✔ Double score on sitting in the very last row on Sunday. Before breakfast at Friedrichstadtpalast for the very atmospheric and excellently played Austrian competition entry The Ground Beneath her Feet by Marie Kreuzer; and two hours later at Berlinale Palast for Israeli-German co-production The Operative with a very good Diane Krüger and Martin Freeman in an okay spy thriller.
✔ More female-made films:
After the enjoyable Gully Boy, the well-intentioned but tone-deaf Kindness of Strangers, add the enchanting Kreutzer and Agnieszka Holland’s (surprisingly plain) Holodomor drama Mr Jones — with Angela Schanelec’s much anticipated I Was at Home, But coming tomorrow.
✔ I did make a new friend in line! Young (male) British critic behind me excitedly summarized his Berlinale experience so far: “The female filmmakers don’t bring that ego, it’s refreshing.
✔ I might have to alter the “I don’t have a question but a comment” field --although everyone still does start out with endless comments-- to “Dear director, let me tell you where you went wrong.” That Golden Bear goes to the woman who corrected Fatih Akin using the wrong salt and pepper shakers in his 1970s set design. Akin’s reaction: “Shit happens.”
✔ Nearly there, with more books on film, with Golden Glove, based on Heinz Strunk’s hit novel; The Operative, based on a novel by former Israeli spymaster Yiftach Reicher Atir; and, in reverse, Mr. Jones, the story that inspired George Orwell to write Animal Farm.
✔ Saturday qualifies for the freak weather (& freak film) category. Before the first press screening at 9am —Edward Berger’s latest, frankly annoyingly self-indulgent ALL MY LOOVNG— I was nearly blown away with my umbrella like Mary Poppins in a windstorm, while 4 hours later eating icecream in the sunshine with a US colleague (before Fatih Akin’s disturbing horror show).
✔ Hugged a bear.
Fields I should have added to score even faster/more:
✔ See a film UNDER 120 minutes.
✔ Run into Jesse Cumming daily (3 more times). Thanks for a Canadian hang at the BERLIN BOUNCER after-party at Crackers club.
AND BINGO! I will keep playing for more though for the rest of the Berlinale.
by
Jutta Brendemühl
