The Berlinale has long occupied the niche of social cinema. However, in recent years, things have somehow become mixed up. In Cannes and Venice, the acutely topical «Parasite», «Shoplifters», «The Event», «The New Order» feel great. Yes, and «Hayk» by Sergei Dvortsevoy about the ordeals of a Kyrgyz illegal woman in the capital's jungle was shown precisely at the Cannes Film Festival, in the main program. What remains for Berlin?
The current pandemic review is similar to a patient with a fever. The fever of non-obviousness of choice beats him: personal?/social? In most films of the competition, the authors try — as is customary in good cinema — to fit the curve of the private, intimate into the cardiogram of society, and even into the political agenda. Units succeed. More often than not.
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Still from the movie «Patch of Sky»
Love football
Like the eminent Claire Denis in the painful drama «C love and determination». Heroes on the sixth ten. Sarah (Juliette Binoche) is a radio journalist, but a job that connects to the hot spots of the planet does not occupy her. But she has a fiery personal life. Sarah loves Jean (not surprisingly, in his role is the dark charismatic Vincent Lindon), and this is mutual. But then her ex-boyfriend François (Gregoire Colin) appears, and Sarah already loves both. All three suffer. Jean is doubly so, because he is raising a mestizo teenager struggling with pubertal problems without a mother. Their couple is like an image of a deteriorating Europe, setting the colonies that have gone astray on the right path. Men are also seriously interested in football. Therefore, a real football player Lilian Thuram will appear, at the same time he will speak out on the topics of xenophobia.
I can't hear anything
Still from the movie 'The Line'
Ursula Mayer didn't do any better with The Line. The pianist Christine Celestini, who has long crossed the line of Balzac age, has the eldest of her daughters Margaret (Stephanie Blanchue) an abuser. As if not for her, immediately fists into battle. After yet another assault scandal, Christine (Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi can make even a helpless movie attractive, and make her heroines funny, pitiful, touching, wondrous) falls on her piano and goes deaf in one ear. Bailiffs Margaret is isolated. And the younger sister will measure and paint a line around the house with blue paint, outlining the legal distance of 100 meters. Don't come! A movie about selfishness and deafness of loved ones who are unable to hear each other. A tragicomedy with the right message, done somewhat clumsily.
Dead Souls
Against this background, “Products 24” looks quite convincingMikhail Borodin. We have already talked about the fact that the picture is based on the real story of the Golyanovsky slaves. Borodin is not only accurate in details, which he knows very well. After all, he himself once came from Uzbekistan and went through a palisade of similar trials. But the director creates from a typical story of the suffering of emigrants in the capital not a pseudo-documentary, but a social horror. The store is hidden on the first floor of a high-rise building in a residential area. And in his basement, a medieval hell is silently going on, a torture lawlessness, which is covered by the police.
With dim light with flashes of neon and acidic colors, director and cameraman Ekaterina Smolina creates a space of hopelessness, an almost mystical nightmare,
from which there is no way out. Because the slaves in Moscow are not visible, the buyers do not see them point-blank, “dear Muscovites, goodbye!”. The heroine Muhabbat (Zukhara Sansyzbai) is trying to break out of the vicious circle, to return the kid stolen from her. She challenges the evil witch Principal Jeanne, the mistress of the «dead souls». But it's hard to believe in her victory over the corrupt cycle of evil. By the way, in the Golyanov case, most of the perpetrators remained unpunished.
A still from the film «Products 24»
The Odyssey of Madame Kurnaz
The famous director Andreas Dresen made a completely un-festival, uncomplicated audience movie «Rabye Kurnaz vs. George Bush» . This is another true story of the rescue of an innocent Muslim who ended up in Guantánamo. But Drezen comes up with a happy idea to make the mother of the prisoner a heroine.
We are talking about the case of Murat Kurnaz, who lived in Bremen in a Turkish family. The Pakistanis sold it in 2001 to the Americans, who were in dire need of terrorists. He was instantly called an enemy, sent to the Guantanamo prisoner of war camp.
But he has a mother. And here she is — the perhydrol fatty Rabie (Meltem Kaptan). Very cozy. Always busy, children, cooking, ironing, groceries, relatives on the phone. He cooks sarma and apple pie best of all — the same one, Murata's favorite. At home holidays with children, she sings karaoke. In general, an ordinary aunt.
Rabye Kurnaz vs. George Bush”
He has no idea which minister to write to get Muratik released. Obvious-incredible — how this Turkish commoner in beads from the evil eye with the help of tasty food and assertiveness will seduce a frail criminal lawyer Bernhard Docke. Together they write complaints, seek meetings with human rights activists, ministers, reach the Supreme Court of America. In the end, Rabie sues President Bush Jr. and wins the case. Because I'm 100% sure her son is innocent. She will pull him out of a distant cell, stop the torture. Her husband is already tired of this hopeless whim, and the children are not fed, and the son's bride is gone. And she, like Sisyphus, pushes this stone to the very top. Five years! The stone of the system falls, crushing living destinies in its path. And she pushes again. This odyssey portrays our time, in which a person in the face of the state, the system is worth nothing. And this story of suffering with an optimistic ending is extremely important today. Because about us. It seems to be about impotence — when there is total lawlessness around. But in fact — about the strength of the weak.
By the way, before the real Murat, who spent five years in Guantanamo Bay, no one apologized and — no compensation.
Hello death!
And closer to the final, they showed a truly artistic picture. «Patch of the sky»by the young Swiss director Michael Koch is a simple story transformed into a universal myth, something like a Greek tragedy. That is why the traditional Lucerne choir in green jackets appears in the “intermissions” between acts of action, against the backdrop of postcard Swiss views, lakes, mountains, rivers – singing a cappella complex polyphony. Literally, as in a Greek tragedy, the people sing the love and deeds of their heroes, glorify the sky, await the inevitable coming of death. But the universal myth, such as medieval, romantic, archetypal ones, like Tristan and Isolde, is transferred to the prosaic village soil. Anna and Marco are from the same alpine village. She is a postman and a bartender. Here everyone is busy as needed: they mow, they saw trees, they fix the fence, they take care of the cows. Marco is a hired laborer, a hard worker with a fleshy face. Their modest wedding will be almost at the very beginning of the film. And then Marco will find a tumor, because of which he will not be able to control himself.
But this is just a plot. The whole unhurried film is a combination of expressive visual rhymes, in which the prose of life, the hard work of the peasants is filled with poetry, inner music with the unfading theme of doomed love. And the eternal giant stones will silently watch the momentary troubles, joy and grief of temporary people.
A frame from the film «Patch of Sky»
In this green-blue space, people and animals exist almost on an equal footing. Here they brought the bull to cover the cow, and she rests. Here the neighbors persuade Marco to knock up the wonderful barmaid Anna so that she becomes more pliable. Here the cow did not become pregnant and her — empty — should be slaughtered. And in the eyes of Marco a terrible longing. Marco himself looks like a bull, a hefty piece of meat with a scowl. But here he is looking at Anna's dance. We do not see this dance at all, it is impossible to tear ourselves away from his fleshy face with sunken eyes, gradually the face becomes human, a childish smile wakes up in it. Like a light bulb in the dark.
Here Marco admits that he is afraid of death. And death will slowly creep towards him. The climax will come when Marco, who has lost control of himself, masturbates in front of Anna's little daughter and his case must be taken to the courts. Despite persuasion, public opinion, Anna will not be able to participate in the accusatory choir (here, of course, Breaking the Waves, the ontological ancestor of Koch's film, comes to mind). She will not be able to give him to a psychiatric hospital or to court. Although it seems that according to the laws of the new ethics, everything is simple. But the myth always destroys norms, and its heroes do not obey the codes of time. This is a movie about the unknown power of love, which can handle even death.
Each shot is expressive here, shooting is extremely slow, there are a lot of frozen shots.
A minimum of text. Life and death among inhuman (sometimes excessively) beauty. There is a stunning footage of the heroine's disturbing passage through the loops of a tunnel in the mountains. When she finally gets out, she finds herself in a thick fog. Before the tragic end of Marco's life, the neighbors skin the cow, she hangs crucified on stakes. “Oh, come death,” the choir sings, blessing in hymn the rest of the weary traveler in heaven.
We will hear about Marco's death. Anna will open a spring window in his room. We look through the glass, we hear Marco breathing hard, but breathing. And then he doesn't breathe. And only stones continue to observe the troubles of local peasants.