In Contention

Tag: Berlin

  • ‘Shutter Island’ to premiere at Berlin fest

    Leonardo DiCaprio and Michelle Williams in Shutter IslandDoesn’t it feel like an eternity ago that we were talking about the possibilities for “Shutter Island” in this year’s Oscar race? I’m still sulking, frankly.

    Still, compensation for the delay arrives in the shape of some European festival prestige: Martin Scorsese’s adaptation of Dennis Lehane’s Gothic thriller will play out of competition at the 60th Berlin International Film Festival in February.

    Of course, Berlin audiences won’t be the first to lay eyes on the film: it recently had a “surprise” screening at Butt-Numb-a-Thon in Texas. Impressions are scattered around the net if you care to seek them.

    Also in the lineup is Roman Polanski’s latest, “The Ghost Writer” — a political thriller adapted from a Robert Harris novel, starring Ewan McGregor and Pierce Brosnan. Unlike Scorsese’s film, Polanski’s will be in contention for the Golden Bear.

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  • Werner Herzog named president of 2010 Berlin jury

    Werner HerzogAfter premiering two films at September’s Venice fest, perhaps the most surprising thing about Werner Herzog heading the jury at February’s Berlin Film Festival is that he won’t be inflicting another film upon the competition.

    I kid, I kid. Herzog, the first German jury president since Roland Emmerich in 2005, is inarguably deserving of the position, and should bring a welcome streak of eccentricity to the jury’s deliberations. The press release declares him “one of the most significant personalities of New German Cinema,” which is risking understatement.

    Interestingly, the 67 year-old auteur has only twice competed at the Berlinale himself, with his 1968 debut “Signs of Life” (for which he won a special award) and 1979’s “Nosferatu.”

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  • EDINBURGH: ‘London River,’ ‘Spread’

    London RiverThe past day has presented me with two films that made their first appearances at high-profile festivals early in the year: Scottish auteur David Mackenzie’s first U.S. effort “Spread” — a “look ma, I can act” venture of sorts for Ashton Kutcher — played at Sundance in January, while Rachid Bouchareb’s “London River” was a favorite (and an award-winner) at February’s Berlinale. Suffice to say that winter festival bows are all these titles have in common.

    LONDON RIVER (***)

    American filmmakers have been combing the ashes of 9/11 for inspiration for some years now, but the British have been far more reticent in taking the London bombings of July 2005. Indeed, it has fallen to Algerian director Rachid Bouchareb (a recent Oscar nominee for his excellent WWII drama “Days of Glory”) to make the first major fictional exploration of this territory, and happily he doesn’t fumble the catch by presuming importance.

    The story of two culturally opposed parents (an impoverished Francophone Muslim and a middle-class British widow) who travel to the eponymous city after the attacks, in search of their missing children, “London River” infuses a standard-issue story of parental grief with social and racial tensions that mine the Western suspicion of Islam that has become commonplace in the wake of 9/11. (“The place is crawling with Muslims!” Brenda Blethyn’s culturally sheltered rural character exclaims about London, in one of the film’s few stabs at humor.)

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  • Tribeca awards ‘About Elly,’ Hinds, Kazan

    Mark Rendall and Zoe Kazan in The Exploding GirlThe Tribeca festival has a hit-and-miss record when it comes to picking winners that go on to great things. However, they certainly proved prescient last year, when they handed their top prize to “Let the Right One In,” so it’s worth taking a moment to mention this year’s choices.

    Of course, their Best Narrative Feature winner, Iranian ensemble drama “About Elly,” already has a major festival gong under its belt, having taken the Best Director prize at February’s Berlinale. Following the film’s Berlin premiere, Screen International described the work, which investigates the foibles of a group of friends holidaying at a Caspian beach resort, as “one of the most remarkable Iranian films to surface in the last few years,” while the Tribeca jury’s statement reads:

    Out of a strong selection of films, the jury was unanimous in our passion for this seamless piece of ensemble filmmaking. The universality of the characters and themes, and the directors riveting grasp of this story make “About Elly” a film that collapses barriers and deepens our understanding of the world we share.

    (The statements on each winner are a handy detail, by the way.) Given that Iran went with “Song of Sparrows,” another Berlin-bowing festival hit, as their official Oscar submission last year, I suspect we might be hearing more of this title in the 2009 foreign-language race.

    The jury looked further west for their acting prizes, however, handing awards to Ciarán Hinds for “The Eclipse,” a low-key ghost story from acclaimed Irish playwright Conor McPherson and Zoe Kazan in the American indie effort “The Exploding Girl.” The 25 year-old actress (granddaughter of Elia) has drawn a number of raves for her performance as an insecure college student returning home for a semester break. As someone who was very impressed by Kazan’s delicate character sketch in “Revolutionary Road,” I’m looking forward to seeing this.

    Full list of winners here.

  • Berlin jury avoids the mainstream

    Perhaps it’s an indication of an unusually low-key festival, or perhaps (more likely) I’ve been too distracted by the steamrolling Oscar season, but either way, I’m a little disturbed that the Berlin Film Festival wrapped up this weekend and I am barely familiar with most of the prizewinning films.

    I had heard some positive things about “London River,” a culture-clash drama from “Day of Glory” helmer Rachid Bouchareb, set around the 2005 London bombings, that gathered some buzz for Brenda Blethyn’s performance — but ended up taking Best Actor for Sotigui Kouyate.

    And I was aware that “Sweet Rush,” which shared the Alfred Bauer Prize (which rewards “new perspectives,” apparently), is the latest from Andrzej Wajda (though word is it’s not one of his best), while I remember the Best Screenplay winner, Iraq-themed US indie “The Messenger,” gathered some notice at Sundance.

    But I must admit that the winner of the Golden Bear, “The Milk of Sorrow,” skipped my radar entirely. The sophomore film from female Peruvian director Claudia Llosa, it’s a solemn-sounding effort about the lifelong trauma inflicted on a child of rape — or, if you want the more sensationalist pitch, a woman with a potato in her nether regions. It seems to have attracted mixed notices — Variety’s review admires from a distance, but Screen International finds it “mannered” and “contrived.”

    Of course, one would expect a jury headed by avante-garde arthouse queen Tilda Swinton to favour the international and the eccentric, so none of this is really a surprise — especially given that they’d made clear their intent to reward politically charged work.

    In any case, the Golden Bear truly hasn’t been any indicator of international success of late — the last few winners include “U-Carmen eKhayelitsha” (which really deserved a higher profile), “Grbavica,” “Tuya’s Marriage” and “Elite Squad.” I have a feeling Llosa’s film isn’t going to have much more luck crossing over, but we’ll see.

    Full list of winners after the cut.

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  • WEEKLY WRAP: BAFTAs, Berlin, pre-Oscar jitters

    Aside from two major precursors, it’s been a slow week for news — which leads to a lot of prediction second-guessing.

    • “Slumdog” swept at the BAFTAs, which also put new wind in Mickey Rourke’s sails. We live-blogged it here.

    • The “Slumdog” streak inevitably continued at the WGA Awards, where “Milk” picked up some hardware too.

    • This week’s Off the Carpet column was just eager to move on already.

    • Taking a closer look at the often inscrutable Best Documentary Short race.

    • Speaking of documentaries, we wondered if a win for “Man on Wire” is the foregone conclusion that people think it is.

    • On a similar tack, do we have a real race in the Best Foreign Language Film category?

    • In a bit of a blow to next week’s Oscarcast, Peter Gabriel has nixed his participation.

    • A survey of some of the industry’s top DPs suggests that “Slumdog” looks like the one to beat for Best Cinematography too.

    • Should we be mindful of a third possibility in the Best Actor race?

    • Perhaps another underdog, “Frozen River,” has hidden strengths in the competition.

    • Away from the Oscar beat, the Berlinale continued its quiet progress, with Stephen Frears’ “Chéri” possibly one to watch.

  • A promising start for ‘Chéri’

    If it isn’t quite the unanimous chorus of approval one might have hoped for, there’s still enough praise for Stephen Frears’ latest film “Chéri,” which premiered in Berlin last night, to mark it as a potential 2009 contender in several areas — among them, Best Actress for Michelle Pfeiffer’s much-anticipated return to dramatic roles. (Thanks, of course, to the ever-diligent Nat Rogers for the heads-up.)

    The Hollywood Reporter’s Kirk Honeycutt is absolutely besotted with the film, gushing that there is “no false moment or off-key note” in the entire production:

    Stephen Frears never makes the same movie twice. What he does do though is make thoroughly professional and immensely entertaining stories that pay particular attention to characters, their flaws, emotions and deepest desires. In “Cheri,” he has another dandy. Whether it will travel as far as his last film, “The Queen,” is hard to say, but with a radiant Michelle Pfeiffer as his heroine, “Cheri” could well be another breakout hit.

    The chemistry between Pfeiffer and (Rupert) Friend is positively combustible. One feels the hunger in each, the rising physical passion and emotional vulnerability in two people who, if asked, would scorn love as a human weakness. The film is in English, of course, but it can’t escape a certain Frenchness: Those who would mock love are done in by love.

    There is also, predictably, much praise lavished on the film’s scrumptious-looking tech credits, with top honours going to Alexandre Desplat’s “nostalgic, romantic, melancholy score.”

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  • Defending the Berlin outcasts

    Several days into the Berlin Festival, it remains a rather quiet affair from the outside. A couple of starry titles have been thrown to the wolves, while we’re still awaiting news of a breakout film or performance along the lines of “Happy-Go-Lucky” last year.

    However, tonight’s screening will bring the first word on Stephen Frears’ eagerly anticipated “Chéri,” which has been prompting awards talk since mid-2008. (Nat Rogers, for one, idly muses on the Oscar chances of the film’s stars, Michelle Pfeiffer and Kathy Bates, here.)

    As for two of the films that have already been rather harshly received across the board, I was interested to hear a voice of positive dissent from one of my favourite critics, as Salon’s Stephanie Zacharek finds much to like in both Tom Tykwer’s “The International” and Lukas Moodysson’s “Mammoth.” In particular, she argues that the former, a “strange and beautifully made thriller,” may be a victim of an overt anti-Hollywood sentiment among festival critics:

    The movie I saw and loved felt “Hollywood” to me only in the best sense: Tykwer obviously had some money to work with here, and he spent some of it on the kind of elaborate, elegantly constructed set pieces that few mainstream directors know how to do anymore. (Wait until you see what he does with the Guggenheim Museum.) What’s more, “The International” is a leisurely thriller, which means it’s automatically a contradiction in terms: It can be called too slick, too boring, too “unlike anything else out there” and too “just like everything else out there” all at once. Those very conflicts are exactly what make it interesting.

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  • ‘Mammoth,’ ‘Rage’ land with a thud at Berlin

    Oh dear. Colour me very disappointed indeed. “Mammoth,” Lukas Moodysson’s would-be entry into the mainstream, had me so hopeful — not least because it features Gael Garcia Barnal and Michelle Williams, arguably the two most exciting actors of their generation. But judging from a hostile crowd reception and cool-to-icy reviews, it appears the film isn’t likely to join Moodysson’s “Fucking Amal” or “Together” in the pantheon of greatness.

    IndieWire’s Eugene Hernandez reports that the film actually elicited boos at its screening — something that should always be taken with a pinch of salt, given the weird, unnecessarily cruel crowd mentality that often reigns at European festivals. (Just ask Sofia Coppola.) But Screen International’s trustworthy Jonathan Romney’s review isn’t much more merciful:

    Mammoth is an elephantine dud from a director who has plenty to say about the state of the world – and not a whit of new insight to offer nor artistic invention to express it … Moodysson’s humourless, finger-wagging script ticks every expected box, and he’s not averse to heavy visual underlining … The film’s title (alludes) – geddit? – to the capitalist global system, a wasteful titan doomed to extinction, though it applies equally well to the lumbering shaggy monster that Moodysson has created here.

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  • Berlin fest gets under way

    As far as press coverage goes, the Berlin Film Festival tends to get a bit drowned in the flurry of Oscar season, so you could be forgiven for failing to notice that it actually kicked off last night, with the world premiere of Tom Tykwer’s corporate thriller “The International.”

    Sadly, as I suspected, the film doesn’t seem to be much to write home about. Screen International describes it as “ploddingly talky,” describing stars Clive Owen and Naomi Watts as “leaden” and “struggling,” respectively. Variety is no more enthusiastic, deeming it a “mostly ho-hum” exercise. As a fan of both stars and the director, it’s disheartening to see them all punching so far below their weight; Owen, in particular, needs to have a word with his agent. (Why is one of the best actors of his generation stuck in a rut of identikit thrillers? Is “Inside Man 2” really called for?)

    Anyway, onwards and upwards. Tonight sees the premiere of “Ricky,” the new one from François Ozon, who is always interesting even when he misses the mark. (And I must admit that, after the unholy mess that was Ozon’s recent “Angel,” I don’t have the greatest of confidence in this new fantasy-comedy experiment.)

    The weekend will shed some light on two very intriguing titles. Sally Potter’s “Rage,” which features (amongst other things) Judi Dench, Eddie Izzard and Jude Law in drag, promises to live up to the batty eccentricity of Potter’s best work — check out Nat Rogers’ illustrated preview here. Meanwhile, Lukas Moodysson’s “Mammoth,” a seemingly “Babel”-flavoured story of families in crisis, stars Gael Garcia Bernal and Michelle Williams, and has long been one of my most anticipated films of the year. Fingers crossed.

  • WEEKLY WRAP: Globe surprises, best shots, BAFTA nods

    Sorry the Weekly Wrap feature has been M.I.A. these past few weeks — between the holidays and various disasters, they got a bit forgotten. Anyway, it’s back this week, and what a busy week it was:

    • In a new annual institution at IC, Kris reviewed the top 10 shots of the year here … and here.

    • The Golden Globes threw up several surprises, but the biggest one was what a deeply satisfying evening it was.

    • Following that ceremony, this week’s Off the Carpet column wondered whether the Oscars can measure up.

    • While the Globes gained credibility, BAFTA threw theirs to the wind with a curious slate of nominations … though “Slumdog Millionaire” once more sits pretty.

    • But for omitting “Gomorrah” from their 9-film shortlist, AMPAS’ foreign-language committee earns this week’s biggest dunce cap.

    • The American Cinema Editors revealed their nominees. Everyone yawned in unison.

    • Meanwhile, the costume designers completed this year’s guild citations.

    • Taking a breather from the precursor beat, we got chatting to the delightful Amy Adams.

    • The Sundance Festival started this week … but is anyone watching?

    • In other film festival news, Berlin has announced some intriguing premieres.

    • Finally, with whispers circulating that “Gran Torino” could spoil in the Best Picture race, how much of a Best Actor threat is Clint Eastwood?

  • Frears’ ‘Chéri’ to premiere at Berlin

    New works from Costa-Gavras, Bertrand Tavernier and Andrzej Wajda are among the 14 titles that have just been added to the Competition programme at next month’s Berlinale, meaning 25 of the 26 slots have been confirmed.

    The most high-profile inclusion, however, is Stephen Frears’ period romance “Chéri,” which was at one point mooted as a 2008 release with an eye on awards season, before getting bumped. It’s a film I’ve been excited about for some time, not least because it’s something of a “Dangerous Liaisons” redux, reuniting the director, writer (Christopher Hampton) and star (Michelle Pfeiffer) of that 1988 Oscar-winner, again within the context of a French-set costume drama.

    An adaptation of Colette’s novella about an affair between a young man and a decades-older woman in 1920’s Paris, it strikes me as an ideal proposition for both director and star. A new Frears film is always worth noting, but I find his work rather more interesting  when he’s visiting themes of taboo and desire (the aforementioned “Liaisons,” “Prick Up Your Ears,” “The Grifters”).

    Meanwhile, Pfeiffer — still, I think, arguably the greatest of her generation — hasn’t had a project equal to her gifts in over 15 years. Could this be one to keep an eye on for next year’s awards derby? It’s ridiculously early to be thinking about such things, but don’t forget that one of the big winners at last year’s Berlinale was a certain Ms. Sally Hawkins. However oddly positioned, it’s always a festival worth paying attention to.

    Among the other intriguing titles set to bow at the fest, which will be opened by Tom Tykwer’s “The International,” is “Rage,” the latest from avant-garde UK auteur Sally Potter, with an eclectic cast including Jude Law, Judi Dench and Steve Buscemi. Another impressive ensemble (Robin Wright Penn, Alan Arkin and Julianne Moore, to name but three) features in Rebecca Miller’s “The Private Lives of Pippa Lee,” while Lukas Moodysson’s “Mammoth,” starring Gael Garcia Bernal and Michelle Williams, has long been one of my most eagerly anticipated films of 2009.

    For a complete list of the Competition entries so far, check out the press releases here and here.

  • ‘The International’ to kick off Berlin

    Screen International reports that Tom Tykwer’s latest, “The International,” has been named the opening film of next year’s Berlin Film Festival. The thriller, starring Clive Owen and Naomi Watts (now there’s a good pairing), will have its word premiere at the fest, screening out of competition on February 5.

    The trailer’s been out for some time, but if it passed you by, check it out below. Looks smart, slick and star-propelled, if hardly a reinvention of the wheel. I’d love to see Tykwer return to the heady formal ambition of “Run Lola Run” or the criminally underrated “Heaven” (Cate Blanchett’s best performance right there, folks), but after the disappointingly overcooked “Perfume,” I can’t blame him for playing it safe here.

    Meanwhile, with this and the recently previewed “Duplicity” marking back-to-back corporate thrillers for Owen, I wouldn’t mind seeing this fine actor take on something a bit more challenging. Solid-looking stuff nonetheless.

  • Foreign film race begins… get ready to groan

    Variety carries details of the first official entry that I’ve heard of in the Best Foreign Language Film derby – Denmark has put forward “Worlds Apart,” from director Niels Arden Oplev. The country has a pretty good track record in this category, having won back-to-back in the 80’s with “Babette’s Feast” and “Pelle the Conqueror,” while Susanne Bier’s popular “After the Wedding” nabbed a nomination two years ago.

    “Worlds Apart,” which has already secured US distribution, is a small-scale pic focusing on a teenage Jehovah’s Witness forced to make a difficult choice when she falls in love with a non-believer. It all sounds terribly earnest, but that’s right up the Academy’s alley when it comes to this category. Reviewing the film at the Berlin festival back in February, Variety called it a “provocative, well-turned drama,” and speculated that a US remake could be on the cards.

    Apparently, the Academy has invited 96 countries to enter the race this year, with the submission deadline looming large on October 1. They should be looking to regain some credibility in this category after the embarrassing fiasco of last year’s race, which saw a banner year for world cinema reduced to the most tepid slate of foreign-language nominees in recent memory, as landmark pictures like “4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days,” “Lust, Caution” and “Persepolis” were, one by one, either snubbed or disqualified.

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  • In Berlin

    Sorry for the down time on my part. It’s been go, go, go since I landed in Berlin Friday. It’s back to London tomorrow morning, so I should be back on track.

    But to toss out a few random thoughts:

    1) Clinton’s “I’m finally getting out of the way” speech contained all the right words, but damn if she didn’t seem completely incapable of shielding the fact that she was swallowing some tough medicine.

    2) Berlin is one of the most agreeable cities I think I’ve been to in my life, and I can’t seem to place my finger on why. Despite the frequent bout of communication breakdown, I could easily see myself living here.

    3) I’ve been watching “Syriana” on my laptop when I can get a moment, a few minutes here, few minutes there. It’s the first time I’ve revisited the film since its 2005 release, and I have to say it is aging well in the face of the changing times. I never felt it to be an out-of-the-park effort, but it remains one of the more ambitious projects of the decade and, in its own way, a solid portrait from a dedicated filmmaker.