Two German hostages have suddenly been released after four months of imprisonment in Iran.
Shortly after their release, an Iranian film took the top prize at the Berlinale.
I’m just sayin’, OK?
Jury president Isabella Rossellini said the choice of Farhadi’s film was “pretty unanimous.”
The Berlinale is always good for a surprize. But it’s always the same one: No surprizes.
How original, sort of. Hopeless romantics that they are, politically correct Germans everywhere will be as enamored as they should be in this latest “political love story” about (with?) the RAF, “If Not Us, Who?”
Specifically, it’s about two fine young terrorists who fell in love, made love and then went on to become key figures in that wacky and fun-loving leftist group that carried out a bloody campaign of kidnappings and murders in the 1970s. You know, kind of like the Manson clan only, this being Germany, their madness was more political?
It’s a film that wants us to truly understand these folks with, I dunno, understanding, understanding how their political consciousness arose, with a special emphasis being placed on the conflict between the Nazi and postwar generations–an aspect that has never ever, ever been addressed here in this country before, ever, not once, honest. In other words, they were the victims (again).
Be sure to see it. It’s so… Political. And Romantic with a big R. If it doesn’t win the Golden Bear than… If not them, who?
And what are they booing?
The first movie? The big-budget remake with a message because it wasn’t low-budget enough (the movie, not the message)? History?
Or was this flick, like most of the other films that get shown here every year at the Berlin Film Festival, was it like, well, too political? Nah, that can’t be. What’s more political (or politically correct) than the Berlinale?
I know, maybe it was just another really lousy movie. I mean even by Berlinale standards lousy.
“Ein antisemitischer Film, wie wir ihn uns nur wünschen können.”
And it hears voices too, for that matter. But just like with YouTube, it doesn’t do cinematic visions.
Nix Berlinale for you, buddy. The Berlin Film Festival is just too political, I guess.
“We are surprised and deeply regret that a director (Jafar Panahi) who has won so many international prizes has been denied the possibility to take part in our anniversary festival and to speak about his cinematic visions,” Berlinale director Dieter Kosslick said in a statement.
On July 30, Panahi and members of his family were arrested in a Tehran cemetery at an opposition protest in memory of demonstrators killed in street violence after the election.
Actually, it’ll end up being around forty or so later this year. Not terribly original, the idea, but still.
Who needs Hollywood, huh? Marlene Dietrich will be the very first US-Amerikanerin star ever to be immortalised on the streets of her home town on a brand new “Walk of Fame” which will be unveiled during the Berlin film festival this coming week.
Ten stars will be awarded a star each year during the festival festivities from here on out, all with a link to Hollywood, I mean German culture.
Like walk the talk already.
“A full version of Fritz Lang’s 1927 silent expressionist epic was found in Argentina in 2008, and after months of painstaking work, what is possibly Germany’s best-known movie has now been restored to almost its original state.”
“It will be shown at Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate on February 12 as part of the 60th Berlin Film Festival, with simultaneous gala screenings in Berlin and Frankfurt, with an orchestra playing Gottfried Huppertz’s original score.”
Als Fritz Lang 1924 New York besuchte, war er überwältigt. „Allein der Anblick von Neuyork bei Nacht müsste genügen, um dieses Fanal der Schönheit zum Kernpunkt eines Films zu machen“, schrieb er nach seiner Rückkehr enthusiasmiert in einem Berliner Film-Magazin.
Observing Hermann 