Berlinale Film Festival 2022 (Giant Massive Round-Up)

Against all odds, the 72nd Berlinale International Film Festival not only took place during a period of peak COVID case count, it seems like a pretty successful example of how such in-person events can operate under such conditions. After an odd two-part mix of online and outdoors in 2021, everything went back indoors, even thought the atmosphere around the Berlinale Palast in Potsdammer Platz felt more subdued than previous years. There were more schnelltest centers and COVID security checkpoints than food trucks and festivities. Most screenings also concluded with the odd experience of being shuttled down emergency exit stairways and being dumped onto the sidewalk with disoriented, blinking eyes. And of course, there’s the respiratory challenge of being able to sit through a marathon of movies with an FFP2 mask glued to your face. Still, it’s hard not to be impressed that it happened with so few discomforts. All the checkpoints, test centers, mask-wearing and reduced seating capacity did lend to a sense of low-risk. No doubt other festivals are keeping a close watch on this Berlinale with the hope that, even in the time of Omicron, there may be a way to keep the communal film festival experience alive.

Peter von Kant, dir. by François Ozon

Denis Ménochet — Peter von Kant by François Ozon © C. Bethuel / FOZ

So, what was on the menu this year? Let’s start with the opening night movie, PETER VON KANT (Competition section), the latest from frequent Berlinale guest Francois Ozon. Even though it may not be a favorite, it’s hard to imagine a more appropriate movie to launch this year’s edition. Ozon’s movie is not only a faithful adaptation of the legendary German auteur Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s THE BITTER TEARS OF PETRA VON KANT, it turns the central character into an overt stand-in for Fassbinder himself. Ozon’s decision to turn Petra the fashion designer into Peter the film director, works wonders in a fascinating hall-of-mirrors kind of way, at least for a while. The reason it works at all is thanks to Denis Menochet’s (INGLORIOUS BASTARDS) exuberant and spot-on performance. His Fassbinder is equal parts pathetic and sympathetic, which is perfect since this film, like the original, dives into the murky waters of codependence and the fragility of the artist’s ego.

What’s surprising is that Ozon and Menochet are able to wring a lot of uncomfortable comedy from the material, especially in the early acts. It takes some time before the fascination around how seamless Ozon’s Petra-Peter/Fassbinder merging is, and how well Menochet can highlight the humor, humanity, naughtiness and sadness in the character. Peter’s relationship with his silent assistant Karl (Stefan KCrepon), is funny and disturbing in equal measure, as is his passive aggressive relationship to Sidone (Isabelle Adjanie), a fading actress who got her big break thanks to one of Peter’s early films. these relationships are already a bit fragile, but when Sidone brings young, beautiful aspiring actor Amir (Khalil Ben Gharbia) over to Peter’s apartment, everything is tipped to its breaking point — the jealousies and insecurities that were simmering under the surface erupt, and that’s when the film settles into a more broad and less rewarding melodrama in its final acts. Still, there is a lot to admire in the performances, direction and writing of this adaptation, and for a Berlinale opening night movie, it’s quite solid.

Flux Gourmet, dir. by Peter Strickland

Gwendoline Christie, Asa Butterfield — Flux Gourmet by Peter Strickland © Flux Gourmet, Bankside Films, IFC Productions

Speaking of fragile artistic egos, another Berlinale alumni, writer/director Peter Strickland, brought his newest to this year’s festival. It’s called FLUX GOURMET (Encounters section), and perhaps more than any other movie, this one was completely on my wavelength. It deals with the psycho-sexual tensions that are brewing between the artists, hosts and other interested parties at a month long artist residency. The artists are a sound art collective comprised of Fatma Mohamed, Asa Butterfield and Ariane Labed. The residency is taking place at the Sonic Catering Institute, which is run by a never better Gwendoline Christie. That’s right, it’s a food-centric sound art affair, and the journalist who’s been tapped to document this residency is a man named Stones (Makis Papadimitriou) who’s got some undiagnosed gastro-instestinal problems.

From the very start of FLUX GOURMET, I couldn’t stop smiling, cringing and laughing, but I understand that some of the humor on display here will be inscrutable to some. All I can say is, as someone who’s been part of a sound art collective, as well as the odd artist residency, I understood every discomforting beat all too well. I would also say that, even though the film is very specific in its subject matter, it’s probably Strickland’s most accessible film so far. This may be a double-edged sword, of sorts. I found two of his most acclaimed films BERBERIAN SOUND STUDIO (2012) and THE DUKE OF BURGUNDY (2014) to be the kind of movies I appreciate more than fully enjoy. There’s an iciness to Strickland’s formalism that can keep you at arm’s length. While there’s often been a humor to his films, it can easily get lost under the precision of his sound and vision. This isn’t the case in FLUX GOURMET. The setting and the subject matter not only opens the door for Strickland’s penchant for immaculate sound design (the food-related sound art compositions were created by Strickland’s own Sonic Catering Band), it’s also the perfect place to stage a full-on comedy that’s both absurdist and intellectual, silly and smart. After all, this is a film that turns a colonoscopy into performance art and features rival sound art collectives who are willing to resort to violence in order to resolve their disputes.

Early on we can tell that this sound art trio is already on uneasy terms with one another. And as each member sits down to be interviewed by Stones, the reasons for those internal conflicts are brought to the surface and the fate of the group becomes increasingly uncertain. Adding to the pressure is that with each performance during the residency, they all have to deal with the unmovable will of their host and benefactor, the show-stopping Gwendolyn Christie, whose make-up and wardrobe alone make this movie worth seeing. Christie has eyes in particular for Asa Butterfield, and their hilariously awkward fetish-indulging romance will stay with me for some time to come. This is a special film in my eyes, a one-of-a-kind movie in terms of sound, visuals, mood, and performance, that I don’t think any other director could make. Yet, as with Bertrand Bonello’s film COMA (which we’ll get to later), this was unexpected — a kind of comedy that I didn’t know the director had in him, which makes it even more special and rewarding at this point in time.

Fire, or Both Sides of the Blade (Avec amour et acharnement), dir. by Claire Denis

Vincent Lindon, Juliette Binoche — Avec amour et acharnement | Both Sides of the Blade by Claire Denis © Curiosa Films 2022

While French auteur Claire Denis has some transgressive and outré films to her credit (including 2018’s HIGH LIFE), her latest, BOTH SIDES OF THE BLADE (Competition section), also known as FIRE in some territories, is a more grounded relationship drama centered around the impressive talents of frequent collaborator Juliette Binoche and the recent co-star of TITANE, Vincent Lindon. These two have a seemingly idyllic relationship that is quickly put to the test when Binoche’s former lover reenters the picture as Lindon’s new business parter. Secrets and lies pile up, communications break down, and many tears are shed. Some fans might feel like this is a step backwards, especially considering the achievements Denis made in her last few films. But BOTH SIDES OF THE BLADE still packs an impressive emotional punch, and features two bring-down-the-house performances from Binoche and Lindon.

If for nothing else, this movie will be remembered as the one that earned Denis a long-overdue major award, with the M. Night Shyamalan’s Berlinale Competition jury handing her the Silver Bear for Best Director. It’s hard to argue with that, and it’s hard not to see Denis’s confident directorial hand all over the handheld stylings of BOTH SIDES OF THE BLADE. My only complaint is that even though Denis has always been a politically engaged filmmaker, her attempts at raising awareness about Lebanon and systemic racism in France aren’t very graceful this time around. But these are small complaints. In this film, Denis still proves a master a crafting tense scenes that crescendo with emotion and revelation. Her use of close-up shots on faces throughout the film is especially effective. So much in the movie is unsaid, and Denis proves as skillful as ever at getting inside the heads of her characters and peeling back the layers until they’re left exposed, sprawled out on the floor, begging for forgiveness.

Nobody’s Hero (Viens je t’emmène), dir. by Alain Guiraudie

Jean-Charles Clichet — Viens je t’emmène | Nobody’s Hero by Alain Guiraudie © CG Cinema

Panorama and Forum sections of the Berlinale aren’t exactly well known for their laughs. Rather, this is where you can expect to find a healthy mix of the personal, political, ambitious, and sometimes downright experimental. Nevertheless, this year, one of the funniest movies at the festival, Alain Guiraudie’s NOBODY’S HERO, was given the honor of opening the Panorama section. It’s something of a French farce. A film that takes the deadly serious subjects of terrorism, racism, nationalism, and bourgeois indifference, and skewers them all in a wildly funny tale about a guy who just wants to spend time with his beloved prostitute but is hampered by a local bombing. Our guide into the fears and preoccupations of the French white male psyche is the character of Médéric Romand, a web designer who likes to jog around the city of Clermont-Ferrand and puff on his big vaping device. As the title suggests, Médéric is no one’s idea of a hero, but as played by Jean-Charles Clichet, he is so fully realized and such a fascinatingly original character that I did end up rooting for him against my better judgement. In fact, NOBODY’S HERO is all about messing with your prejudices and expectations, and it succeeds at every turn.

What’s really enjoyable about NOBODY’S HERO is that there are indeed many twists and turns along the way. Just when you think you may have figured out where the film is headed, it gets a steps up and becomes more heightened, more surreal, more absurdly funny. The real instigating event in the film is the moment when Médéric decides to let Selim, an Arab teenager, sleep in the hallway of the apartment building he lives in. Is this Arab boy one of the suspected terrorists who bombed the tow square during Christmas festivities? The presence of this boy triggers a range of mildly panicked reactions from both Médéric, who second-guesses his goodwill gesture, and his neighbors who also have their casually racist suspicions and doubts. But indeed, through a series of comedic circumstances, Médéric finds himself increasingly tied to Selim, even though he’d much rather be focusing all of his attention on Isadora, an older prostitute he’s fallen in love with, despite the continued threats coming from Isadora’s husband. At first glance, the weird romance between Médéric and Isadora defies all logic. Certainly it’s not something we usually see in movies. And yet, thanks to Jean-Charles Clichet performance, the relationship achieves an unexpected level of believability. I not only believed that Médéric was a real three-dimensional character, I wondered why we don’t see more oddballs like him. The same goes for many of the film’s characters. You think you have them pegged when they’re first introduced, but by the end of the movie, characters who at first seem either confounding or simplistic are made painfully and recognizably human.

Somewhere Over the Chemtrails (KDYBY RADŠI HORELO), dir. by Adam Rybanský

Michal Isteník, Miroslav Krobot — Kdyby radši hořelo | Somewhere Over the Chemtrails by Adam Koloman Rybanský © Bratri

Quite a few films in the 2022 Berlinale lineup deal with nationalism and xenophobia, but no two films were quite as simpatico as NOBODY’S HERO and the wonderfully titled Czech film SOMEWHERE OVER THE CHEMTRAILS (KDYBY RADŠI HORELO) by Adam Rybanský. Like NOBODY’S HERO, this film was also in the Panorama section, and it also involves an incident of violence in the town square that is perceived by the locals as a terrorist attack. This time, the setting is a small Czech village, and the incident involves a white van crashing into an Easter celebration, wounding one of the townspeople. Immediately, and absurdly, the head of the volunteer fire department suspects that the runaway van was the work of foreign terrorists. A manhunt ensues. Lots of beers are imbibed. And while some villagers express their doubts at this terrorism theory, the voice of reason can only do so much against fear mongering and groupthink. It may not sound like the funniest of set-ups, but CHEMTRAILS is ultimately a sweet and kindhearted comedy that isn’t as edgy or progressive as NOBODY’S HERO but will likely put a smile on your face. In particular, a running gag involving the use of vinegar as an antidote against the effects of chemtrails reaches a surprisingly funny climax.

A Love Song, dir. by Max Walker-Silverman

Wes Studi, Dale Dickey — A Love Song by Max Walker-Silverman © Cow Hip Films

Speaking of sweet, this year’s Berlinale doesn’t get much sweeter than A LOVE SONG, an American film that was also in the Panorama section and features two veteran character actors, Dale Dickey and Wes Studi. If their names don’t ring a bell, you’ll likely recognize their faces from 30 years worth of movies. Yet, throughout all those various movie roles, these two actors have never once kissed another actor on screen. Maybe that’s a spoiler, but really, this is a movie that can’t be spoiled. It’s a simple, thoughtful, and often humorous romantic tearjerker involving two wonderful actors of a certain age. In other words, it’s the kind of movie that you rarely see these days. As an added bonus, writer/director Max Walker-Silverman films the movie like a micro-budget Wes Anderson movie, with pleasingly symmetrical framing, lots of effective inserts, and a meaningful soundtrack. If you’re like me, A LOVE SONG will make you long for the 1990s when the US was still making these kind of small, offbeat independent movies on the regular.

Concerned Citizen, dir. by Idan Haguel

Shahaf Ifhar, Bereket Gebrehawaria, Shlomi Bartonov — Concerned Citizen by Idan Haguel © Idan Haguel, Guy Sahaf

While NOBODY’S HERO touches on the modern day feelings of white, middle-class guilt when it comes to immigrants and race relations, the Israeli film CONCERNED CITIZEN (also found in the Panorama section) dives into this murky water head-on. The story, written and directed by Idan Haguel, is about a gay couple, Ben and Raz (Shlomi Bertonov and Ariel Wolf), who are looking to become parents. They’re also recently relocated to a new neighborhood in Tel Aviv, part of an early gentrification effort for a part of town that makes their friends nervous about visiting. When they first moved in, Ben planted a baby tree outside their apartment building. A couple years later, he calls the cops on a couple of African migrants who keep leaning on his tree. As a result, he witnesses the cops beating one of the men, and suddenly, everything changes. Ben no longer wants to be in the neighborhood, or even Israel for that matter, and is doubtful about wanting a child. Nothing feels right.

CONCERNED CITIZEN is surprisingly honest about the limits of liberal-minded good intentions, and it reveals some pretty interesting fascistic pitfalls in the average online process of finding a surrogate mother. Further emphasizing Ben’s existential crisis is his day job as a city planner, and spends his days designing a mock-up of a new city center plaza, picking and choosing the virtual people who are standing outside the plaza, what they look like, their skin color, who’s holding hands with who, and so on. As he moves people around, playing god on his computer, you feel his queasiness. It’s not all right.

I also had to applaud the film for it’s ending and giving Ben a way out of his dilemma that is realistic and yet not fully kosher. It’s both sad and funny, and in a world where virtue signaling is an everyday concern for some, it’s totally on point and makes perfect sense. Even when you think your heart and your actions are in the right place, you can still be part of the problem just by being part of the system. There’s no easy way out, and no shortcuts to doing the right thing. Part of the strength of CONCERNED CITIZEN is showing how trapped we can feel if we take a small step back to look at the bigger picture.

Convenience Store (Produkty 24), dir. by Michael Borodin

Zukhara Sanzysbay — Produkty 24 | Convenience Store by Michael Borodin © LLC METRAFILMS

At every Berlinale, you’re bound to come across a few films that can only be described as bleak as fuck. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Far from it. In fact, in the age of streamers and the global Hollywoodization of cinema, I look forward to the Berlinale bummers. My only caveat is that a bummer needs to be balanced out with art. If your downbeat descent into misery is a bunch of shaky handheld footage and semi-improvized scenes that strives for an authentic look but just comes off like you gave zero thought to the technical aspects of your craft, then I’ll probably curse the experience of sitting through it.

Michael Borodin’s CONVENIENCE STORE tested my tolerance for misery at times, but I was also impressed with how well-executed the experience was. The movie offers a glimpse inside a 24-hour Moscow convenience store, staffed by immigrant workers from Uzbekistan. The workers are all at the mercy of Zhanna (Lyudmila Vasilyeva), the mother superior, and one of the most frightening characters I’ve seen in a while. There are a couple moments when CONVENIENCE STORE dips its toe into pure horror movie stuff, showing what happens when one of the workers disappoints Zhanna or tries to get outside help. The front door of the store is where the world ends for these unfortunate souls.

Many complications arise when one of the workers, Mukhabbat (Zukhara Sanzysbay), has a child but is then able to escape, finds a sympathetic lawyer and reunite with her mom in Uzbekistan. These complications ultimately came across as a little too much for me. Will Zhanna be able to lure Mukhabbat back into the fold? What will happen to Mukhabbat’s child? What will happen to her mom? Is there no good option in this woman’s life? What’s the point of it all? I will say, the last image of this movie is possibly strong enough to evoke a recommendation, but it was still a frustrating experience for me.

Happer’s Comet, dir. by Tyler Taormina

Brendan Burt — Happer’s Comet by Tyler Taormina © Factory25

Let’s dip into the Forum section, starting with another up-and-comer in American independent cinema, writer/director Tyler Taormina, whose HAPPER’S COMET (in the Forum section) is a remarkable follow-up to his 2019 debut feature HAM ON RYE. Like that previous film, HAPPER’S COMET is a mysterious study of small town American rituals. The biggest difference this time, is that HAPPER’S COMET is completely dialogue-free, relying instead on a sound design worthy of David Lynch, and finding meaning and narrative in gestures, movements, stillness and various diegetic sounds. HAM ON RYE was promising, and HAPPER’S COMET offers a compelling argument that Taormina is quickly mastering the language of film and is a major talent to keep your eye on.

Nuclear Family, dir. by Erin Wilkerson and Travis Wilkerson

Nuclear Family by Erin Wilkerson, Travis Wilkerson © Creative Agitation

Also in the Forum section is the newest from Travis Wilkerson, a filmmaker that’s been making fascinating documentaries and video collages for over ten years now. With NUCLEAR FAMILY, he’s co-directing with his wife, Erin Wilkerson, in a very personal documentary about a family trip wherein Travis, Erin and their two children drive around and visit some of America’s nuclear missile launch sites. Amazingly enough, the Wilkersons neatly tie together the proliferation of nuclear weapons in the US with the genocide of Native Americans. As the tagline for the movie reads: "Seize the land by gun. Turn the land into a gun. Point the gun at everybody’s head.” It’s a bold and strong statement of a film, but it also has a current of dark and angry humor to it that keeps it lively, engaging, and never boring. As someone who shares Wilkerson’s nuclear fears, and agrees that this is an important subject that we need to keep alive, I loved every minute of this one.

The United States of America, dir. by James Benning

The United States of America by James Benning © James Benning

One of the most remarkable viewing experiences this year came from an American film called, fittingly enough, THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. This is the the kind of movie I tend to think of when talking about the Forum section of the Berlinale. It’s essentially 50 static shots, each about two minutes long, and each representing one of the 50 states of America. It’s all in alphabetic order, starting with Alabama and ending with Wyoming. Most of the shots are pretty effective and evocative of the state. Every once in a while, the director James Benning will drop in some audio, like a portion of an interview with Malcolm X, but for the most part, the only sound is diegetic and coming from the location being filmed. Some shots feel more meaningful than others, and occassionally your mind will just drift, thinking ahead to the next state in the alphabetic order and wondering what the shot will be. But then comes the end credits and your mind is blown in one of those THIS-CHANGES-EVERYTHING kind of ways. Ya got me, Benning. Ya got me good. It’s a jaw dropper, and yet the reveal seems to be so subtle that many viewers seem to have missed it completely. Even press and movie festival patrons have become too dismissive of end credits.

L’état et moi, dir. by Max Linz

Jean Chaize, Sophie Rois, Sarah Ralfs — L’ état et moi by Max Linz © Markus Koob, SchrammFilm, Salzgeber

Another unexpectedly winning comedy from the Forum section was Max Linz’s L’ÉTAT ET MOI, an energetic mix of anti-realist slapstick comedy and bookish intellectual jokes about the history of the European judicial system. It’s a short movie, at around 85 minutes, and it has at least three scenes that I found to be wildly hilarious, but it still felt long and awkwardly unfunny for stretches at a time. Still, if you like the idea of a wacky experimental political comedy wherein the plot hinges on the slight difference between the German words for “communist” and “composer,” this might be the film for you. The woman who played the security guard who has to testify about a statue coming to life has my vote for the best comedic performance of the festival.

The Middle Ages (La edad media), dir. by Alejo Moguillansky, Luciana Acuña

Lisandro Rodriguez, Cleo Moguillansky — La edad media | The Middle Ages by Alejo Moguillansky, Luciana Acuña © El Pampero Cine

What was I saying about this Berlinale being chockablock with unexpected comedies? Fans of Argentine filmmaker Alejo Moguillansky (CASTRO, THE PARROT AND THE SWAN, THE GOLD BUG) will no doubt be unsurprised that he’s made another anarchic comedy staring himself and his wife (Luciana Acuña, also codirecting) and his daughter (a scene-stealing Cleo Moguillansky). But being somewhat unfamiliar with Moguillansky filmography I was surprised by how confident and effective THE MIDDLE AGES was, especially since it’s a homemade lockdown COVID movie — a recent genre that has proven to be less than rewarding. But the Moguillansky-Acuña clan make it work in a number of ways. It gets at the simultaneous working-at-home schooling-at-home tensions, the existential concerns about mortality and the future of a career in the performing arts, and the general reflective concern brought on by COVID of “what the hell have we been up to for the past few decades?”

There isn’t much of a plot to THE MIDDLE AGES, and that’s absolutely fine. It’s a joy to watch this family spiral down three different existential nightmare holes. But there is a pretty funny through-line involving the daughter’s efforts to buy a telescope. First she plays the parents off each other, getting some money from each one, until she begins to make dough by selling off items in the house, one-by-one to a guy on a motorcycle who shows up at the front door every day to see what’s next. The different ways in which the parents pivot from trying to keep it together and wondering what the fuck’s the point is both funny and poignant — which kind of sums up this charming movie altogether.

Coma, dir. by Bertrand Bonello

Louise Labeque — Coma by Bertrand Bonello © Les films du Bélier / My New Picture / Remembers

I promise this will be the last time I mention how odd it was to see so many comedies at this year’s Berlinale. But who knew that Bertrand Bonello was going to come out with one of those aforementioned homemade lockdown COVID movies and that it was going to be laugh-out-loud funny? Yes, this is the Bonello who’s made THE PORNOGRAPHER, NOCTURAMA, THE HOUSE OF TOLERANCE and ZOMBI CHILD — not exactly a purveyor of guffaws, and yet with COMA he’s crafted a uniquely surreal and humorous tale about the psychological toll of being a teenager in lockdown and the tenuous grasp on reality that a lot of us are experiencing these days.

Bonello reunites with ZOMBI CHILD lead Louise Labeque, who spends her time in quarantine Zooming with friends about serial killers and fantasizing some memorably bizarre soap opera-style scenarios for her dolls to act out. That’s when she’s not watching videos featuring an influencer by the name of Patricia Coma (Julia Faure), who delivers increasingly funny and distressing messages about life, pain, the weather, and the importance of buying her handheld electronic device, hilariously called the Revelator. With the Revelator, you can do no wrong.

It’s not all played for laughs, though. Dreams have started to get weird for Labeque during lockdown. She enters a world that looks a lot like the woods of Twin Peaks. Some people seem to be getting stuck there and every time Labeque returns, there’s a worry that she too may end up lost in the woods, unable to find her way back. Sure, it’s not exactly a subtle allegory, but it’s effective. Years from now, the homemade lockdown COVID movies will be dusted off and held up to the light for reinspection, and I have a feeling COMA will be one that has legs to continue to be relevant outside of our current situation.

Urest (Unrueh), dir. by Cyril Schäublin

Unrueh | Unrest by Cyril Schäublin © Seeland Filmproduktion

Like FLUX GOURMET and COMA, the Swiss film UNREST was part of the Encounters section, a program that is relatively new to the Berlinale and has quickly built up a reputation for being a rival to the Competition in terms of both quality and big-name talent. UNREST doesn’t have the later but it was one of the more memorable and subtly powerful films that I caught this year.

The conceit is rather perfect and can be perhaps summed up in three words: Swiss anarchist watchmakers. UNREST is partly the story of the filmmaker’s grandmother, someone who worked at a watchmaking factory, setting a particular part of the watch, the balance wheel, otherwise known as the “Unrueh” or “unrest.” The time is 1877, a period in which there was a significant amount of political unrest in the area, due in large part to a burgeoning anarchist movement that was taking root among the factory workers and townspeople. This unrest was due in part to the odd way in which time was managed in this Swiss town. The town operated on three clocks: factory time, municipal time, and telegraph time. Meanwhile, pressure is high in the factory to be more efficient. Everything is timed, including how long it takes you to make your one part of the watch, and how long it takes you to walk from one part of the factory to the other. New, quicker routes are always being tested, and if you make the mistake of showing up to your shift at the factory on municipal time rather than factory time, you’ll end up being eight minutes late and it’ll cost you.

Entering this scene is the other part of the story, the cartographer Pyotr Kropotkin, whose memoirs also helped inspire the movie. Kropotkin not only falls in with the anarchists, he’s inspired to create anarchist maps — maps that reflect how the people see the region, the names and boundaries they follow, rather than the municipality’s names and boundaries. For this area of Switzerland, where the town is running on three different clocks and the spoken language can flow naturally between German, French, Italian, English and Russian, the idea of anarchy almost seems like common sense. But what UNREST really highlights is how inhuman all of this attention toward efficiency and productivity is, which makes it a highly relevant film for today’s audiences.

The City and the City (I Poli ke i Poli), dir. by Christos Passalis, Syllas Tzoumerkas

Vassilis Kanakis, Niki Papandreou — I Poli ke i Poli | The City and the City by Christos Passalis, Syllas Tzoumerkas © Homemade Films

The last film I caught from the Encounters section was one that felt more like a Forum selection — a semi-experimental socio-political film that attempts to look at a horrific tragedy in the past in a sort of time-is-a-flat-circle kind of way. That film is THE CITY AND THE CITY, by Christos Passalis, Syllas Tzoumerkas, and it charts the modern history of Thessaloniki, a city in Greece that had been home to generations of Jewish families before the horrors of WWII.

The disturbing details of what happened to the city of Thessaloniki during and after the war will likely be eye-opening to a lot of viewers — it certainly was to me — and I admired the way the film moved through these events. The filmmakers restage historical events in the modern-day city. One event that took place in an old town square that is now a construction site, is staged in the construction site, with vehicles moving around as Nazi officers conduct their routine humiliations upon the townspeople. It’s a technique that’s both budget-conscious and effective.

THE CITY AND THE CITY can be rather disorienting and impenetrable at first. Like a lot of film festival entries these days, it tends to blur the line between drama and documentary and the way it breaks the story into chapters is less helpful than it is confusing. But as the film went on, the message became clearer and the filmmakers began to win me over. There is a lot I admired about THE CITY AND THE CITY, not the least of which is that we have yet to come to terms with the crimes, tragedies and injustices of the twentieth century. As the movie proves, we literally pave over some of the most important parts of our collective history. And until we take a long hard look at our past and learn from our mistakes, we’ll continue to make a mess of things, needlessly hurt more people, and unintentionally keep the door open for another disaster.

Incredible but True (Incroyable mais vrai), dir. by Quentin Dupieux

Léa Drucker, Alain Chabat — Incroyable mais vrai | Incredible but True by Quentin Dupieux © ATELIER DE PRODUCTION-ARTE FRANCE CINEMA-VERSUS PRODUCTION-2022

There were three films in the Berlinale Special section that I was trying to get tickets to this year: Dario Argento’s DARK GLASSES (a reported return-to-form from the old maestro), Andrew Dominik’s new Nick Cave documentary THIS MUCH I KNOW TO BE TRUE, and the newest absurdity from Quentin Dupieux, INCREDIBLE BUT TRUE. Alas, I only managed one of the three.

But it’s a pretty good one. INCREDIBLE BUT TRUE tells the tale of Alain and Marie (Alain Chaba and Léa Drucker), who buy a new home that comes with a warning from the real estate agent. If you don’t want to be spoiled on something that happens in the first ten minutes of the film, skip this review and just know that INCREDIBLE BUT TRUE is about what you’d expect would happen if Dupieux were ever given the chance to helm an episode of The Twilight Zone. The short summary is: there’s a door in the floor of the basement that leads to a duct, and if you go down the duct, you end up upstairs, in the same house, but you’ll emerge both twelve hours in the future and three days younger.

It’s an intriguing set-up and the reveal, delivered by the real estate agent, it perhaps the funniest bit of comedic timing in the whole film. The different ways in which Alain and Marie deal with the presence of the magical gateway in the basement fuel a lot of the intrigue and humor in the film. Less successful, but perhaps more relevant as social commentary, is the subplot about Alain’s boss and his new electronic penis. The penis is connected to a smartphone app, so that “you can steer it.” Alain’s boss becomes obsessed not so much with his new electronic penis, but with how Alain and Marie react to the news about his new penis. Are they suitably impressed? Shouldn’t they be more impressed? This storyline does have some solid laughs, and it does share some thematic connections to the ways in which Marie becomes obsessed with the hole in the basement, but like a lot of INCREDIBLE BUT TRUE, it doesn’t quite resolve itself in the manner I was hoping. The movie is only 74 minutes long, and that can feel like a blessing during a fortnight of non-stop movie watching, but in this case it also feels like Dupieux introduced some compelling ideas and didn’t really find a way to bring them to a satisfying conclusion. The movie is a lot of fun, don’t get me wrong, but by the end I was hoping for something more meaningful.

Beba, dir. by Rebeca Huntt

Rebeca Huntt — Beba by Rebeca Huntt © Sheena Matheiken

Another important section of the Berlinale is Generations. This is where you’ll find your coming-of-age movies as well as a wide range of films that will appeal to kids, teens and/or young adults. Rebeca Huntt’s film BEBA, is definitely one of those young adult movies from the Generations section. It’s a bold and confrontational film that could best be described as a docu-diary. Huntt is behind the camera as well as narrating, and for 80 minutes she doesn’t waste a moment in trying to get at some very personal and specific yet widely relatable truths around parents, siblings, generational trauma, trying to break unhealthy patterns and coming to terms with your upbringing.

I use the term docu-drama because watching BEBA feels at times like reading someone’s diary. There’s so much intimacy here that it becomes uncomfortable. In fact, no one on screen appears to feel comfortable when Huntt is talking to them. Yet this friction creates an energy and the movie feels more alive than most. There’s an aim towards enlightenment that is commendable here and you get the feeling that the only way Huntt can get to that truth is to be as open and intimate as she can be.

Sublime, dir. by Mariano Biasin

Facundo Trotonda, Joaquin Arana, Martín Miller & Teo Imana Chiabrando — Sublime by Mariano Biasin © Tarea Fina

Who knew that teenage boys in Argentina are still playing indie rock with guitars, bass and drums? As someone who was into doing such things when I was a teenager, it was one of the heartening things I took away from Mariano Biasin’s tender coming-of-age film SUBLIME. Thankfully, there were no Sublime covers played by the band of best friends at the center of the movie. Instead, they’re impressively playing all originals, with their songs sounding endearingly like what you might expect a bunch of songs written by teenage boys to sound like. Except, in this case, they’re not half bad.

In fact, the band is preparing to play a birthday party. It is, of course, a big deal. But, as is the case in these situations, and in this kind of movie, there are some complications. The biggest bit of drama is that the guitarist Manuel (Martín Miller) is in love with the other guitarist and singer Felipe (Teo Inama Chiabrando). The drummer’s sister also drops in to further stir the pot of sexual tension in these kids’ lives. It’s all handled with an impressive amount of sincerity and delicate grace. Director Mariano Biasin knows all the little details, gestures and glances to focus on. The little things that mean everything. It’s all heading to one question: Can Manu confess his true feelings without breaking up the band? I’m not sure the result has the significance it should, but it’s a rather heartwarming tale, well told. I could picture this movie playing well (and perhaps better) at Sundance.

Leonora addio, dir. by Paolo Taviani

Matteo Pittiruti, Dania Marinoe, Dora Becker — Leonora addio by Paolo Taviani © Umberto Montiroli

Let’s wrap this coverage up by getting back to the big Competition category. Last year’s at home, streaming version of the festival gave me the opportunity to watch all the Competition titles. This meant that I was able to break my streak of not seeing the movie that wins the Golden Bear, which I naturally resumed this year. So, while I didn’t see the grand prize winning ALCARRÀS, I did see LEONORA ADDIO, which was the only movie I felt tempted to walk out on this year.

But this too is something of a tradition. Every year there’s at least one movie in the Competition section that, for one reason or another, I just can’t stomach. Two years ago it was THE SALT OF TEARS, last year it was ALBATROS (DRIFT AWAY). This year, it was the Italian historical curio LEONORA ADDIO, by Paolo Taviani. Taviani has been making movies for sixty years now, having won the Golden Bear in 2012 for CAESAR MUST DIE (which is why, I’m guessing, this movie ended up in the Competition section). This new movie wants to tell a poetic story about the Nobel Prize-winning writer Luigi Pirandello, someone who often wrote poems and stories that fell into the category of tragic farce — and who’s own life story of championing fascism could call into that category as well. Alas, none of the four stories in LEONORA ADDIO do anything to shed new light on the author or make a case for themselves as being all that interesting. Even the black and white photography used for most of the stories feels inauthentic and purposeless. I won’t get into the last chapter of the movie, shot in color and meant to take place in Brooklyn. It’s a legit fiasco.

The Passengers of the Night (Les passagers de la nuit), dir. by Mikhaël Hers

Charlotte Gainsbourg — Les passagers de la nuit | The Passengers of the Night by Mikhaël Hers © 2021 Nord-Ouest Films, Arte France Cinema

I had a better time with Mikhaël Hers’s latest film, THE PASSENGERS IN THE NIGHT. The title comes from a 1980s late-night radio show, loosely based on the real Radio France radio program Les choses de la nuit. The movie starts with a little prologue, set on the night François Mitterrand won the presidency, on May 10th, 1981. We then proceed to move through much of the decade, following a newly single mom (played by the always compelling Charlotte Gainsbourg) as she gets a job at the radio station and tries to raise her two teenaged kids.

Let’s just say the movie is eighties to a fault. Mikhaël Hers was born in 1975, and while he may have been fascinated enough with the 1980s to want to relive it through this story, his conception of the decade is thoroughly cinematic and sentimental in nature and devoid of any reality. The movie is even shot to look like a movie from the 1980s — rather than the way things actually looked like in the 1980s. This would be fine if it weren’t a movie that was trying to be both a sensitive coming-of-age story and one that deals with a homeless heroin addict no less. Nothing anyone said or did in the movie felt honest, it felt like the kind of stuff only people in movies say and do. Which again, would be fine in the context of a different story told in a different way. I don’t need people in movies to look or talk like people in real life, but if we’re spending so much time concerned about a character who’s living on the streets hooked on smack, I don’t need her to look like she’s just stumbled out of a Givenchy after party when she’s supposed to look half-dead.

It’s not a bad movie, just a frustrating one. Perhaps I should see the choice of shooting an 80’s-set movie with the soft lighting style of 80’s movies as a sort of loving homage. And maybe I should see the choice in making all the characters seem like characters out of an 80s movie, rather than people that actually existed, as an interesting metatexual commentary of some sort. The same goes with making their problems and the plot twists they encounter be completely unreal — the kind of stuff that only happens in 1980s movies. Maybe this is all a loving ode to cinema and nothing else. But instead, I read it all as kind of phony and disappointing.

Everything Will Be Ok, dir. by Rithy Panh

Everything Will Be Ok by Rithy Panh © CDP, Anupheap Production

A name that pops up frequently in Berlinale Competition line-ups is Rithy Panh, the Cambodian filmmaker working out of France, who’s been making powerful films that often blur the line between art installations and documentaries. His newest film, EVERYTHING WILL BE OK, might bring back memories of his 2013 film THE MISSING PICTURE, in that it uses handmade figures to help tell his story. Like most of Panh’s films, this story involves taking a difficult look back at our recent past. This time around, Panh evokes George Orwell's Animal Farm by creating a topsy-turvy world where humans are imprisoned by a group of animals that are quickly devolving into a quasi-authoritarian state. Once again, Panh pulls no punches in showing the worst and most hypocritical aspects of 20th century humanity. It’s not an easy watch, and it may be an endurance test for some. But if you’ve been on the fence about becoming vegetarian, this movie might be the final push you’ve been waiting for. I didn’t like it as much as I did 2020’s IRRADIATED, but it’s hard not be impressed by his artistry. You get why Panh’s films tend to win the Berlinale’s special artistic contribution award.

Robe of Gems, dir. by Natalia López

Robe of Gems by Natalia López Gallardo © Visit Films

Some people were greatly impressed by Natalia López’s feature debut, the meditative Mexican crime picture ROBE OF GEMS. I can understand why. Few movies at this year’s Berlinale were as well composed as this one. If cinema is all about telling the story visually, ROBE OF GEMS is nearly perfect. Certainly, the jury thought so, awarding the film the Silver Bear Jury Prize. I wish I shared that enthusiasm. While I admired the framing and the meaning in every shot, I also found it meandering and largely devoid of the emotion and tension it seemed to be aiming for. If the point is all about mood, it’s got that in spades. You feel the corruption and the brutality. As a narrative, a story about a kidnapping and the ripple-effect consequences and the many people touched by such acts of violence, I had trouble getting engaged.

I actually want to take a mulligan on this one. I was seated in the front section of the CUBIX movie theater — in theater number nine, which has a screen about the size of a three story building. When you have to turn your head 45-degrees from side to side in order to admire the composition of a shot, you’re not sitting in a good seat. The immensity of the image in front of me was overwhelming, and made the movie all the more difficult to get into. I’m looking forward to seeing it again at some point.

That Kind of Summer (Un été comme ça), dir. by Denis Côté

Anne Ratte-Polle, Larissa Corriveau, Laure Giappiconi — Un été comme ça | That Kind of Summer by Denis Côté © Lou Scamble / Metafilms

After last year’s SOCIAL HYGIENE and this year’s THAT KIND OF SUMMER, French Canadian filmmaker Denis Côté is turning into a new favorite. The two movies are dramatically different though. Where SOCIAL HYGIENE was a witty comedy involving actors speaking to each other across the static shot of a landscape, THAT KIND OF SUMMER is a feverishly tense drama, with moments of harrowing revelation and people coming to painfully realized truths about the human condition. There are a few laughs here and there, but even these are rather uncomfortable.

It’s been a few weeks since I sat with this movie, and I’ve kind of been sitting with it since, and I still don’t know how to easily summarize the movie. It takes place at a sort of sexual rehab clinic, where three women (the amazing trio of Larissa Corriveau, Laure Giappiconi and Aude Mathieu) have volunteered to stay, knowing that they need help, or that people who care about them think they need help. Each woman has different ways in which their sexuality is, in some way, interfering or even taking over their lives. Although, for Aude Mathieu’s Geisha, as she see’s it, she just likes to fuck and that’s not necessarily a problem, even though her desires are getting her into more extreme scenarios with the potential for violence.

Nothing is straightforward though. The movie spends 137 minutes constantly shifting the framework of the discussion. There is deep sadness in the past of Larissa Corriveau’s Léonie, especially an experience she details in a haunting monologue that is one of the most dramatically charged moments of the entire festival. Yet, none of these women can easily fit the labels of victims or survivors. They’re simply human stories — the kind of taboo stories that movies often avoid getting into because they’re not easily addressed. Too often movies want to moralize about these issues instead of treating them as another facet of human nature.

Côté has not only made a movie that successfully avoids moralizing, he’s made a movie featuring no small amount of sexual acts being visualized and described and yet he’s never eroticizing, exploiting or leering at his characters or the subject matter. He’s asking, what are we about? Why do we act and think the way we do? It’s a small miracle of a movie. One of the best of the festival and certainly the year. It’s deeply uncomfortable at times, but that’s mostly due to the fact that we’ve been programmed to avoid these kind of questions.

A Piece of Sky (Drii Winter), by Michael Koch

Simon Wisler — Drii Winter | A Piece of Sky by Michael Koch © Armin Dierolf / hugofilm

I didn't catch all of the films in this year's Berlinale Competition section, but given the eight of them I did see, DRII WINTER (my preferred title) would have gotten my vote for Golden Bear. It wasn't my favorite, but it is a beautiful piece of work that so perfectly expresses its themes and concerns through visual composition and some unexpected storytelling flourishes straight out classical Greek theater.

What good is a man? In particular, what good is a man who's fallen ill, and who's only sense of purpose has been his strength in working with his hands. Marco is a quiet outsider who's fallen in love with a local barmaid. They get married, but a lot of the local villagers don't really trust Marco, even though he's a reliable, strong worker and farmhand. The thing is, Marco is beginning to realize something's wrong with him. He starts to empathize with the farm animals -- what's their value if they don't live up to the farmer's expectations? Well, they get put down or sent to the slaughterhouse. Is Marco any different? Are any of us? The whole idea of God as the farmer tending to his flock is made literal here, in a way, and it resonates perfectly well as Marco begins to feel resentment toward his employer.

A PIECE OF SKY is beautifully filmed in the Swiss mountains, where everything is at an angle. The landscape seems to defy the laws of physics at times. Bodies of water seem to float in the sky. Clouds merge with rocks. Director Michael Koch and cinematographer Armin Dierolf give the impression that this village is indeed one step away from a sort of heavenly ether. Townspeople even drop in from time to time like a choir of angels to punctuate the film's themes.

It is sometimes painful, sometimes deeply moving to watch Marco take that final step, but the movie avoids getting dragged down into misery -- it's more intellectually curious than that. Instead, we continue to wonder about our own place and purpose in this world. There but for the grace of god, and so forth. How far removed are we from beasts of burden? We're all heading in one direction, and how willing are we to take care of one another when we get there?

My only criticism is that it feels like the movie gets a little too distracted from time to time. It exceeds the two-hour mark and I got the sense that it could have been perhaps more effective with fifteen minutes shaved off. But it's a minor complaint for a movie that will stay with me for some time.

The Novelist’s Film (So-seol-ga-ui yeong-hwa), dir. by Hong Sangsoo

Kim Minhee, Lee Hyeyoung, Ha Seongguk — So-seol-ga-ui yeong-hwa | The Novelist’s Film by Hong Sangsoo © Jeonwonsa Film Co. Production

It’s not easy to continue coming up with reasons for why I love Hong Sangsoo movies. At this point he’s become extremely prolific, coming out with a new movie for the Berlinale three years in a row. This time, THE NOVELIST’S FILM allowed him to take home the Silver Bear Grand Jury Prize. And once again, I loved the movie, perhaps even more than last year’s excellent INTRODUCTION.

The reason I find it difficult to critique a Hong Sangsoo film is due to how precise a director he is. He shoots in a series of long, often static, takes. His compositions are clearly well thought out and meaningful, as is every line of dialogue. In fact, his dialogue is so considered that something someone says in an off-hand fashion at the start of the film will be made important by a revelation made later on. So, each scene deliberately builds on the last, slowly generating drama and creating a deeply rewarding experience.

With this level of craftsmanship, it feels wrong to try and suggest that something should have been done differently. These are precise movies that couldn’t be any other way than how they are. The scene in THE NOVELIST’S FILM, where the titular novelist is taught a phrase in sign language, and she repeats the phrase again and again — it couldn’t have been any other way. If she repeated the phrase one time fewer, or one time more, it wouldn’t be right. You can’t easily explain the reason for this, but when you watch it, you understand why.

This is the one film I was able to catch twice during the festival. I suppose it was my favorite, though if I was pushed I’d probably say THAT KIND OF SUMMER was the better film, though still, not my favorite. I adore just about every scene in THE NOVELIST’S FILM, and I believe that Hong Sangsoo and Lee Hye-young have created one of his most memorable characters with Jun-hee, the novelist who travels to visit an old colleague and ends up running into more characters from her past, as well as an actress who inspires her to make her first movie. Jun-hee is a truth teller. The kind of person who can’t bite her tongue for the sake of politeness, which in the mannered world of a Hong Sangsoo film makes her something of a tornado. But it also makes her someone who’s difficult to be around, no matter what cultural rules you’re navigating through. With her gloves, her wit and her drive to cut through the bullshit, Jun-hee is a fantastic character to watch, and while she may not be without her own flaws, she’s fun to root for.

I won’t go into too many details, even though I don’t think this is a movie you can spoil, but while the end of the movie is left somewhat open, I think we can see that Jun-hee’s quest for the truth has burned another bridge between her and the actress. It’s kind of a perfect ending to a perfect movie, told with the kind of delicacy that few other directors alive could pull off. My second viewing of THE NOVELIST’S FILM was the last screening of the festival, and the last movie I’ll write about here. If you got to this point, my hat’s off. Thanks for reading.