The eternal conflict of the Berlin International Film Festival, of which I am reminded every year, when I see the movies presented in the theaters around Potsdamer Platz – is the dominance of political and social issues over art. It just happened; this was by the historical context: in the capital of a country, which has experienced two totalitarian regimes and an artificial separation, perhaps, no other film festival could emerge.
Of course, sometimes the pressing contemporary issues seamlessly combine with the interests of filmmaking. This happened, for example, at the previous, 65th Berlinale, which turned out to be the strongest in my memory.
This year it looks like that the filmmakers have sat back a little and lost their focus. Nothing else can explain the fact that, apart from the absolute winner of the Golden Bear, no obvious leaders were presented in any category.
However, there was enough diversity in terms of genres and themes. The main competition included documentaries (not one, but two films, which is rare), family dramas, love stories, and even a sci-fi thriller. Of course, the films were not there just to trivially entertain the audience, they depicted poverty, childhood problems, abortions, Resistance in Nazi Germany, discord in the family, ethnic strife, war, and the escape of European youth to the ranks of ISIS – the full range of humanity’s problems, in essence.
The lengthy analysis of every movie would take up more newspaper space than allowed, and not all the contestants have the potential to go out beyond their national audiences. I will focus on the three main winners, whose success are interesting and even instructive for our film industry – and therefore require more detailed consideration.
Tunisian director Mohamed Ben Attia with his first full-length film Hedi hits the thematic nerve of the festival, exploring the contradictions between religion and the course of modern life, and the situation in post-revolutionary Islamic world, and the economic crisis. The main hero of Hedi is a young trader who decides to start living on his own just before a wedding is imposed on him, deliberately daring to break with his family – a move unheard of in a traditionalist society. At the same time he refuses the emigration to Europe, completely making a path of his own. The universality of the conflict, the more or less high quality of directing and acting, and the Attia’s proximity to Belgian patriarchs of social realism, the Dardenne brothers, deserved the jury’s attention: 40-years-old Tunisian won the Bear for Best First Feature.
Another director who managed to raise a plethora of important issues, at the same time honoring the artistic side, is Danis Tanovic from Bosnia, known for his 2001 anti-war drama No Man’s Land (it won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film). He entered the Berlin competition with the drama entitled Death in Sarajevo, which certainly brought him triumph: the Grand Prix of the Jury and the FIPRESCI prize.
The movie is set in an upscale hotel in Sarajevo, on the eve of international events to mark the centenary of the First World War. Tanovic shows the life of the hotel at several levels, without a particular protagonist. On the roof a journalist asks guests about the causes and consequences of the First World War. The staff is preparing to strike because of salary delay. One of the managers, daughter of the strike leader, faces a danger of being fired. The director, who drove his own company in debt, hires bandits to suppress the protest; the bandits are owners of the basement nightclub. A French minister in a hotel room is rehearsing a speech for evening events. The speech is in fact the text of the Hotel Europe, the monologue-play by French philosopher and writer Bernard-Henri Levy, a friend of Ukraine; incidentally, Levy is listed as co-writer. Tanovic apparently does not believe in patriotism built on superiority, as well as in prosperity built on corruption (so often these two go hand in hand!). The situation is gradually getting out of control as characters betray one another, and again gunshots are being fired in Sarajevo. This time it is not the Crown Prince who dies, not the Minister – but actually... Gavrilo Princip – a namesake of the famous terrorist from the patriotic Serbian family. The writers’ sarcasm is quite accurate: the history’s circle finally closes, and the eternal war in the Balkans ends in a bitter joke. It ends, nevertheless.
THE 30th AWARD CEREMONY OF THE SPECIAL LGBT PROGRAM, TEDDY AWARD 2016, HAS BEEN HELD WITHIN THE 66th BERLIN INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL / REUTERS photo
Despite the straightforwardness and some weak moments in directing, Tanovic managed to combine naturally those daring topics, which are still of concern in, perhaps, the entire Old World. No wonder the Minister’s speech mentions Ukraine, left alone against Putin.
Another acute problem for us – the fleeing of civilians from the war – is the plot basis of the Berlinale winner Fire at Sea by Italian Gianfranco Rosi.
It is only the fourth full-length movie for Rosi, but the 52-year-old director managed to achieve the impossible: with documentaries he got the highest awards of two out of three most prestigious festivals (in 2013 he won the Golden Lion for Sacro GRA). But it looks miraculous only at first glance, because Rosi has the skill and level at which separation between feature films and documentary movies simply disappears.
The detailed analysis of Fire at Sea was already published by The Day. This time, I would like to discuss how Rosi gets such impressive results.
Perhaps the most important thing he managed to achieve is to revive the Italian Neorealism, which seemingly has long been the issue of history textbooks, in his own individual manner. No more and no less.
It doesn’t look like Rosi is doing anything special. He just observes the everyday ordinary life of Italians who inhabit poor neighborhoods and are concerned with mundane chores, who have the usual habits and ordinary appearance. But in the director’s optics the undistinguished routine reveals its own beauty and joy, and the characters are not less artistic and photogenic than legendary protagonists of the great 1940s-1950s Italian movies. It is necessary to understand this: Rosi is not trying to recreate or replicate the style of the day, no; he feels – and transmits to the audience – the very spirit of the cinema that shines when and where the author wants it, if the author is talented enough.
Thus, while this year’s Berlinale competition turned out to be not the strongest, it recorded, confirmed and made obvious a rare phenomenon: the birth of a certainly new cinema from an established tradition – seemingly permanently archived in the previous era.
The lesson for us is very simple. With all the differences, the movies described are dedicated to the problems of ordinary people in their home countries. To be heard, one does not need enormous budgets, or plot twists, or special visual effects. The social background determines the characters in all their color and concreteness; however, Attia, Tanovic, and Rosi – each one in a unique artistic form – complete the social environment with topics that are relevant to everyone, and here all the Berlin trends lose their significance. The characters in the film are always unique, but their stories are understood on any continent.
This is the thing our filmmakers should learn.
And when they learn it the Bear will be ours. Certainly.
The final chord of hope: Ukrainian artists had always been smarter than politicians. And they will learn. They have no other choice.
Ось саме цього й варто навчитись нашим кінематографістам.
Коли навчаться — «Ведмідь» буде наш. Обов’язково.
Фінальний акорд надії: митці у нас були завжди кмітливішими за політиків. Тобто навчаться. Куди подінуться.
