BERLIN & BEYOND 2008—The Edge of Heaven (Auf der anderen Seite / Yasamin kiyisinda)

Fatih Akin's The Edge of Heaven was not originally slated to open next month's Berlin & Beyond—Yella reserved that honor—but, once Ingrid Eggers, Program Coordinator for the Goethe-institut, learned Strand Releasing had picked up Akin's latest, she pitched her woo and secured the film for opening night. It's unfortunate that Akin will not be accompanying the film to San Francisco to give opening night an added wollop. The film will have to stand on its own, which—despite some reservations on my part—it assuredly does. Countless synopses have been written on The Edge of Heaven so I will focus instead on the film's critical reception and sift out themes that interest me rather than recounting the film's plot.

The second entry in an intended trilogy "Liebe, Tod und Teufel" ("Love, Death and the Devil")—of which Akin's acclaimed Head-On was the first installment—The Edge of Heaven was received at its Cannes premiere by critical fanfare, predominantly positive, though edged with some skeptical dissent. Variety's Derek Elley beamed that "The point at which a good director crosses the career bridge to become a substantial international talent is vividly clear in The Edge of Heaven, an utterly assured, profoundly moving fifth feature by Fatih Akin."

The Edge of Heaven won the Prix du Scenario Award at Cannes and is Germany's entry for this year's Academy Awards. Never one to mince words, Robert Koehler—guest writing for Doug Cummings' site Film Journey—opines: "[H]anding Fatih Akin … the screenplay prize for the wretchedly structured narrative of The Edge of Heaven is flatly an insult to screenwriting."


More recently, Greencine's Dave Hudson concurs, though with considerable more tact: "Fatih Akin's been named 'European Screenwriter 2007,' a repeat of the Cannes jury's bizarre choice. Bizarre not because Akin isn't a vital and vivacious filmmaker—he is—but because he and editor Andrew Bird freely admit to completely overhauling the structure of The Edge of Heaven at the editing table. Not that it's helped, I'm sorry to report to my fellow Akin fans. Despite occasional, almost erratic surges of energy here and there, I'm afraid we'll have to count Heaven among his weakest works yet."

Yet—despite my own reservations, which I will detail shortly—I can hardly describe The Edge of Heaven as "weak" and I found myself fully absorbed by (and in support of) the film's thematic and political intentions. Above all, it has a compelling story, no matter how you fall regarding how that story is told. Though I'm quite intrigued by Hudson's intimation that it is somehow inappropriate to bestow a screenwriting honor on a script structured in the editing room.

Sukhdev Sandhu, writing for The Telegraph, admires how The Edge of Heaven "tackles, without ever simplifying or trying to resolve too neatly, issues of diaspora and cross-generational kinship."


Mike D'Angelo, dispatching to The Screengrab, notes: "The Edge of Heaven (which sounds like a Majid Majidi film; the German title translates as From the Other Side) is an assured and disarmingly inquisitive picture, creating a mosaic of unsettled lives in which the pieces never fit quite where you expect them to."

Boyd Von Hoeij, writing for European-films.net; translates the film's title alternately as "On the Other Side" and qualifies that the film's original German title carries "an even stronger sense of continuity after death" and "also points more strongly to the theme of incomprehension that the Germans and Turks have of each other and the preconceived ideas they have of the other party; the whole idea of having sides seems to conveniently overlook the fact they are all humans."

Jonny Cooper writes at No Tofu: "The Edge of Heaven is a falsely grandiose title. It has been translated from the more interrogative From the Other Side, which better conveys the issues at stake here of borders and landmasses, identification and fervor. Nonetheless, both demark a here and there and an us and them, which is precisely the uneducated dichotomy the film laments."


After we watched the film, my compatriot Frako Loden wondered what the film's title meant. Stranded in translation, and perhaps even strangled by language, it could (and most likely does) mean all of the above: diasporic tension, intergenerational kinship, geographic demarcation, and a philosophical thirst for a fixed, clear identity. For me, the film's (English) title clings to the film's closing image: the shoreline. A man waiting in the sand looking out at the cleanest line of nature: the sky meeting the sea. A man at the edge, contemplating the abyss. I took this as a metaphor for the death horizon; that liminal space that draws those who have survived death as surely as flame confuses the moth. Death confuses language. To set things right, one has to sit and articulate the alphabet of the human heart and the grammar of grief all over again. I know this from personal experience, from having weathered the death of loved ones too often too soon. I sometimes wonder if I shall ever pull out of the orbit of the death horizon? If I shall ever see the world again, or more correctly life, as I once did? Then again, should I want to? Joseph Campbell taught me in my youth that death adds resonance to life, and life has steadily proven death's effect. Over time I have come to respect and honor the death horizon as a field of resonance, a gravitational pull, that solicits contemplation. This is the cradle of philosophy, I imagine, and the image of a man sitting by the edge of the sea, waiting for a conversation with his father, seems as close to the edge of heaven as one can hope for.

Possibly my favorite write-up on The Edge of Heaven is Katja Nicodemus's essay for Die Zeit (translated by Meredith Dale), wherein she sensitively notes, "The Edge of Heaven is, like almost all Fatih Akin's films, an essay on the forms, gestures and temperaments of love."

Which leads me to consider that what I found to be one of the most invigorating aspects of The Edge of Heaven was its fair articulation of lesbian love. The lack of lesbian visibility in film is a theme consistently pounced upon by queer theorists—in contrast to the all-too-gratuitous portrayals of male gay visibility caricatured or commodified beyond recognition, let alone identification—and what I appreciate in Akin's gesture is that he—in some ways—speaks out of both sides of his mouth, satisfying the more customary appetite of male voyeurism with one of the steamiest on-screen kisses in recent memory but, more importantly, crafting lesbian chracters of heroic depth, strength and integrity. To others it might be nothing more than an incidental gesture; but, for me it is important and appreciated.

Now to my reservations, which are purely structural and stylistic. Cineuropa's Giovannella Rendi succinctly writes that The Edge of Heaven exhibits a "non-progressive, non-linear structure … divided into three parts: the first two are specular and the third a kind of summation in which all of the pieces of the mosaic fall into place."

Mike D'Angelo further observes that—within Akin's tripartite division—two of the chapters "sport titles that announce the impending death of a major character ('Yeter's Death' and 'Lotte's Death)"; "a structural device that lends even ostensibly mundane scenes a certain uneasy tension." Ray Bennett at The Hollywood Reporter considers that "[i]t may not be a wise thing to label the major chapters announcing the deaths of key characters" but excuses the choice because Akin "tells their stories with flair and compassion."

The Edge of Heaven's chapter headings remind Rob Daniel (Sky.Movies) of Pulp Fiction. He adds: "Akin navigates his players through disparate stories with the deft hand of a grandmaster, teasing out the ties that bind them and perfectly playing various near misses and chance encounters." But even more than its coincidental and consequential contrivances, what intrigues me about Akin's scriptural device is that its narrative thrust focuses less on the foretold deaths of Yeter and Lotte and circumambulates around the response of their survivors, or—as Gautaman Bhaskaran cogently argues in his dispatch to The Lumière Reader from the Telecom 2007 New Zealand International Film Festival—"Akin spins his plot around tragedies to strengthen his characters' resilience for views that may seem far removed than their own." At his site Lessons From the School of Inattention, Oggs Cruz likewise admires how The Edge of Heaven "subtly dissects the destructive and redemptory powers of death."

How is the arc of loss and redemption to be narrated? Akin foists an answer that, though of interest, is a bit too self-referential for my tastes, hazardously thwarting its own traction like throwing sand on the landing. Fortunately, the genuine heart of this film counters its intellectual contrivances. Variety (Elley) agrees: "Akin doesn't try to hide the plot's coincidences or Swiss watch-like precision, which is given human resonance by the flawless playing of the six leads." Likewise, The Hollywood Reporter (Bennett) notes: "[Akin] has time-shifted certain scenes, and he makes observant sense about the fragility of human connections." Writing for The Guardian, Peter Bradshaw's take is that The Edge of Heaven is "an intriguing parallel-life drama of co-incidence and happenstance: the near-misses and near-hits of human contact." Conceding that the plot contrivances are elaborate, Bradshaw agrees with Elley that it is "the heartfelt compassion and intelligence of the direction" that counts.

But not all critics are as forgiving in their allowances. Anthony Kaufmann, dispatching to indieWire, is less generous: "[W]hile Akin's heartfelt political intentions are laudable," he writes, "the under-developed characters seem to be more at the service of the intricate plot, rather than the other way around. The film is well told, with strong performances across the board, but the story's coincidences and constructions feel too neat to ring true."

And then the comparisons begin. Already it's been noted that the chapter headings of The Edge of Heaven hint at Pulp Fiction. Alan Bacchus, writing for Daily Film Dose, observes that Akin "channels the themes and characters of Kieslowski's accomplished oeuvre." The Edge of Heaven's religious themes remind Bacchus of Kieslowski's Decalogue, and Akin's plot structure and characters remind him of Red, White and Blue.

Boyd Von Hoeij likewise notes the presence of Kieslowski, though more favorably: "Akin's work is so serene, contemplative and yet so complex that it bypasses any simple comparisons to recent convoluted choral works such as Crash and Babel and offers pleasing touches of Kieslowskian non-coincidences, though Akin is certainly not on the same level as the legendary Polish director of the Decalogue and the Three Colors Trilogy—at least, not yet."

IFC's Dennis Lim counters, however, that The Edge of Heaven is "visually flat and overly neat", complaining that the film's "crisscrossing premise" is padded "with more pseudo-cosmic coincidences tha[n] even Kieslowski would have tolerated." He concludes that The Edge of Heaven "forces its largely believable and sympathetic characters into an increasingly ludicrous web of contrivances."

Katja Nicodemus levies the same criticism. "Here and there," she writes, "we hear Fatih Akin's script groaning as the fatal, fateful moments are wedged into the plot. And coincidence is hard at work too." Yet her summation of the film is, perhaps, the most fair of all I've read: "So The Edge of Heaven is fundamentally an optimistic film. Because it shows that life is a great muddle of near-misses where sometimes the right people actually do meet up. Or that a homeland can be a feeling of belonging that is less about flags than about a place where at the end of his life an old man can go fishing once again. And because it shows that death is not the final frontier. At least not in a film where the dead so beautifully revive the living."

No Tofu's Jonny Cooper writes that The Edge of Heaven takes its cue "from the Iñárritu school of tangled web filmmaking" and that "Akin entwines three narratives like a triplet of contortionists folding themselves into a bewilderingly small box."

"What differentiates The Edge of Heaven to Haggis or Iñarritu's sprawling mini-epics of mankind's chronic inability to live with each other," Oggs Cruz discerns; "is that Akin values intimacy and control."

Admitting that on its face The Edge of Heaven "sounds like the Magnolia/Babel school of 'we are all connected, let's hold hands' filmmaking", Exclaim!'s Travis Mackenzie Hoover insists Akin "turns the model on its head." He writes: "Instead of disparate people made tenuously and spuriously coherent, this film misleads people intimately linked into losing relationships they need to be whole."

When asked by Cineuropa's Boyd Von Hoeij to describe his narrative technique, Akin freely admitted, "Well, the fact that it starts in the middle and then goes back, I guess that it [is] really something modern, like the films of Alejandro González Iñárritu and screenwriter Guillermo Arriaga." But he alludes to further influences: "The fact that the architecture of the script is modern initially inspired me to make a modern film, with a lot of handheld camerawork and things like that, but then I discovered Eastern cinema and Persian cinema and the way they slow things down and let the audience breathe, so then my approach changed."

I guess I bring up the subject of influences on narrative strategies because I question just how "modern" a device this is, especially since—preparing for my Val Lewton blogathon—I was struck by a comment made by William Friedkin in his DVD commentary for The Leopard Man where he asserts that films like Pulp Fiction owe direct allegiance to Lewton's (at-the-time) innovative usage of overlapping, transferred narrative trajectories. It is, therefore, not a strategy without precedent, and critical skepticism to The Edge of Heaven approximates the skepticism met by The Leopard Man when it first came out. I presume that—just as The Leopard Man has passed the test of time—so will The Edge of Heaven.

Finally, some word on the film's casting and performances. In the Cineuropa interview mentioned above, Akin explains: "For some time, I've had this image of a German mother coming to Istanbul to search for her missing daughter. For me, this image had always been connected with Hanna Schygulla. I met her in 2004 in Belgrade and was simply enchanted by her. I was also curious, because some people have compared my films to those from Fassbinder—an opinion I do not necessarily share. It's funny because in Turkey they compare my films to those from Yilmaz Güney, something I'm also ambiguous about, because if you follow in someone else's footsteps, how will you leave your own trace? I did use Tuncel Kurtiz, one of Güney's regular actors. It just felt right. The whole cast works as a cast, not as a homage or a reference to something else, so it was fine."

Despite his disallowances, even Hannah Schygulla likens Akin to Fassbinder. I didn't recognize her at first but found myself instantly enamored with her character. Boyd Von Hoeij (European-films.net) writes: " Hanna Schygulla gives one of her most riveting performances in years, while the Turkish ensemble is excellent all-round, with Baki Davrak—on whom the film opens and closes—arguably the lead, though he carries it off with a light grace that belies his character's inner trouble."

SignandSight's Michael Althen considers Fassbinder legend Hanna Schygulla the film's "real attraction" and highlights the scene where Schygulla—having moved to Istanbul to occupy the former rented room of her daughter—leaves the house and walks down the street, saying hello to two chess players she passes, "unwittingly repeat[ing] her daughter's very gesture." Althen asserts: "It's not possible to tell in a more beautiful way the inner connection between mother and daughter."

Yet more praise from Variety (Elley): "Schygulla's low-key perf grows more slowly, bringing a reconciliatory glow to the final reels." Rob Daniel at Sky.Movies considers Schygulla's contribution "a standout performance of dignity and grief."

Cross-published on Twitch.

PSIFF08—Cine Latino Line-up

While everyone else seems intent on writing up their lists of movies they've seen this year, I'm drafting up a list of the movies I'm hoping to see at next month's Palm Springs International Film Festival ("PSIFF"), whose line-up was officially announced today on-line.

Along with the Awards Buzz programs, of equal interest to me is PSIFF's Cine Latino selection of 17 films representing Spain, Portugal, Mexico, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and Uruguay. Some—like Brazil's Baptism of Blood (Batismo de Sangue) and the North American premiere of Oxen's Eye (Olho de Boi), Mexico's Burn the Bridges (Quemar las Naves), and Uruguay's Kill Them All (Matar a todos) arrive stateside with so little buzz that maybe it's time to start generating some?


On the other hand, the anticipated jewel of the Cine Latino program in its U.S. premiere is the critically touted In the City of Sylvia (En la ciudad de Sylvia), Jose Luis Guerín's Spanish homage to cinema, painting, love, and women. In a moment of what can only be called a serious lapse in judgment, I let go of my ticket at the Toronto International in order to enjoy—dare I confess it?—an outdoor piece of apple pie at the Queen Mother Cafe. I've never regretted a pastry more in my life! In a nutshell, Darren Hughes at Long Pauses hailed In the City of Sylvia as "a masterpiece." There I was with crumbs all over my face while colleagues were emerging from this film stunned for words. Of which there have been many. Dave Hudson has gathered these into Toronto and New York aggregates for The Greencine Daily, of particular note being Boyd Von Hoeij's Cineuropa interview with director Guerín and his subsequent interview with both Guerín and his lead actress Pilar López de Ayala for European-films.net. Acquarello likewise sifts sweetness from abstracted memory at Strictly Film School and describes how "the seemingly incidental, interstitial sequences of passing shadows become a reflection of a resurfaced, dislocated past—a transformed memory that not only grows more ephemeral with the passage of time but also continues to reinsert its own vitality in the present." David Bordwell contributes some astute observations regarding the film's visual narratives rendered through Guerín's "sustained and varied use of optical POV" and his "teasing style" of "layered space." The external reviews at IMdb promise further reading.

Equally beguiling to me are the reports on two Spanish films: Icíar Bollaín's Mataharis and Jaime Rosales's Solitary Fragments (La soledad). Both have been recently reviewed as part of James Van Maanen's impressive octet of dispatches to The Greencine Daily from the Spanish Cinema Now series running at New York's Walter Reade Theatre. Of Mataharis, Van Maanen writes it is a deft study of surveillance "while stirring up a meaty stew of economics, corporate policies, family lives and sexual attraction." Graham Keeley concurs at The Hollywood Reporter and states, "[H]ere is a private eye movie that makes us ponder the morality of that eye." Variety's Jay Weissberg is less enamored with the film but concedes Bollaín "manages to capture the ultimate irony of detective work: They may be masters of surveillance, but they don't know what's inside people's heads."

As for Solitary Fragments, Van Maanen claims it may be "the best corrective you'll encounter" to those who toss out the dismissive phrase—"It's only a movie"—and to those who idly argue that "no movie can approach the breadth and depth of 'real life'." He praises Oscar Durán's "knockout" cinematography and his effective technique: "Generally, the camera is placed back a distance at the point of maximum inclusion and beauty of design and composition. It is then left stationary, so that characters enter and leave the frame as needed." Dan Sallitt, who also caught the film at Spanish Cinema Now, writes at Thanks For the Use of the Hall: "[Solitary Fragments] is unashamedly arty and really impressive. It's truly shocking at times, and yet one comes away thinking about the sun and breeze on the patios of shady apartments." Then commence a series of pro and con comments on his entry that furthers appreciation of the film. Dispatching from the Cannes Film Festival, Boyd Van Hoeij highlights Rosales's effective usage of split screen or "polyvision" and concludes: "Remarkably, Rosales's rigid sense of composition and impeccable attention to technical detail (the images, the sound design, the elliptical editing) actually help to locate it in an everyday reality rather than elevate it into the realms of art and artifice." Variety's Jonathan Holland describes Solitary Fragments as a "superbly understated, gripping study of women as mothers, daughters, partners and victims" handled with "rare intensity." At Strictly Film School, Acquarello understands the frequent usage of "split-screen" as "a recurring aesthetic that also reflects the film's parallel stories of separation, isolation, loss, and the randomness of fate." With customary poetic insight Acquarello concludes: "Rosales demonstrates a keen eye for observation and for capturing the quotidian beauty of these seemingly cursory, often inelegant, momentary interruptions of life—the petty arguments, procrastinated plans, quiet sacrifices, acts of compassion, and conciliatory gestures—the insightful 'solitary fragments' that capture life at its most intimate and honest expression of struggle, loneliness, and validation." Accepting that—though the film is "amazing" for him—Eye For Film's Andrew Robertson acknowledges that it won't be for everybody. Notwithstanding, if audiences accept and go with the film's aesthetic conventions, they will assemble its solitary fragments into "an astonishing whole."

James Van Maanen has also written up Chaotic Ana (Caótica Ana), more fairly than enthusiastically. For one thing, he says Charlotte Rampling's performance comes off like "she could have phoned in (and from the looks of things, did)." Though he has admittedly enjoyed Julio Medem's work, Van Maanen finds Medem's "visuals to finally be more interesting than his content." He's not alone in his staged ambivalencies. Graham Keeley dispatching to The Hollywood Reporter from the Toronto International complains that "[t]he plot veers annoyingly from one scene to another with little explanation" even as he allows that the film's real charm "is that it keeps the viewer guessing what strange turn it will take. Or indeed, what it is all about." Variety's Jonathan Holland describes Chaotic Ana as "memorably intense, abstract and unfocused" and that though it is "[r]angier and more dazzling—visually and conceptually—than anything Medem has tried before, the movie unfortunately lets the chaos of the title permeate its second half." Holland warns that Chaotic Ana "shuns traditional narrative logic in favor of a system of parallels, echoes and sometimes symbols (like the doors of caves opening)." Jonathan Marlow, on the other hand, shuns ambivalency, clearly stating in his Toronto dispatch to Greencine that "over the course of its two hours, [Chaotic Ana] takes you from mild dislike to gradual limited appreciation and then all the way to intense disappointment by its resolution." All that being said, I'm already feeling quite ambivalent about this film.

Fernando Sariñana's Mexican comedy—Charm School (Niñas Mal)—about youthful rebellion and adult intolerance strikes me as a Rosalind Russell/Hayley Mills vehicle done south of the border and—along with Argentina's City in Heat (Ciudad en cello)—might be purposefully placed crowd pleasers in the Cine Latino line-up. The latter, in fact, won audience favorite at Argentina's Mar del Plata film festival. The Guardian's Claire Rigby describes it as a "wisecracking, tango-drenched script [that] had audiences roaring and clapping."

City of Men (Cidade dos Homens) likewise seems a likely candidate as crowd-pleaser. Following up on the critically-acclaimed 2002 City of God and the equally-lauded 2003 Brazilian television series City of Men, this filmic adaptation has less to do with City of God and launches off from the characters introduced in the TV series (backstoried by Salon's Heather Havrilesky and Austin Chronicle's Josh Rosenblatt). City of Men: The Movie has a lighter, more emotionally satisfying take, according to Variety's Derek Elley that "could attract more mature arthouse auds, drawn by character rather than the minutiae of guns 'n' drugs." Certainly its youthful cast is pleasantly attractive.

Good looks abound in Boystown (Chuecatown) as well, especially with Pablo Puyol pumping himself up as evil realtor Victor. I've already written this one up for The Evening Class when it had its alleged "premiere" at San Francisco's International Latino Film Festival. All I might add at this juncture is Dennis Harvey's review for Variety. He's far more objective about this misstepping "quasi-farce" than I am.

Rafa Cortés's debut Me (Yo) comes with solid mixed reviews. Named "Revelation of the Year" by FIPRESCI, the international association of film critics, at this year's Rotterdam International Festival (plus a Málaga fest award and other nominations), James Van Maanen writes Yo "plays around to little effect with themes of identity, community and the immigrant life." Maanen admits: "By the finale, what Cortés hoped to achieve with this story seemed to me to be so obvious—and so tired—that I had to mull over the whole movie before setting thoughts to print. The mulling did not help." Final conclusion? Yo is a whipped-up "so-so soufflé." When Todd Brown at Twitch caught the film at Toronto he said "nothing much happens" and concluded, "Well shot and well performed, Yo suffers from a general lack of focus and narrative drive. Ultimately a film about what a man will do to earn the acceptance of those around him it is not nearly thrilling enough to be a compelling thriller, its lead character far too bland for it to be effective as a character piece. Motivations are never clear, the overall point of the film even less so. It just sort of happens and then it's done. The core material could be the basis for a solid noir, a mystery, or a dark thriller but the film chooses none of these options—a non-choice that can leave the audience every bit as baffled as Hans himself is through most of the running time." Mileage varies, of course. Boyd Van Hoeij at European-films.net sees Yo as an "intriguing non-sequitur character drama", an "atmospheric head-scratcher" that has "more in common with atmospheric British mysteries such as Hitchcock's Rebecca and Roeg's Don't Look Now, in which atmosphere and strong performances count for more than logic and narrative force." He claims the film delivers. Variety's Jay Weissberg respects the film as a difficult balancing act but admits it's only partially successful, primarily in the lead character's performance. Neil Young agrees Alex Brendemuhl's central performance "is very much the picture's strong suit" but warns that "Cortes and Brendemuhl retreat into a gnomic, stylish zone of deadpan obfuscation, the pace slackening in the final third so that the picture feels like rather hard work for what turns out to be minimal tangible reward." Angus Wolfe Murray suggests generously at Eye For Film that "Co-writer/director Rafa Cortes has something of Antonioni about him, especially during the L'Avventura period. He creates an atmosphere as thick as blood, which he slowly stirs. He likes the handheld camera, close intimate visuals, suggesting an emotional connection, but, as with the late Michelangelo, there is none, only the cold, cold lens and an understanding that fear festers like the cut of a rusty scythe."

As if that doesn't sound befuddling enough, I'm still trying to figure out what the PSIFF program capsule for Sandra Gugliotta's Possible Lives (Las vidas posibles) has to do with its mixed reviews, which are a far cry from Rembrandt in Amsterdam 1642. Surely this is a misprint in the program? I'm not much interested in a historical reconstruction of Rembrandt's life; but, note that Ray Bennett at The Hollywood Reporter finds Possible Lives to be an "engrossing" mystery. Variety's Jay Weissberg, however, finds it "implausible" and "plodding." "Possible lives yes," he quips, "but improbable ticket sales."

Though I think they all three agree that the topic of Carmen Castillo's documentary Santa Fe Street (Calle Santa Fe) is important and carries weight, Variety's Jay Weissberg, Slant's Nick Schager, and ReelTalk's Donald Levit find fault in the film's execution; Weissberg perhaps less than the other two.

I'll write about the two films Manoel de Oliveira has in this year's festival in a separate entry.

And, finally, I save Brazil's The Best Of Me for last because Variety's Jay Weissberg describes it as "a shoulder-shrugging liver transplant tale from freshman helmer Roser Aguilar that plays like a standard TV movie."

Cross-published on Twitch.

2008 BERLIN & BEYOND—Line-up

The Goethe-Institut's 13th annual Berlin & Beyond Film Festival ("BBFF") runs January 10-16, 2008 at San Francisco's historic Castro Theatre, offering more than 35 independent and documentary films from Germany, Switzerland and Austria, many of which have never been seen in the United States. An additional day of screenings has been calendared for Saturday, January 19 at Point Arena, and a panel discussion on comedy in German film will be held on Sunday, January 13 at the Goethe-Institut.

The program schedule is now up on-line at the festival website and includes some of the following highlights: The opening night feature will be Turkish-German filmmaker Fatih Akin's The Edge of Heaven, Germany's entry for this year's Oscar; closing night will be Marcus Rosenmüller's latest feature Wer früher stirbt, ist länger tot (Grave Decisions).

Posthumously extending a lifetime achievement in acting award to German actor Ulrich Mühe—who died last summer at the age of 54—BBFF will screen Des Leben der Anderen (The Lives of Others) with Mühe's daughter Anna Maria Mühe accepting on his behalf. Hälfte des Lebens (Half Of Life) will likewise be shown, along with Michael Haneke's Funny Games (which, Brian Darr informs me, Haneke has finished filming as a U.S. remake and which is scheduled to premiere at Sundance).

Paying tribute to Silent Cinema, BBFF presents the West Coast premiere of Walter Jerven's Der Sonderling (The Oddball, 1929), with Karl Valentin, introduced by Stefan Drössler, Director of the Film Museum Munich.

The winner of the MK Best First Feature Award is Ingo Rasper's Reine Geschmacksache (Fashion Victims) and director Rasper will be present to receive the honor at his film's U.S. premiere and will likewise participate in the festival's panel discussion—"What Makes You Laugh?"

Another U.S. premiere will be the BBFF Audience Award winner Jakob's Bruder (Jacob's Brother). What are the particular recommendations of Program Coordinator Ingrid Eggers? Astrid Schult's 45-minute short Zirkus is Nich (No Circus) and Michael Verhoeven's Der Unbekannte Soldat (The Unknown Soldier); both not to be missed!

Cross-published on Twitch.

PSIFF08—Foreign Language Oscar Submissions

Variety has leaked the line-up for the 19th Annual Palm Springs International Film Festival. With a nod to the upcoming Oscars, PSIFF's "Awards Buzz" program will screen 55 of the 63 official submissions to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences for foreign-language film. This is my main incentive for attending PSIFF and—as with last year—I welcome any feedback from Evening Class readers regarding the following selection.

In usual obsessive fashion, I've scoured the film review lists for Strictly Film School, Long Pauses, Film Journey, and Twitch and linked reviews when relevant. I've also linked all Wikipedia synopses, which usually include IMdb profiles; but, in those instances where they don't, I've linked in IMdb as well, particularly for their external reviews and user comments. In those instances where The Greencine Daily has crafted a film-specific critical overview, I have linked those in as well. When I have more time (ha!), I'll link in Greencine's more specific commentary.

* * *

XXY (Argentina/Spain/ France). Darren Hughes provides a capsule review from the Toronto International at Long Pauses. Wikipedia synopsis.

The Home Song Stories (Australia/Singapore). Wikipedia synopsis. Stefan at Twitch reviews this favorably.

The Counterfeiters (Austria/Germany). I reviewed The Counterfeiters at this year's Toronto International for The Evening Class. Wikipedia synopsis. Greencine critical overview.

Swopnodanay (On the Wings of Dreams) (Bangladesh). Variety's Jay Weissberg describes it as a "genuine charmer" and a sure-fire crowd-pleaser. IMdb profile.

Ben X (Belgium). Wikipedia synopsis. IMdb profile.

Tesko je biti fin (It's Hard to Be Nice) (Bosnia). Sasa Petrovic won best actor at the Sarajevo Film Festival for his performance in this film. Variety's Alissa Simon describes it as "an engaging urban fairy tale" that "comes full circle in a satisfying way." IMdb profile.

The Year My Parents Went on Vacation (Brazil). IMdb profile. Dave Hudson, dispatching from the Berlinale, wrote this film up for The Greencine Daily. Pedro reported to Twitch on this film from the São Paulo International Film Festival.

Warden of the Dead (Bulgaria). IMdb profile.

Days of Darkness (Canada/France). Wikipedia synopsis. IMdb profile. Greencine critical overview.

Our Father (Chile).

The Knot (China). IMdb profile.

Satanas: Profile of a Killer (Colombia/Mexico).


Armin (Croatia/ Germany/Bosnia). IMdb profile.

The Silly Age (Cuba/Spain/Venezuela). IMdb profile.

The Art of Crying (Denmark). IMdb profile. Todd at Twitch, who caught the film in Toronto, feels it's a failure and that time could be better spent elsewhere.

In the Heliopolis Flat (Egypt). IMdb profile.

The Class (Estonia). IMdb profile.

A Man's Job (Finland). Todd at Twitch has some anticipatory remarks.

Persepolis (France). I've had morning coffee with Marjane Satrapi and interviewed her cohort Vincent Paronnaud. Doug Cummings offers insight at Film Journey, as does James McNally at Toronto Screenshots. Darren Hughes explores his favorite scene at Long Pauses. IMdb profile. Greencine critical overviews from Cannes, Toronto/NYFF, NYFF Pt. 2, and upon national distribution.

The Russian Triangle (Georgia). IMdb profile. Roystalin at Twitch has some anticipatory remarks and offers a YouTube clip.

The Edge of Heaven (Germany/Turkey). Wikipedia synopsis. Greencine critical overview.

Eduart (Greece). Guardian Unlimited's Ronald Bergan singles out Eduart as the shining star of the Thessaloniki International Film Festival. Boyd van Hoeij concurs at European-Films.net. Variety's Jay Weissberg expresses reservations, however. IMdb profile.

Exiled (Hong Kong). James McNally caught Exiled at Toronto and offers insight at Toronto Screenshots. Peter Nellhaus caught Exiled at the Aurora (Colorado) Asian Film Festival and wrote it up for Coffee, Coffee, and More Coffee. Exiled has been a popular favorite at the Twitch site, garnering much anticipatory copy and at least four reviews from the Twitch team; three from Toronto (Todd, Opus, Mack) and a second report from Todd from the Fantasia Festival. Wikipedia synopsis. IMdb profile. Greencine critical overview, parts one and two.

Jar City (Iceland/Germany). James McNally caught Jar City in Toronto and wrote it up for Toronto Screenshots, including an MP3 of the Q&A with director Baltasar Kormákur. Jar City is another favorite that's been well-monitored at Twitch, culminating in Todd's Toronto review. David D'Arcy dispatches to The Greencine Daily from Karlovy Vary. As does Boyd van Hoeij for European-Films.net. IMdb profile.

Eklavya: The Royal Guard (India). Several reviews can be culled out from the Wikipedia synopsis.

Denias, Singing on the Cloud (Indonesia). IMdb profile.

M for Mother (Iran). IMdb profile.

Jani Gal (Iraq). IMdb profile.

Kings (Ireland/U.K.). John Maguire offers a Dublinesque perspective at his site Confessions Of A Film Critic. Wikipedia synopsis.

Beaufort (Israel). Wikipedia synopsis. IMdb profile. Dave Hudson dispatches to The Greencine Daily from the Berlinale, where Beaufort scored the Silver Bear for Best Director. Steve James caught it at the Edinburgh Film Festival and wrote it up for the World Socialist Web Site. Nextbook's Diana Bletter explores Ron Leshem's novel If Heaven Exists; the film's source. Isabel Kershner tackles the tension between Beaufort and The Band's Visit for The New York Times.

Soredemo boku wa yattenai (I Just Didn't Do It) (Japan). Acquarello offers insight at Strictly Film School. Quite a few more reviews at the IMdb profile.

Mongol (Kazakhstan/Germany). Here's another highly-anticipated film at Twitch that has been monitored from the get-go and which Todd reviewed at Toronto. Variety's Alissa Simon was likewise impressed with this "beautifully mounted actioner." J.D. McNamara is less enthused at Cinema Blend, claiming Mongol is "an epic without a hero, a romance without a lover, and a war without a decisive battle." IMdb profile.

Caramel (Lebanon/France). IMdb profile.

Small Secrets (Luxembourg).

Senki (Shadows) (Macedonia). Variety's Alissa Simon finds it "overlong, ponderous and occasional risible", while Nancy Keefe Rhodes at Stylus champions the film as rewarding viewing. IMdb profile.

Duska (Netherlands). Boyd van Hoeij writes that one up for CineEuropa, as does Jay Weissberg for Variety. IMdb profile.

Gone With the Woman (Norway). Todd reviewed the film for Twitch from Toronto. Karsten Meinich has some interesting backstory at Subtitles to Cinema. More, of course, at the IMdb profile.

Crossing a Shadow (Peru). IMdb profile.

Donsol (Philippines). IMdb profile.

Belle toujours (Portugal). Acquarello offers insight at Strictly Film School, as does Jay Kuehner at CinemaScope, Tom Hall at Back Row Manifesto, Michelle Orange and J. Hoberman for The Village Voice, Hervé Aburon at Cahiers du cinéma, Daniel Kasman at d+kaz, Ed Gonzalez at Slant, Manohla Dargis for The New York Times, Keith Ulrich for The House Next Door, and Dave Kehr at his eponymous site. Just for starters. Many more at the IMdb profile.

Maldeamores (Lovesickness) (Puerto Rico). Sandra Guzman reviews Maldeamores for the New York Post, as does Michelle Orange for The Reeler. IMdb profile.

4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days (Romania). Acquarello offers insight at Strictly Film School. As does Robert Koehler at Film Journey. Wikipedia synopsis. Greencine critical overview.

12 (Russia). Variety's Ronnie Scheib offers a glowing review. IMdb profile.

The Trap (Serbia/Germany/Hungary). David D'Arcy dispatches to The Greencine Daily from Karlovy Vary on the film's "Faustian bargain". IMdb profile.

881 (Singapore). Stefan reviewed 881 for Twitch. Wikipedia synopsis. IMdb profile.

Return of the Storks (Slovakia/Germany/Czech Republic). IMdb profile.

Short Circuits (Slovenia). Variety's Alissa Simon reports on the film's "dim prospects." IMdb profile.

Secret Sunshine (South Korea). Every year at the Toronto International there's a film that I miss that everyone else seems to catch which, invariably, ends up being everybody's favorite film from the festival. Last year it was Still Life. This year, Secret Sunshine. While I'm at Palm Springs, Lee Chang-dong will actually be attending a benefit screening of Secret Sunshine for the San Francisco Film Society. I'm hoping, since he's on the West Coast, that he'll stop by Palm Springs as well. Darren Hughes is one of those lucky ones who caught Secret Sunshine in Toronto and he drafted a capsule review for Long Pauses. James McNally likewise wrote it up for Toronto Screenshots. There's been moderate interest in the film at Twitch where teammate Jon Pais has offered up a review. Wikipedia synopsis. IMdb profile. Greencine critical overviews for Cannes, Toronto, and NYFF.

The Orphanage (Spain/Mexico). I reviewed The Orphanage at the Toronto International for The Evening Class. I've also interviewed both director Juan Antonio Bayona and screenwriter Sergio Sanchez for both Greencine and movieScope, forthcoming. There's been lots of coverage at Twitch as well, with reviews by Todd and guest author Grady Hendrix. Wikipedia synopsis. Greencine critical overviews for Cannes, Toronto, and NYFF.

You, the Living (Sweden). Wikipedia synopsis. Greencine critical overviews for Cannes and Toronto. CineEuropa offers an essay on the film, an inteview with director Roy Andersson, and an interview with producer Pernilla Sandström.

Late Bloomers (aka Little Paris) (Switzerland). Variety's Leslie Felperin briefly comments on this "cute, anodyne comedy." IMdb profile.

King of Fire (Thailand). Peter Nellhaus has reviewed King Of Fire (under it's original title King Naresuan II) at Coffee, Coffee and More Coffee. Wikipedia synopsis.

Takva—A Man's Fear of God (Turkey/Germany). Via The Greencine Daily, this film won Best Picture at the 13th Sarajevo Film Festival. indieWIRE has an interview with director Ozer Kiziltan. Ismet Redzovic reports to the World Socialist Web Site from the 54th Sydney Film Festival and Jay Weissberg reports to Variety from the Antalya Golden Orange Film Festival.

The Pope's Toilet (Uruguay/Brazil/France). Here's the TIFF program capsule and J. Robert Parks' review at Framing Device. IMdb profile.

The White Silk Dress (Vietnam). Wikipedia synopsis.

Cross-published on Twitch.

12/20/07 UPDATE: PSIFF allows some folks to play "catch-up", whereas others are way ahead of the pack already. Case in point, Ken Rudolph, he's already seen 49 of the 63 Academy foreign language films!! He's worked them up into capsule reviews at his blog.