Last night, the 71st Berlin International Film Festival officially came to an end. As the first large-scale international film festival in 2021, this year's Berlin has also adopted an online approach because of the epidemic.
Including media friends who are used to running around the film festival, this time they can also participate in the film festival at home. Regardless of the format, though, our passion for film festivals doesn't wane.
At the same time, we can still find many excellent new films at the international film festival every year, and some of these films will become the best films of the year in the new year.
So, how is this year's Berlin Film Festival performing?
And what are some of the films that deserve our attention?
Next, Gu Caocao, who has participated in the Berlin International Film Festival for many years, brings us this article, her roundup article about the Berlin Film Festival, let's take a look at it.
Every time I participate in the film festival, only when my favorite film wins the grand prize, I will feel that these ten days have not been in vain, and I have drawn a particularly satisfactory end.
So, I am also very grateful to the six former Golden Bear winners of this year's Berlin Film Festival jury who are very hardcore, and gave me the first kind of finishing touch, awarding the grand prize to the Romanian director Radu Jude's "Unlucky Sex, Crazy Yellow Film".
Let me tell you about the important award-winning works of this year's Berlin Film Festival, as well as some of the films that I personally recommend very much.
1, Radu Jude"Bad Luck Sex, Crazy Yellow Film"
This is the winner of the Golden Bear Award for Best Picture at this year's Berlin International Film Festival and the number one winner in Berlin this year.
Romanian director Radhu Jude can be regarded as a concubine of the Berlin Film Festival, and his feature film debut "The Happiest Girl in the World" premiered in the Forum section of the Berlin Film Festival, the International Art Cinema Alliance Award, and became famous in World War I. With "Cheers! Won the Silver Bear For Best Director at the 65th Berlin Film Festival in 2015.
Now with the scale of wild, laughing and angry "unlucky sex, crazy yellow film" won the Golden Bear Award, it can be said that it is very complete.
The film opens with a large-scale setting, telling the uproar caused by the private sex video of Middle School history teacher Emi and her husband being leaked online.
Madman Radu Jude directly released a three-minute "straight shot of human nature" by Emi and her husband at the beginning of the film, ranging from whipping and cross-dressing to oral sex and masturbation. In the middle of the film, simply insert a chapter with massive image materials to quickly annotate every historical event, geopolitical term, Internet buzzword, and popular culture allusion that appears in this film, breaking the narrative structure at the same time, it can be described as manually increasing the thickness of the text.
He jokingly called the film "a draft of a popular movie", "a joke", and even directly hit these words on the screen to warn the audience. And joke to the end, for this film arranged three different endings, let the jun choose. In an interview during the film festival, he scratched his head and smiled at me, "I'm also a dirty man, and I certainly like the ending where Emi turns into Wonder Woman and beats her parents with a vibrator."
In this berlin, no film has been as bold as "Unlucky Sex, Crazy Yellow Film" to mock everyone, so naked to expose the obscenity of the world we live in than adult films.
As the jury's award speech said, "[This film] undoubtedly challenges the zeitgeist, even provokes, to duel and slap each other." ”
Of course, such a sharp and vicious style will definitely receive bipolar reviews, and the field magazine of "Unlucky Sex, Crazy Yellow Film" scored 2.4, just stuck in the middle. But it doesn't matter, the jury dared to choose it, because the Berlin style has always been, not safe, not orthodox, recognizing the rush and free innovation, focusing on the future.
For me personally, "Unlucky Sex, Crazy Yellow Film" is a completely cool film – both intellectually and in terms of audiovisual language. When the Berlinale holds a large-scale screening for the public in June, I will definitely walk into the cinema and refresh again.
2. Grand Jury Prize: Ryusuke Hamaguchi, "Chance and Imagination"
His liking for Ryusuke Hamaguchi came more from "Happy Hour" than from the "Night and Day" he made a big splash in Cannes.
This short collection of "Chance and Imagination" proves that even if it is difficult to return to the ease and comfort of the past, he is still a storyteller.
The three short films in the film all take the theme of "chance", peeling away people's desire for the driving force of accidental events in love and desire, and gradually getting better, the third story "once again" can truly lead the audience into the imagination of memory. This time, the Grand Jury Prize is also well deserved.
However, some people feel that once it comes to love and infidelity, it seems that even Ryusuke Hamaguchi, like many Asian directors, is a bit of a hung-
Hong Changxiu's work "Introduction", which won the Best Screenplay Award this year, somewhat abnormally talks about young people's choices in love and career.
Hong Changxiu "Introduction"
However, watching Hong Changxiu's movies in recent years is really a bit like watching his diary, this is just what the characters drank and ate what meat, where to see the sea, Kim Min-hee is not good, nothing new, but some acquaintances' warmth.
3. Jury Prize: Maria Spetter, "Mr. Bachmann and His Students"
This is the longest film of the year, but 217 minutes does not seem very long, but there is a feeling of being slowly healed by the peaceful rhythm and warm and loving dialogue.
Mr. Bachmann, who teaches at a primary school in a small German town, pours kindness and respect on children with very different personalities, day after day. Refugee flows, the devastation of migrants, globalization, class divisions, linguistic and religious and ethnic differences...
All the grand and heavy puzzles that are shrunk down in this small class really seem to melt away gradually. If there is a contemporary realistic version of "Spring in the Cattle Herding Class", it is probably Mr. Bachmann and his students.
4. Best Protagonist: Marlen Eggert, "I Am Your Human"
Best Supporting Actor: Lilla Kizlinger, "The Forest Is Everywhere"
It is important to mention the two films that won the Performance Award, mainly because this is the first year that berlin has abolished the performance award for gender points instead of the main supporting role points. Since then, there has been no best actor or actress, only best protagonist and best supporting actor. This year, the two awards are won by female actors.
5. Outstanding Artistic Contribution Award: Alonso Palacios, "A Police Story"
Mexican director Alonso Palacios won the Berlin Film Festival Best Debut award in 2014 for "Boy Super White", the 2018 Silver Bear for Best Screenplay in Berlin for "The Museum" starring Gale García Bernal, and this time for "A Police Story", he won the Outstanding Artistic Contribution Award, and every time he came to Berlin, he did not return empty-handed.
The peculiarity of this film is that each chapter makes a genre transition.
The first chapter will make people think that this is a documentary about some police officers, and the second chapter will make people suspect that this is actually a pseudo-documentary, true drama movie. However, in the third chapter, it is suddenly found that the two policemen are played by actors, but the process of them playing the police is to experience the life of the police... Too many walls have been broken, and the audience has given up judging what is true and what is false. His editing skills are superb, and the award is well deserved.
However, in my opinion, the most important label of this film is actually "Netflix Production", which shows a reality that is richer than experience, but does not fulfill the mission of the documentary to strip away the cocoon, does not need to dramatically pursue the root of the contradiction, and is only satisfied with completing the function of "living room entertainment". So it seems to be very interesting, but it is not a work that can win a higher award.
6. Special Jury Award of "Meet" Unit: "Taste"
The Vietnamese film comes from the new "Encounters" section by Berlin's new artistic director Carlo Chatrian, dedicated to discussing the possibilities of the film's future outside the main competition.
And "Taste" is very interesting at this point. The film tells the story of a Nigerian footballer who has lost his job due to a broken leg and lives with a group of single women in Vietnam. Its thin to almost silent line volume and gentle and dignified rhythm make people have to think of another famous director from Southeast Asia, Apichatpong.
7. Main competition "Little Mama"
The plot of this movie can be summed up in one sentence for Chinese audiences: the eight-year-old children's version of the French "Hello, Li Huanying".
So in a way, I also became immune to the plot of this movie.
But this is still the only film in the main competition unit that I can't help but cry and watch repeatedly, and the French female director Serene Seaamma completed this fairy tale in just 72 minutes with a concise and sharp editing. The eight-year-old daughter does not think about changing the life of the eight-year-old mother, and it is extremely happy to be able to build a cabin, live a family, and make pancakes together, and this companionship and understanding is the most luxurious thing.
Xi Amma, who has always disliked the soundtrack, even wrote a song for the film, called "Music from the Future", to share with her little mother. There is always an end to the crossing, and the separation with the mother is to be with the mother in the future, "I have been thinking of you from now on" - this is the gentleness of Theamma.
8. Special screening of "Wisdom Teeth"
Although I have already written a film review, I still want to nominate this movie again and solemnly recommend it to everyone.
This Hong Kong film was so shocking to me that I was eager to watch it again on the big screen. See how this film unveils the face of Hong Kong's bustling city, how to look directly at the slum like an endless garbage dump, constantly spreading, using sin and darkness to devour all light and heat, and pollute everyone who falls into it.
The violent and bloody fight scenes from fist to flesh and knives to the bone give people a great impact, and people are infinitely nostalgic for the golden age of Hong Kong movies.
9. "Mutant Zoo"
Dash Shaw's name means quality assurance for those who love psychedelic hand-drawn animation. Although this film was only selected for the New Generation unit, in my mind it is a work with the level of the main competition.
The film follows the adventures of a group of mutant animal protectors who are chased by the U.S. military to save a dream-eating tapir that has always been from Japan. The colorful and psychedelic painting style of the whole film does not fly well, and conveys the hippie concept of "love and peace" to live in harmony with mutant animals with magical powers, and the overall viewing effect is "no sniffing and hi". Also a metaphor for fringe people, this cartoon is much stronger than superhero and mutant movies.
10. Golden Bear Award for Short Film Unit "My Uncle Tudor"
This is the Winner of the Golden Bear Award for Best Picture in this short film section.
I clicked to watch it after hearing the news of the award, and the expectations were extremely high. At the beginning of the film, I thought that this was just another trivial family short film that recalled the history of relatives and counted the childhood past with the elders.
But when the director Olga Lukovnikova, who was hiding behind a handheld camera, asked his uncle, "Do you treat other children like you do to me?" Take off their clothes and touch their private parts? "Unexpectedly, I realized what the real theme of the film was.
The short 20-minute film is soothingly carried out in a calm question-and-answer, an old photo listing and a close-up of the uncle's face, but the audience's heart is already terrified.
Finally, I would like to talk about the feeling of participating in the Berlin "Online" Film Festival.
The Berlin Film Festival, held online this year, lasted five days, making it the shortest film festival I've ever experienced, and the one with the most intense viewing and work intensity.
Over the past year or so, many film festivals have tried to watch movies and compete online; but whether it is from the perspective of organizational arrangements, film list curation or movie viewing experience, they cannot be compared with Berlin, and the signboards of the three major international A-category film festivals are indeed much harder than others.
The feeling of watching a movie in front of a computer is indeed incomparable with watching a movie theater.
However, the international jury of the main competition section was invited to Berlin to watch the competition film from a safe distance in the physical cinema, so it was not necessary to worry about the unfairness of the film festival to the online film with a strong audiovisual style. Watching movies at home on the computer for a week, although physically still tired, I slowly realized that online film festivals also have their own advantages.
The Berlin Film Festival officially updates the film list at 7 o'clock every morning, and the films of any unit will be released together. Therefore, instead of being bound by the official scheduling time, you can curate every day and sort the day's viewing schedule according to your own preferences.
Colleagues and friends can also stagger the rows of films, communicate with each other, recommend each other, and clear mines. Unlike physical film festivals, sometimes they rush into the cinema without eating breakfast, and end up watching a very mediocre movie, a waste of time.
In the past, the Berlin Film Festival rushed between the cinemas in the cold of spring every day, compared with the need to go anywhere to watch the film at home, and the time cost was greatly saved.
However, there are drawbacks.
Berlin is the largest film festival in the world, and even though the list of films has shrunk significantly this year due to the epidemic, there are still very, very many films. In the past, movie theaters had to close at midnight, and the morning show started at most 8:30. But watching movies at home, every day I see that in the middle of the night and I still want to see it, I can't help but get up again before dawn, and I quickly open the movies I want to see in the list before the seven o'clock rotation list. Or sometimes working until midnight decides to watch another film to reward yourself, and then a night passes...
For five whole days, I got up early and watched the movie in the dark, although I didn't even go out of the door, and I didn't eat a bite less, but I was seriously sleepless, and I felt much more tired than the ten-day physical film festival...
These five days of online movie-watching experience made me miss the physical film festival even more.
Miss and friends rush into the movie theater together to help each other occupy seats;
When waiting in line for the opening, I talked with strange reporters about what good films worth recommending today;
Miss picking a building seat or pool seat for different movies, miss sitting in the front row and feel like it is about to be swallowed up by the screen;
Missing someone who fell into a deep sleep during the screening, and was suddenly awakened by the cannon fire of the war film;
Miss seeing scenes with mixed feelings, silently weeping in the dark, and the tissues quietly handed by strangers next door;
Miss at the end of the film just out of the subtitles, the emotional audience cheered loudly or poured applause, scolding or applauding wildly so that the creator who attended the premiere bowed for ten minutes and could not leave the scene;
Even miss the fans who waited in front of the red carpet and took crazy photos;
Miss going to the press conference and asking the film creators about the bits and pieces of filming and production;
Miss everyone gathered at the entrance of the theater, drinking coffee and eating food stalls in the cold wind, planning what movie to go to see below, arguing loudly for a certain movie...
Miss the movie brings us together, in the silent darkness, in front of the flowing images.
Recalling what Berlin's artistic director Carlo Chatrian said after today's awards ceremony, the most important mission of the festival is to connect people who love film.
I also hope that the films mentioned above have what you like and want to see. If you really have one, remember to order a collection or watch it.
Good movies, you shouldn't miss it!