Berlinale Days Three through 10 (Feb. 13-21)

Reality

Writers have blogs, but dissertation writers probably shouldn’t.  I realize this after I woke up this morning and realized there’d been a week since the end of the Berlinale and I hadn’t so much as hinted at my experiences there.  Too much other writing going on.

Since I probably have too much to describe anyhow, I will use the woefully insufficient writing device of bullet points to summarize.

During Days 3-10 of the Berlinale 2010, I…

* …attended three retrospective panels with film artists in attendance.
* …discovered an excellent bistro: Marcann’s.
* …helped the HFF and sehsüchte host the Filmhochschule Party at HBC.
* …began planning a DEFA conference.
* …found myself watching more Japanese films than German or American.
* …saw Katrin Saß, Sylvain Chomet and Hanna Schygulla in the flesh.
* …met Gojko Mitic, Wolfgang Kohlhaase, Günter Reisch, F.B. Habel, Stefan Haupt, Anton Kaes, Rainer Rother, Ralf Schenk, Günter Agde, Wolfgang Mühl-Benninghaus, Wolfgang Klaue, Karl Griep and Bernd Plattner.  I leave this to be examined by DEFA scholars.
* …regularly got up at 6 a.m. to get my accreditation tickets at Potsdamer Platz.
* …was threatened with physical violence by an angry old woman who thought I had unfairly cut in front of her in the ticket line.
* …wrote eight pages of solid film theory for my dissertation (dork moment).

What films did I watch and what did I think of them?  Scroll down to Fantasy.

Here’s some photographic evidence of my meeting DEFA director Günter Reisch:

Fantasy

The Illusionist (dir. Sylvain Chomet, 2010)

Utterly brilliant. Read my thoughts here.

Chronicle of Anna Magdalena Bach (dir. Jean-Marie Straub, Danièle Huillét, 1968)

A history of Bach that preserves its own historicity.  I must have seen this one about six or seven times.  Yet I still have trouble ordering all the images in my head, but they look fantastic in 35mm.

The Law of Desire (dir. Pedro Almodòvar, 1987)

A tightly controlled meditation on the sensual possibilities of film and film-writing through melodrama.  Anticipates Almodòvar’s entire career.

Red Sorghum (dir. Zhang Yimou, 1988)

A Chinese nationalist epic that starts off on the right foot and somehow ends on the far right foot…

Summer Wars (dir. Mamoru Hosoda, 2009)

This is the must-see anime of the year: a look at cyberwarfare through the story of a shogun family in modern times.  Reminds one of Satoshi Kon’s Paprika (2006), with perhaps a far less open ending.

Kyoto Story (dir. Yoji Yamada, 2010)

A declaration of love to Kyoto Uzumasa, site of the former film studios.  A fictional love triangle is masterfully interwoven into the daily lives of real shopkeepers on a real street.