It numbs them with its politics. And its smugness. Intentionally so. Every year. And if you don’t have the “correct” kind of politics and smugness, it will numb you all the more.
The opening night of the Berlinale was all about politics, from the red carpet, where Green Party politician and Bundestag vice president Claudia Roth sported a black dress adorned with the word “Unpresidented” in large letters – an apparent dig at U.S. President Donald Trump’s spelling aptitude and/or his perceived behavior as commander-in-chief – to officials and speakers taking the stage to talk about free speech, free art and resistance to oppression.
“It’s kind of an antidote to massive budget films with millions of special effects and stuff, which in the end creates a kind of numbing effect: I want more, I want more, I want more.”
About this year’s Berlin Film Festival, I mean. Or Berlinale, if your prefer.
“A dud line-up… A competition film lasting eight hours… The Berlin competition DOES tend to be serious… Misguided inclusions… Films about German characters played by English actors who speak in English but with German accents… Meryl Streep… Disappointment… Acute no-frills psychological realism… An extraordinary docudrama of sorts… More Meryl Streep… More Disappointment… George Clooney.”
And this is mainly because none of these clips have been taken from any of the films that are being shown here at the Berlinale this year.
You know it’s Berlinale time when coffee has been spilled all over the benches in the Sony Center early in the morning already.
Du weißt, es ist Berlinale, wenn… Dir irgendjemand nach Ende des letzten Berlinale-Tages erzählt, dass er es jetzt schon kaum erwarten kann, wenn das Filmfestival nächsten Winter wieder in die Stadt kommt.
And all it took was a short visit to the Berlinale in Berlin.
He certainly knew what he was doing. The films that they play here are no longer famous, either.
Dieser Eintrag im Berlinaleblog ist nicht leicht gefallen. Denn er wird genau das bewirken, was der Autor eigentlich kritisieren will: Dass es in der modernen Mediengesellschaft eine wirkungsvolle Strategie ist, durch Pöbeln und Rüpeln Aufmerksamkeit zu erzeugen.
The subjects will range from serious themes like obesity to the lack of health insurance, with a few gay priests and a little nuclear contamination thrown in here and there just to spice things down.
And in case you didn’t know, the Berlinale is known to be the most political (and therefore the most serious) of the three biggest European film festivals (Cannes, Venice and Berlin) and is also famous for including the sort of movies that aren’t necessarily considered, well, mainstream or easy to market.
You know, self-indulgent and arrogant cinematic art snob crap and art for art’s sake rubbish like that. So there we have it. Lights, camera… What’s the opposite of action again?
Wie schwer ist ein Goldener Bär? Wer ist der wahre Held der Berlinale? Wo steigt die beste Party? Alles, was Besucher des Filmfestivals wissen müssen – von A wie Ankunft bis Z wie Zoo-Palast.
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.
