Moral imperative screen

Any accredited journalist faces the same problem at large film forums: in order to see a really talented film in the main competition you have to watch many hours of multilingual and many-sided film production all similar in its mediocrity. Then, practically in the end of the competition, when you are no longer expecting anything good, like a reward there appears a film on the screen so worth writing and talking about in detail.

It seems that the best film of the competition has already been screened. Ulrich Seidl’s Paradise: Hope is the final part of the “paradise” trilogy (the first films were Love and Faith).

Seidl is an Austrian film director, a former documentalist, who made his debut in fiction film with a drama Dog Days (Grand Prix of the jury in Venice in 2001). He also made a film based on Ukrainian material: Import/Export (2007). It’s a movie about a nurse from the half-ruined town in Donetsk region, who emigrated to Austria in search of a decent life. After a long slump, in 2011 Seidl’s new film Paradise: Love was released. It tells a story of adventures of an elderly Austrian tourist on sex resort in Kenya. In 2012 his film Paradise: Faith caused a big scandal at the Venice Film Festival angering the supporters of traditional morality. The story ends in the film Hope: main character is Melanie, 13-year-old daughter of the tourist from the first film.

This is a story about the conflict of feelings and the law. Melanie (very natural acting by Melanie Lenz) during her stay at summer diet camp falls for a grown-up doctor, who, at first, played quite innocent games with her, but gradually it all turned into some sort of delusion. The film is skillfully constructed to follow a certain rhythm. Scenes of everyday life, entertainment, and displays of affection contrast with tragicomic episodes of discipline triumph: exhausting exercise, alignment, the tyrant coach. Seidl reached the level of ease and simplicity in this film characteristic of a true master. Just like in the previous films, he remains a shrewd articulator of human nature, but, at the same time, he does not forget about mercy. Ethical and aesthetic aspects are perfectly balanced here, which makes Hope one of the best educational film novels in recent years.

In general, it seems, that this year paradoxically religious themes prevailed at Berlinale. Biblical allusions are in the names of several competition films: Paradise: Hope, Promised Land, In the Name of…, The Nun – the last two films directly describe the life of Catholic Church.

Russian film A Long and Happy Life is a totally different case (directed by Boris Khlebnikov). Another parallel: here, like in Gus Van Sant’s film, the film is telling the story of the struggle of village residents for their land. However, the similarity ends here: reality in Russia is more severe.

In the Name of… is the film by Polish director Malgorzata Szumowska. Recently Ukrainian audience had a chance to see another film made by this director Elle starring Juliette Binoche in the role of a journalist, who writes an article about call-girls. This time Szumowska decided to address a more provocative issue of same-sex love within the Catholic Church. The protagonist is the priest in the shelter for unreliable guys. An interesting thematic parallel: Paradise: Hope is also about the impossible relationship, but in the place where Seidl develops sophisticated play of desires and fantasies, Szumowska portrays a straightforward, like a newspaper essay, story of erotic frustration. The protagonist is clearly aware of his alienation from church, but for some reason he has not renounced his order. What exactly keeps him so bound to religion, what is the reason for the central conflict of the film – Szumowska does not show this. Through poorly elaborated motivations the film is dramatically inhibited. But still the film In the Name of… appears as an interesting contrast to Hope and perfect acting of Andrzej Chyra suggests that Szumowska’s film will receive the Bear award for Best Actor.

What concerns the film The Nun, this French film is a screen adaptation of the classic novel by Denis Diderot. Isabelle Huppert is one of the actresses in this film. By its construction it is a typical costume drama and, although the director tried to alleviate some situations compared with the original novel, anticlerical pathos of Diderot can still be felt. Another thing is that in this film adaptation the historic entourage dominates over both the acting and the scenario: everything bears the imprint of burdensome decorativism, flavored with melodrama.

Famous American independent filmmaker Gus Van Sant in his film Promised Land had another problem: the dramaturgy and the structure of the plot are different here but it hard to shake off the feeling that the director took over something he is not good at. Besides the scenario, there are other components for a sound Hollywood story about the enlightment of a nice guy, who works for bad people: Matt Damon in the role of a representative of a large gas producer, ugly but great Frances McDormand in the role of his business partner, environmental and anti-corporation theme, sudden twist in the plot closer to the end. But almost right from the start it is very clear that Van Sant does not know how to film American heartland, he does not quite understand who the farmers are and how they live, and the omnipotence of large corporations is not the issue of life and death for him. As a result, he got a quite professional but somewhat insincere film.

Russian film A Long and Happy Life is a totally different case (directed by Boris Khlebnikov). Another parallel: here, like in Gus Van Sant’s film, the film is telling the story of the struggle of village residents for their land. However, the similarity ends here: reality in Russia is more severe.

Thematically A Long and Happy Life is a purely social film. One noveau riche bought the land together with the village on it. Villagers led by the head of their cooperative Sasha (Alexander Yatsenko) do not want to leave the land. Power, money, law, and police all work in favor of the officials. The villagers have nothing but the determination to fight and their leader Sasha.

Khlebnikov avoids the escalating direct conflict between people and authorities. Moreover, the dramatic situation suddenly reminded me of the debut play of our classic playwright Ivan Karpenko-Kary Burlaka (Chaban): in this play the main character is left alone in the end, betrayed by everyone, even by the people, for whose rights he fought. Actually, Khlebnikov and Yatsenko came up not with “an effective manager” but a textbook romantic hero opposed to the whole world fighting for his truth. Therefore, the explosive end is logical. This durable, sometimes even naive film seems to have good chances for the awards of the festival.

Child’s Pose (directed by Calin Peter Netzer) is a typical example of the Romanian “new wave” – filmed with hand camera, with social accents and imprint of documentalism. Son of influential parents knocks a child from a poor family with his car. This event reveals many ailments, to which the rather successful family, at the first sight, was inclined. The film is made perfect in terms of all the components. Another thing is that here one can clearly see here that “Romanian films” are becoming some kind of cinematographic brand and that new films are tailored according to already made patterns – this is a dangerous symptom.

Thus, with Berlinale being halfway through, we can already talk about some trends. The current festival has a significant (anti) religious connotations, but is at the same time extremely focused on the problem of moral choice in conditions extremely unfavorable to those, who have to make this choice. Morality, not moralizing is the through motif of the competition.

However, this in no way affects the popularity of the festival: according to the latest data, the Berlinale became the largest film festival in the world, surpassing Cannes and Venice by the number of the accredited guests and audience.

The Day continues to monitor the situation at the Berlinale-63.

As we have already mentioned, Ukraine is represented by a young documentalist from Kyiv Dmytro Sukholytky-Sobchuk in Berlinale Talent Campus. Here is what he told about his participation in Berlinale.

“I am getting exactly what I expected. First, there is a lot of communication with various filmmakers, cameramen, and producers. We have meetings in the format of ‘speed-meeting’: in five minutes you have to most fully tell about who you are and what you do. In an hour you can talk with a large number of professionals.

Second, there are many screenings. You can see a lot. And, of course, the workshops. Sometimes there are up to five professionals speaking at a workshop and everyone describes such details and peculiarities of film production that it makes you stop and think: ‘How could I not notice these things before!’ You know, it’s like the laws of physics: they exist, but you haven’t discovered them for yourself yet. And here comes a person who says: there is everything available here, you don’t have to invent anything new, just properly use what you’ve already got. It is great experience. Besides, there are lots of breeders from various festivals and I brought my films. So, I arrange meetings and give my films into right hands. Berlinale is a real opportunity which you simply have to use in a right way.”