Berlin International Film Festival

TAKE ONE, June-Sept, 2003 by Tom McSorley

Berlin: where politics meets pathetic fallacy. If you believe in the pathetic fallacy, the frigid temperatures during the 53rd Berlin International Film Festival had much to say about what was happening outside the cinemas. Even while the noble and hopeful official festival motto, "towards tolerance," beamed from the festival posters and advertisements, the shadow of the impending war on Iraq darkened and made colder the proceedings. Whatever the warmth and power of the films, however well meaning the festival vibe under the perpetually positive director Dieter Kosslick, the coldest Berlin weather in years seemed to express that something larger and more forbidding was underway beyond the festival's privileged perimeter. Despite 500,000 people marching for peace up the Unter den Linden to the Brandenburg Gate, the apprehension that George W. was hell--bent on bomb-dropping sent a palpable chill down the spine of the entire Berlinale. Also ominous was the sudden collapse and death of Daniel Toscan du Plantier, head of Unifrance, in the lobby of the Grand Hyatt, the official festival hotel. Beyond the realpolitik of the U.S.-Iraq tango, politics is always prominent at the Berlinale, both in the selection of films and in the discussion of the works themselves. No sunny seaside Mediterranean retreat la Cannes, the Berlin festival--tough, engaged and Teutonic--was, after all, founded as a political act of resistance during the Cold War and it continues to be a forum for debate about the tangled state of things in the now reunified Germany and beyond. Indeed, the Golden Bear (the festival's top prize) was awarded this year to In This World, Michael Winterbottom's potent political drama about two young Afghan refugees trying to get to England. Wolfgang Becker's Good-Bye, Lenin! squarely and humorously confronts the end of the Gold War on the consciousness of one family. Inevitably, perhaps, there was also the annual array of the usual Berlinale suspects: documentaries about the Holocaust, personal/political diary films about the crisis in the Middle East and portraits of Germany in transition. In addition to the films, there was also Cinema for Peace, a special gala fundraising dinner attended by A-list stars such as Dustin Hoffman to raise money and awareness to stop the Bush administration from launching a war in you know where.

If George W. can be said to represent one aspect of the American presence--political and otherwise--in Berlin, then Hollywood is another. As usual, the Berlinale's Official Competition, not to mention its opening and closing night films, was stacked with Hollywood films. Opening the festival with Chicago and closing it with Gangs of New York, the Berlinale's competition included Spike Lee's 25th Hour, Spike Jonze's Adaptation, George Clooney's Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, Alan Parker's The Life of David Gale and Steven Soderbergh's Solaris. Moreover the Hollywood star power assembled by the festival was impressive, rivalling even Cannes with appearances by Richard Gere, Kevin Spacey, Nicholas Cage and a combative George Clooney, who went on the offensive at the Solaris press conference when one journalist described the film as "boring." Clooney's impassioned defence of his film was as refreshing as it was surprising, given the usual sycophancy of press conferences with mega-movie stars.

Canada's presence in Berlin 2003 was understated but significant. Atom Egoyan was the president of the jury, the first time ever for a Canadian, and he also presented Ararat at special public screenings. Two minority Canadian co-productions dotted the Competition: Madame Brouette, directed by Senegal's Moussa Sene Absa and Spanish director Isabel Coixet's My Life without Me, starring the incandescent Sarah Polley. Terrance Odette's Saint Monica enhanced the Kinderfilmfest, while Richard Kwietniowski's Owning Mahowny, Thom Fitzgerald's The Event, fleana Pietrobruno's Girl King and Keith Behrman's Flower & Garnet bolstered the Panorama section. The official Canadian reception, organized by Telefilm Canada, was also notable, featuring a remarkable live performance by the powerhouse Quebec cellist and singer Jorane. Her performance so dazzled certain foreign producers that business cards were exchanged and sound track commissions appear in the offing.

As the host nation for the festival, Germany has much to be proud of. Its cinema continues to impress, even in a year without films by Tom Tykwer or Thomas Arslan. The annual showcase of German films yielded several fine works, including Identity Kills, Half Rent, They've Got Knut and This Vey Moment. China, too, had an impressive showing, with humanist gems such as Cala, My Dog! and the extraordinary Remnants, a three-hour documentary about the social problems of modernization. With these works, one can almost forgive perhaps the worst film of the festival, the utterly execrable Chinese drama The Old Testament. That other old Cold War "enemy," Russia, also offered some accomplished pieces, including The Suit, a bittersweet tale of three young men and their desire for a better future. In fact, new Russian cinema was given a spotlight program at the Berlinale, highlighting the new work, much of which is shot digitally, coming out of that nation's troubled film industry.