Berlinale Forum, 2/10.

After the unseasonably warm weather last week, we thought we were sliding into spring here in Berlin. As it turns out, that damn groundhog screwed us and it's been snowing like crazy all day. But, after nearly cracking my tailbone on the slippery stairs outside the Delphi, I made it back to Prenzlauer Berg safe and sound. If you were here, you would know by my red, glazed eyes and slurred speech that I saw four more films today:

El Tren Blanco (The White Train) is a documentary about paper scavengers in Buenos Aires after the political and social devastation of Argentina's financial collapse. You can see the pain in their eyes as these hungry, desperate people resort to any means at hand to scrounge up enough money for food. It is a sad, harrowing account and reminded me at times of the recent documentary Dark Days about underground dwellers in NYC, in that both take place primarily in the dark and the subjects of each have similar survival methods.

Dotknij Mnie

From the Polish directing team Anna Jadowski and Ewa Stankewicz comes Dotknij Mnie (Touch Me), a grainy, confusing drama shot on video. I think one of the main goals of the film is to be shocking and, while there are some creepy characters and depraved situations, the shocks simply pack no punch. Also, none of the characters are particularly sympathetic or even fleshed out, so I found it hard to care when something happened to them. The film focuses on a loser cop obsessed with a woman he met on a call and two mean, bored, out-of-work actors. Nothing much happens as the story meanders and drifts aimlessly from dirty apartments to sleazy strip clubs to back alleys to an ending that left me thinking, "That's it?"

Campfire, directed by Joseph Cedar, is a very kind, warm melodrama set in Israel in 1981 and follows the lives of a woman and her two teenage daughters one year after the death of the husband. The youngest daughter is molested by some classmates while at a bonfire and her name is slandered. But she remains strong, and it is through this strength that the mother finds the power and will to love again. Campfire is competently made and heartwarming, but plays out a little bit like an after-school special or an episode of a Jewish Wonder Years.

The day wrapped with Yun De Nan Fang (South of the Clouds), the story of a retired man who has dreamed for 40 years of vacationing in Yunnan, near Tibet, and finally lives out his dream. Perhaps because this was the 24th film I've seen since Thursday, or perhaps there really wasn't enough substance to bite into, I found this film so slow it almost invited my mind to wander elsewhere.

Tomorrow is another six-film day. Wish me luck. Cory.

Posted by dwhudson at February 11, 2004 3:17 PM