BERLIN: ‘Nader and Simin’ wins big

Unlike large voting bodies such as the Academy, the decisions of rotating festival juries are rarely easy to anticipate — when only six people are determining the awards, as was the case at this year’s Berlinale, who knows what idiosyncratic personal tastes might come into play?

So it is that the only truly surprising thing about this year’s Berlin Competition winners, announced at a ceremony last night, is just how unsurprising they are. As I predicted in my Friday review of both films, Isabella Rossellini and her fellow jurors sided with the critics, as it came down to Béla Tarr’s imposing survival study “The Turin Horse” and Asghar Farhadi’s intricate moral drama “Nader and Simin, a Separation” for the Golden Bear.

As expected, it was Farhadi’s more accessible, though no less deserving, film that came out on top — two years after the filmmaker took the festival’s Best Director award for “About Elly” — while a seemingly surly Tarr had to settle for the runner-up Grand Prix. (The severe Hungarian auteur was there to pick up his award, but refused to give an acceptance speech.)

Meanwhile, as if to underline how much they really, really liked “Nader and Simin” — warding off potential accusations of politically-motivated voting for the Iranian film — the jury took the unusual step of awarding it the Best Actor and Best Actress awards, both of them to the collected ensemble players (including Farhadi’s young daughter Sarina) rather than individual performers. As I wrote in my review, there’s not a false thespian note to be found in the film, so I can hardly take issue with this decision, though it would have been nice to see the love spread a little more — particularly in the direction of Vanessa Redgrave, whose towering turn in “Coriolanus” is, I maintain, bound for next year’s Academy Awards.

One award I didn’t see coming is also the one that makes me happiest. A relatively little-known name on the international arthouse scene, Ulrich Köhler took Best Director win for my favorite film of the fest, “Sleeping Sickness” — a welcome boost for a thorny film that divided Berlin critics.

Perhaps a more familiar prizewinner to US readers is Joshua Marston, who took Best Screenplay honors for his Albanian-set blood feud drama “The Forgiveness of Blood,” his first feature since his acclaimed 2004 debut “Maria Full of Grace.” I found it a more polished but rather less propulsive work than than Marston’s first, but more on that later.

In a rock-solid list of winners, the only one that prompts a little head-scratching on my part is the Alfred Bauer Prize — supposedly awarded to “a work of particular innovation” — handed to Andres Veiel’s “If Not Us, Who” (the title’s question mark apparently eloped with that of “How Do You Know”) a study of the origins of the Baader-Meinhof Gang so similar in form and style to 2008’s Oscar-nominated “The Baader Meinhof Complex” that recognising it for originality seems somewhat perverse.

That aside, Team Rossellini is to be commended for singling out the most accomplished films this year’s rather inconsistent lineup had to offer — as it stands, after a few years of iffy choices, “Nader and Simin, a Separation” ranks for me as the most satisfying Golden Bear winner since 2004’s “Head-On,” at least. To my knowledge, a US distributor has yet to step forward, but I imagine one will soon enough; for one thing, Iran could do far worse than submit Farhadi’s film for next year’s foreign-language Oscar. “The Turin Horse?” Don’t hold your breath.

Main competition winners below; for a full list, check out the Berlinale website.

Golden Bear: “Nader and Simin, a Separation”

Jury Grand Prix: “The Turin Horse”

Best Director: Ulrich Köhler, “Sleeping Sickness”

Best Actor: The actor ensemble in “Nader and Simin, a Separation”

Best Actress: The actress ensemble in “Nader and Simin, a Separation”

Best Screenplay: Joshua Marston and Andamion Murataj, “The Forgiveness of Blood”

Best Cinematography: Wojciech Staron, “The Prize”

Best Production Design: Barbara Enriquez, “The Prize”

Alfred Bauer Prize: “If Not Us, Who”

[Photo: Blogdecine.com]