Berlinale Forum, 2/13.

So, last night, I attended my first big party of the festival, "big" being the keyword here. The invite-only shindig took place in the beautiful, enormous, super-classy Volksbühne, an old East German theater that played host to at least 500 people, probably more. Every room had a different music and mood going on and there was free alcohol everywhere I turned. I assume there were a lot of hot shots there, but I wouldn't have recognized them. I did overhear a lot of conversation snippets - "production costs versus distribution costs" or "we've already secured Actress X for our next picture," that sort of thing. I'm sure there were a lot of deals cut and hands shaken. I loaded up on the free alcohol (have you ever noticed that free beer tastes much better than beer you pay for?) and stumbled up Schönhauserallee to my home and I immediately conked out.

Friday the 13th started with a bang. I know that yesterday I said that Jarmark Europa was the best documentary in the festival, but that is because I hadn't yet seen Neverland: the Rise and Fall of the Symbionese Liberation Army. This is an incredibly fascinating, stirring, electric documentary about the SLA, the radical revolutionary group best known for kidnapping newspaper heiress Patty Hearst. Of note, I found it particularly interesting that the impetus for the group's formation was a political atmosphere in America much like that of today - the US was involved in a never-ending, unjust war, there were millions of jobless people and the ultra-conservative government was virtually ignoring the Constitution, stomping all over Americans' rights with impunity. The doc follows the sometimes well-meaning, sometimes extremely confused and impulsive, sometimes accidentally brilliant maneuvers of the group to its violent, bloody end. The superb use of archival footage and interviews as well as the masterful editing combined with the stranger-than-fiction nature of the story make for a truly excellent film. Documentaries (and indeed, dramas) as totally thrilling, enthralling and enveloping as this are truly rare. My new favorite of the fest! Bravo!

In stark contrast to Neverland was Paradise Now, a shaky, unfocused (often visually, always thematically) wannabe home movie mish-mash of non-ideas, awful camera work and random shots and cuts. In fact, if someone invited me over to show me this thing as an actual home movie, I'd ask them why they had wasted my time. This film is easily the worst film I have seen in the festival. It is so terrible, in fact, we, the (entire) jury, stood up and walked out en masse after less than 30 minutes.

On today's roller coaster, the next attraction was Status Yo!, the debut film from young German filmmaker Till Hastreiter. It was easily - by far - the rowdiest crowd and Q&A session of the entire Forum program. Since it takes place in Berlin, it was like a private hip-hop party with the entire crowd hooting and hollering for familiar faces and locations. It is a playful, fresh and fun semi-fictional look at Berlin's hip-hop subculture whose storylines range from a graffiti artist's hunt for the (mythical?) great white subway train to a giant party getting planned and thrown in one day's time and a straight-up love story on the side. Despite a few extremely implausible plot points near the end, and a fairly long (too long?) running time, it is a very entertaining debut that throws many exciting ideas into the mix.

Only two days left, and who knows what'll happen? The jury was once all but united, but we have since fragmented. It will be an interesting fight to the finish, with a few clear front-runners, but no universal favorite.

Stay tuned for the carnage. Cory.

Posted by dwhudson at February 14, 2004 5:15 AM