Berlinale Forum, 2/6.

Today began with not only the weirdest film I've seen so far in the festival, but probably one of the weirdest films I have ever seen (and I have seen some weird films - trust me). I am talking about Capitalist Manifesto: Working Men of All Countries: Accumulate! This film relied heavily on repetition. Repetition. Repetition. Nearly every scene repeated as many as five or six times (I lost count). Sometimes they were different each time around, sometimes not. The dialog was limited to a very few phrases, repeated endlessly, at times in one scene. A scene as simple as someone walking through the frame might seem to take a lifetime since it would cut and go back in a sort of "two steps forward, one step back" kind of way. The film has its own logic, wherein what seems initially like total nonsense eventually comes together to make some sort of grand statement against capitalism. The only film I can think of to compare it to would be Steven Soderbergh's Schizopolis, and it's actually nothing like it at all. All in all, watching Manifesto was very... challenging and gave me a raging headache; but I appreciated the effort.

Next up was Fan Chan (My Girl) by a team of six directors from Thailand. Though it was quite a hit over there, I can only recommend it if you're a fan of sweet, sentimental, heart-warming, coming-of-age movies like Billy Elliot. I am not, so I absolutely had to stick around for something to cleanse my palate.

The palate cleansing came in the form of Il Vento, di Sera (The Wind in the Evening), the first feature from Italian director Andrea Adriatico. The film begins with the murder of an innocent person caught in the crossfire of a political killing. From there, it follows the grief and sorrow of his live-in boyfriend over the course of that night in the sudden void left by his boyfriend's death. It is gritty and real and emotional and, once again, sees the ghost of Cassavetes hovering over the proceedings; but ultimately, it left me wondering what the point was.

Still, the fest is young and I'll be seeing over three dozen more films in the days to come.

Posted by dwhudson at February 7, 2004 1:48 PM