large you can avoid Cannes’ grasping melee of sun-bronzed wannabes and has-beens; while, situated in the heart of Berlin a mere stroll to the Brandenburg Gate, you also avoid being stuck out on the Lido as in Venice, segregated from the city’s history and culture. At the Berlinale, as John F. Kennedy once famously said, "du bist ein Berliner".
|
|
Read more...
|
|
|
|
|
<< Start < Prev 1 2 Next > End >>
|
|
Page 1 of 2 |
|
|
