Since we live in a world where the Orwellian phrase “alternative facts” is now a thing, courtesy of the post-truth demon that currently inhabits Kellyanne Conway’s haggard shell, here are the Alternative Berlinale Awards. Incidentally, this brazen attempt at humour doubles up as your unofficial guide for the last day of the festival, the Berlinale Publikumstag, helping to make your mind up, as all the winners are still screening.
The HIDDEN GEM Award goes to UNTITLED
There are several under-the-radar gems this year that deserve more than to be forgotten amidst the staggering amount of films.
The Forum selection boasts the experimental dreamscape Somniloquies, Panorama has the powerful El Pacto de Adriana, and Generation screens the quietly poetic Soldado, a documentary about a soldier training in a time of peace.
However, the prize goes to notable standout Untitled, a posthumous documentary by Michael Glawogger. Edited by his longstanding collaborator Monika Willi, this mesmeric trip is composed of the Austrian director’s last footage, filmed in the Balkans, Italy, North and West Africa. The contemplative journey washes over you, opening your eyes and mind; it’s a truly special cinematic experience. Don’t miss out.
The last showing of Untitled (Panorama Dokumente) is on Feb 19 at 17:00, CineStar7.
The COMPETITION FILM TO AVOID Award goes to RETURN TO MONTAUK
The Competition selection has had its fair few duds this year (Final Portrait, The Dinner, Colo and Helle Nächte stand out for all the wrong reasons) but nothing was as disappointing as Return To Montauk, simply because it hoodwinked the audience into thinking there was a good film coming. The opening of Volker Schlöndorff’s latest sees the usually great Stellan Skarsgård deliver a superb monologue to the camera; from then on, and despite the fine efforts by Nina Hoss and Susanne Wolff, the film quickly descends into what one of my esteemed colleagues brilliantly referred to as “fat white fuck male melodrama”.
As if that wasn’t enough to put you off, let me share with you my tactic for salvaging sanity while watching it: I had to result to a literal Kopfkino. You see, the main character played by Skarsgård is called Max Zorn. Christopher Walken played James Bond villain Max Zorin in 1985’s A View To A Kill. Therefore, I quickly realised that replaying Roger Moore’s final outing as 007 in my head was the only way to salvage sanity.
Avoid this pretentious monstrosity at all costs. And watch A View To A Kill again.
The UNEXPECTED LAUGHTER Award goes to CASTING JONBENET
For a documentary about a 20-year old mystery which centres on the unsolved murder of a 6-year old beauty queen, Kitty Green’s Casting JonBenet provokes a surprising amount of giggles.
The director’s excellent genre-bending hybrid – which echoes Robert Greene’s Kate Plays Christine, which screened at last year’s Berlinale – sees people auditioning to play the family members in a fictional version of the tragedy. It is a compelling look at our culture’s obsession with the sensational, a study on our tendency towards schadenfreude and the morbid fascination that we all have.
It is also darkly funny, as Green gets the auditionees to open up and speculate about JonBenet Ramsey’s death: they share some of their theories, but also their personal stories, and the results are surprising. There are disenchanted Santas, am-dram posturers, numerologists and even sex instructors… The director deftly uses humour to her ends, and it makes watching Casting JonBenet simultaneously chilling, thought-provoking and very entertaining.
The last showing of Casting JonBenet (Panorama Dokumente) is on Feb 19 at 17:30, Cubix 7.
The BEST USE OF SONG Award goes to CASTING JONBENET
This film again? Yes, it’s a favourite.
There have been some excellent song choices to complement visuals and narratives this year. To name but a few: the repeated use of Ibeyi’s “River” in the clumsy-but-interesting Tania Libre, Sufjan Stevens’ beautiful “Futile Devices” and “Visions of Gideon” in Call Me By Your Name, Wolf Alice’s ubiquitous “Silk”, which features in both Trainspotting 2 and Michael Winterbottom’s On The Road, or the melancholy tunes of Laura Marling in the excellent Testrol és Lélekrol (On Body And Soul).
However, the award goes to the final track used in Casting JonBenet, Bert Parks‘ “There She Is Miss America”. Not only does the song remind you of the disturbing American obsession with child pageants, but highlights the nature of performance, emboldens the satirical content and provides a uniquely bizarre beat that could have been at home in David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive.
The last showing of Casting JonBenet (Panorama Dokumente) is on Feb 19 at 17:30, Cubix 7.
The 1990s NOSTALGIA Award goes to LE CINQUIEME ELEMENT (THE FIFTH ELEMENT)
Nostalgia was expertly peddled this year… Screened Out Of Competition, Trainspotting 2 revisited the 1990s and provided potent nostalgia pangs. That said, because awarding Danny Boyle’s film the Nostalgia Award would be a tad too easy (and because the film isn’t screening in the last days of the festival), I urge you to consider the Specials and Retrospective sections, specifically 1997’s Le Cinquième Elément (The Fifth Element).
It’s easy to wave off this bone fide 1990s classic as ridiculous sci-fi yarn, but wait. Cast your mind back to when the name Bruce Willis was a mark of quality, when Luc Besson wasn’t gleefully bankrolling eurotrash via his production company EuropaCorp and was instead making some flamboyant, genre-defining science fiction… The fact is that the spectacle is still daftly exciting, the pre-Matrix special effects hold up, and Eric Serra’s score remains brilliant.
So, collect your mul-ti-pass, tune in to Ruby Rhod and surrender to the warm glow of nostalgia: The Fifth Element is still impactful, and a rollicking good time.
The last showing of Le Cinquième Elément (The Fifth Element) (Retrospektive) is on Feb 19 at 14:45, CinemaxX 8.
The CHILDREN ARE OUR FUTURE Award goes to UILENBAL (OWLS AND MICE)
The winner is Simone van Dusseldorp’s Uilenbal, a musically infused adventure about friendship, tolerance and owl pellets. It follows the pint-sized Meral, who is new in school. As if navigating cliques and fitting in wasn’t headache enough, she sees her pet mouse snatched by an owl during a school trip; this prompts her to lead an intrepid bunch to recover the bones of her beloved companion.
Uilenbal is a surprisingly audacious and genuinely sweet film that never once makes the oft-seen mistake of pandering to its younger audience. Well worth it for the bambinos in your life.
The last showing of Uilenbal (Generation KPlus) is on Feb 19 at 11:00, CinemaxX 1.
The DESPITE THE CONSTANT RISE OF EXTREMISM, THE SHEER NUMBER OF LOBOTOMISED TWEETERS WHO KEEP THE KARDASHIANS FAMOUS, THE FACT THAT DARTH ORANGE HAS HIS TINY LITTLE HANDS ON THE NUCLEAR FOOTBALL AND IMPENDING SHITSTORM WE ALL FACE DUE TO OUR LAISSEZ-FAIRE ATTITUDE TOWARDS GLOBAL WARMING, MAYBE JUST MAYBE WE’RE GOING TO BE OK Award goes to I AM NOT YOUR NEGRO and KARERA GA HONKI DE AMU TOKI WA (CLOSE-KNIT)
The title of this award says it all and both Raoul Peck‘s I Am Not Your Negro and Naoko Ogigami’s Karera Ga Honki De Amu Toki Wa (Close-Knit) both manage to restore your faith in humanity in very different ways.
The first is a timely documentary about civil rights, one which confronts the past to better understand the present; the second is a life-affirming family drama about a transgender woman who bonds with her partner’s niece, one of the first Japanese films to feature a transgender character as a main protagonist. It also rightfully bagged the Jury Prize at this year’s Teddy Awards. Not much shared DNA but both are festival highlights and, in their own very distinct ways, remind you that cinemas are safe havens, places that provide food for thought as well as much-needed escapism from seemingly endless parades of strange and soul-crushing current events. They leave the viewer with the sense there is hope for the future. No small feat.
The last showing of I Am Not Your Negro (Panorama Dokumente) is on Feb 19 at 14:30, Zoo Palast 2; the last showing of Karera Ga Honki De Amu Toki Wa (Close-Knit) (Panorama Special) is on Feb 19 at 15:30, Zoo Palast 1.
There you have it. I doubt Dieter would approve, but if he’s looking for a cheeky revamp of the award ceremony next year, he should feel free to get in touch.
Enjoy the last day of the festival. I’m about to catch up on 10 days’ worth of sleep.
