Links to coverage of the 2023 Berlinale Film Festival.
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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. But we were there, in the theaters, taking part in the communal festive experience of cinema once more. Here are the 26 movies I was able to set eyes on…
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Final day of the online press screenings includes a mesmerizing Vietnamese fever dream, a dreary Swiss drama, and a lovingly melancholic animated short. Plus, some final thoughts on this First Round of 2021’s two part Berlinale Film Festival.
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In this installment, we look at the final Competition movies available. This includes the moving documentary MR BACHMANN AND HIS CLASS, the genre-defying Netflix doc A COP MOVIE, and a seven-minute movie that packs quite a punch: YOUR STREET.
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It’s a trifecta today: a brilliant three-chapter Japanese film WHEEL OF FORTUNE AND FANTASY, the impressive Iranian tragedy BALLAD OF A WHITE COW, and the psychedelic mind-bending document of Hawaii that is Fern Silva’s ROCK BOTTOM RISER.
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Day Three of the Berlinale Industry Event online screenings includes a look at Céline Sciamma’s PETITE MAMAN, Alexandre Koberidze’s WHAT DO WE SEE WHEN WE LOOK AT THE SKY?, Soi Cheang’s cops vs serial killer movie LIMBO, and another trip to Hungary in Benedek Fliegauf’s FOREST - I SEE YOU EVERYWHERE.
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The 2021 Berlinale Industry Event diary continues. This time, we go down the rabbit hole with THE SCARY OF SIXTY-FIRST, get gobsmacked by BAD LUCK BANGING OR LOONEY PORN, visit the darkness and NATURAL LIGHT of Hungary in WWII, dodge our responsibilities in the Canadian countryside in SOCIAL HYGIENE, and wrap up a long day with a dire ALBATROS.
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Altogether, around 150 at-home screenings were made available to the press. We had five days to watch them. I was able to watch 22 of them. This is Part One.
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A long read on the 70th annual Berlin International Film Festival.
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Robert Pattinson has supposedly called the movie a "slapstick western," but I have a hunch he may have intended something closer to a "western farce." These terms tend to get mixed up because they often coexist. It's common for a farce to contain some slapstick elements as a way of reinforcing the chaotic and unpredictable nature of the genre (or the spirit of the story being told), but Damsel isn't much of a slapstick anything. It's not a Three Stooges western. It is quite silly, clever and violent at times, but at its heart it is a tragedy -- one that is both funny and sad, sometimes within the same scene. And I think that's a big reason why it makes for a very successful farce.
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