Berlinale 2012: Diary Day 9

By Sascha Krieger

Cherry (Panorama / USA / Director: Stephen Elliott)

Somewhere there must be a factory turning out scripts lile this on an industrial basis: a beautiful young woman, an alcoholic mother, a selfish boyfriend and a best friend who is secretly in love with her. She goes away, ends up in the porn industry, meets the dream man who turns out not to be so great after all. So far so bad and seen many many times. Everyone is fairly beautiful, everyone disagrees with the porn job, providing points of conflict and food for plot twists throughout. Again and again we see her alone, crying, suffering, the usual fast edited shots of a face in turmoil. Esthetically the film is as uninteresting as its story, both being pure routine. However, there are two at least partly redeeming features: First a novel look at the porn industry. There is nothing sleazy about this here, all are friendly and highly professional, the atmosphere and look is that of a high quality advertising agency. The second aspect is the ending: director Stephen Elliott refuses resolutions, none of the open issues are closed, and there is no turning away from her job. This is her life and she calls the shots. The last five minutes of the film are more interesting and honest than the entire rest of the film.

Xingu (Panorama / Brazil / Director: Cao Hamburger)

Xingu tells the story of the Villas Boas brothers who, in 1943, set out on an expedition into the uncharted territories of central Brazil, seeking little more than adventure. Decades later they were heralded as well as vilified as those who had created Xingu National Park as a safe haven for the indigenous population of Brazil. Today, the park is run by its inhabitants and a 50-year success story. Xingu tells the story of these brothers’ journey, their fight against ignorance, racism, greed and colonial views and sometimes even against each other. These are flawed, vulnerable, haunted heroes who have their own demons to fight on what is a trip in to the heart of darkness as they make contact with people who have never come across a white man before. As they travel on the Xingu river and feel more than they see the presence of those living there and the inevitable clash of culture is postponed as long as possible, there is a sense of the Conradian horror in the air and it will return repeatedly. Director Cao Hamburger tells the story as a modern epic as he moves from the personal to the political, the whites to the indigenous population, from claustrophobic entrapment in huts or makeshift camps to the great mass of widely untouched nature. There is nothing folkloristic in the depiction of the tribes they meet – in Xingu they are shown as individual human beings rather than as an anonymous mass. There is conflict, there is the danger of distinction, there is the certainty that everything will change but there is also hope that a way can be found for these people to survive with dignity and their culture intact. And it’s not one-sided: When one of the brothers is close to giving up, it is some of the natives who take the initiative and convince him to move on. A well-told film made for larger audiences with as much of a non-colonial point of view as seems possible.

Francine (Forum / USA / Director: Brian M. Cassidy, Melanie Shatzky)

Francine is getting out of prison. Why she was in there and for how long we do not get to know, they wanted the film to remain in the present tense, says co-director Brian M. Cassidy. She is not exactly talkative, more than single words do not often leave her mouth. People are not her favorite company, her attempts at building relationships are short-lived and abortive. There is a pained expression in her face when she is around other people, even when she attempts a smile. Only for a short time she lets go, but it does not last. Where she finds solace is in animals. She starts filling her house with them, in their company she opens up, learns how to give affection. As her contacts with the real world get increasingly strained her dealings with the animals become more and more obsessive. This is Melissa Leo’s film. Her face conveys the increasing desparation, the inability to fit in, the desire to escape through the most subtle of means.  It is Leo who makes the film bearable as the forced pseudo-documentary style, the painfully prolonged sequences, the pointed drabness and bleakness atmosphere loudly scream hopelessness and desperation where Leo’s face would have sufficed. Francine is a film in which the means the directors employ are always at the forefront and actually counteract the intended effect they were meant to achieve.

For Ellen (Forum / USA / Director: So Yong Kim)

This Berlinale is the festival of the absent parents – although there are some who are trying to come back into their children’s lives. Joby is a rather unlikely example of the latter variety. He has not seen his daughter Ellen in years while his marriage self-destructed and he was busy pursuing his rock star dream. Only when he is expected to sign the divorce papers which include his giving up the rights to his child, does he try to build a relationship with the daughter he doesn’t know. Joby is a big child, selfish, narcissistic, irresponsible. When he finally has two hours with his daughter, he has no idea what to do with her. There is a great scene in a toy shop: Ellen, asked to pick her present, slowly, uncertainly, not sure what to do, walks from shelf to shelf, Joby, as cluelessly, trots behind her. It is Ellen who breaks the ice by finally deciding on a toy. Paul Dano plays Joby in a mixture of self-pity and real desperation, selfishness and blossoming love for his child, infantile outbursts and moments of self-doubt. In a way he grows up before out eyes although his maturity remains fragile. Here is a man who craves to be a father but doesn’t know if he can be. There is no obvious drama, everything is very civilized, it all happens in Joby’s face, in his slow, insecure way of speaking, his clumsy, helpless way of moving. The camera stays on him, closely but gently, follows him on his journey, giving the film a searching, floating feel. A tender and honest little film.