Berlinale 2011: A quick glimpse

Unfortunately, the 2011 edition turned out to be one of my shortest Berlinales due to being away for most of it. So I ended up seeing just three films which, however, I'll attempt to review in a short way here. The Golden Bear winner is, unfortunately, not among them.

Tomboy (Panorama / France)

The French film  Tomboy opened this year's Panorama section. The film tells the story of a pre-teenage girl who prefers to hang out with boys, dresses like a boy and wants to appear to be a boy. When her family moves into another town, the chance presents itself to build a fresh identity as boy. Laure becomes Mikael. The film starts with a close-up. We see the back of a head, short, blonde hair flying in the wind. The view opens to reveal a young boy (or so it seems) sitting on top of an open car, eyes closed, content and happy in the moment. The scene succeeds in characterising the protagonist without any words, just in the quick glance it allows us. We will never see Laure this happy, totally herself. Or himself for that matter. Tomboy is as fresh as it is unassuming, as it (and the camera) moves in and out of the children who occupy the film almost on their own. When Laure's secret is revealed it happens totally unspectacularly, first to the viewer, much later to the other characters. By not allowing any noise to obstruct our view, the identity crisis is as intense as it can be, and it happens right in our faces. The search for who you are, the adventure this discovery process can be and the pain it often brings have hardly ever been shown in such a direct, warm and honest manner.

Margin Call (Competition / USA)

After Oliver Stone's second installment of his Wall Street saga, J.C. Chandor's film is the second film dealing directly with the recent crisis that brought the world's finance system and the global economy to the brink of total collapse and the long-term effects of which cannot even be predicted today.  The two films could not be any more different. Where Stone takes a sweeping look the a wide lense and paints the portrait of a society driven by greed, Chandor narrows the view almost painfully, where the former makes clear where he stands, Chandor is content telling a story. It is just one night between the discovery of a problem potentially fatal to a large investment bank and the "solution" which, as everyone knows, may save the bank but will trigger off a crisis whose dimensions are hard to grasp. It is a dark world, in cold colors, a small claustrophobic place in which decisions are made that affect much more than these people here. No-one will come out of this unchanged. Some, many will have lost their jobs, others their dignity or at least some money, others again will triumph. There are no villains here, just people doing their jobs, some more, others less scrupulously, some with more, others with less integrity. There are victims who understand that they're part of the same game as the winners. Kevin Spacey's exhausted forehead, Jeremy Irons' piercing look, Stanley Tucci's dignified despair - it is the little details that make this relentlessly unspectacular film so effective, even haunting. The world has ended and yet it still turns. Whether this is a good or a bad thing is not the film's job to tell, it's on us to decide. Margin Call is a great little film on something so much larger than any of us, with characters that will stay with us for a while.

The Forgiveness of Blood (Competition / USA, Albania)

After Maria Full of Grace,US film maker Joshua Marston takes us again to a place not often visited by film crews. His new film takes place in rural Albania, a place not so different from what we know, it seems at first, but full of ancient, archaic traditions that offset the modern facade of a society embracing its future. Nik is a 17-year-old, dreaming of opening an internet café and falling in love with a class mate.All this is shattered from one moment to the next when his father is involved in a fight with a neighbor during which the latter is killed.According to the ancient laws of the land, all male family members may be killed by the victim's family once they leave the only shelter left to them, their home. Marston paints an impressive portrait of a young man, still in many ways a child, who evolves wfrom incomprehension to resignation and finally emancipation in fighting for his right to life and freedom, taking on the barbaric laws that imprison him in his own house. At the same time, his sister needs to take his and his father's role, taking care of the family instead of going to school. The film is a double coming of age story which moves along slowly and quietly like a river that seems peaceful but whose depth is treacherous and conceal deadly undertows. In the end, Nik frees himself from the grip of the past, but at a high price. It is, however, a price he is willing to pay, because after all that happened the decision he makes is all his, he is at last the master of his destiny.