Berlinale, 2/14.

Salon's Stephanie Zacharek files a first dispatch: "The Berlinale has brought me here as a mentor in the Talent Press program, in which eight young critics from around the world - most from countries in which English is not the primary language - are invited to attend the festival and, under the guidance of four 'older' mentors (this is where I come in) file one review or article per day. The participants come from countries including Peru, Nigeria, Poland and Turkey (you can read their work here), and in six days of talking with them and reading their pieces, I've learned more from them than they probably even know."

She's also got quick takes on Shine a Light ("self-serving and mechanical"), Standard Operating Procedure ("I can't help being appalled at the way Morris applies such relentlessly tasteful filmmaking to such a horrific subject"), Julia ("insufferable"), Lake Tahoe ("one of those quietly miraculous little pictures that manage to be both minimalist and rich at the same time") and Sparrow ("more a musical than an action movie").

"Most of the European critics came down pretty hard on Petri Kotwica's Black Ice, a film in competition from Finland, but I found this deliciously dark drama about dangerous deceptions to be a good bit of trashy fun," writes Filmbrain. And: "With heavy-handed symbolism and a embarrassingly obvious plot device, In Love We Trust ends up being an uninspired drama that even its strong lead performances can't save. Daniel Kasman and I violently disagree about Jacques Doillon's latest, the pretentious Le Premier Venu (Just Anybody). Twas a time I would have loved this film, but I guess I'm losing patience for French films where characters speak and act in ways that have no connection whatsoever to the real world."

Signandsight runs a second Berlinale roundup, this time featuring Ekkehard Knörer on Elite Squad, Anja Seeliger on Sparrow and Christoph Mayerl on Elegy and There Will Be Blood. Click each writer's name to see much more festival coverage in German.

For Spiegel Online (and in English), Siobhán Dowling interviews Parvez Sharma (A Jihad for Love) and David Gordon Smith takes part in a group interview with Errol Morris (Standard Operating Procedure).

Jürgen Fauth's got first impressions of Hong Sang-soo's Night and Day, "every bit as ineffably profound and amusing as his previous films," Standard Operating Procedure, "a much more difficult film to embrace," and Jesus Christus Erlöser, "a document of Klaus Kinski's infamous 1971 performance at Berlin's Deutschlandhalle." Also: "I'm shocked to report that [Madonna's directorial debut] Filth and Wisdom isn't bad at all." And "Quiet Chaos is a sweet crowd-pleaser, but the film, which is based on the novel by Sandro Veronesi, earns its emotions." Then: "Robert Guédiguian's Lady Jane is a dark misfire that left me cold." Plus: "Without apparent conflict and traditional drama, Megane is nonetheless full of pleasures, laughs, sensory delights, and an unexpected profundity that sneaks up on you."

"Italian filmmaker Nanni Moretti has moved to defuse criticisms from the Roman Catholic church over a sexually explicit scene in his latest picture," reports the Guardian. "Moretti's role in the drama Caos Calmo (Quiet Chaos) has been described as 'vulgar and destructive' by a representative of the church, sparking a media storm in his homeland."

Also: "For those who knew [Derek] Jarman, Isaac Julien's documentary is an unsettling experience," writes Jon Savage. "Based on a long interview conducted in 1990 - with considerable foresight - by the producer Colin McCabe and director Bernard Rose, it brings the subject right in front you, as if reborn: alive, not very well, but fizzing with ideas, memories, polemics and the occasional sharp comment. Most of all, there is his distinctive laughter, gurgling through time." More from Andrew Pulver. Related: At the SpoutBlog, Karina Longworth explains what frustrates her about Derek.

And then there's Mark Brown on Filth and Wisdom: "Everyone was expecting a turkey from the woman whose previous movie experience has included starring in Swept Away and Shanghai Surprise, and by general consent, it was. Despite her lofty ambitions, the first morning screening was greeted by a smattering of applause and a general sense of disbelief." Adds Peter Bradshaw: "Madonna has been a terrible actor in many, many films and now - fiercely aspirational as ever - she has graduated to being a terrible director."

"A gentle magical-realist breeze blows through wintertime Belgrade in Ljubav i drugi zlocini (Love and Other Crimes), the feature debut of Stefan Arsenijevic," writes european-films.net editor Boyd van Hoeij; also: "'Enormous crowd-pleaser' and "directed by Mike Leigh' were not phrases this critic ever thought he would be putting together in the same sentence, but Leigh's Berlinale Competition title Happy-Go-Lucky is exactly that." Plus more and more great photos from Fabrizio Maltese.

"I may be getting a bit frustrated with Guy Maddin's more blatantly autobiographical progression away from the exquisite fiction of films like Careful and Archangel to the autobio trilogy of Cowards Bend the Knee, Brand Upon the Brain! and the new My Winnipeg," writes Daniel Kasman in the Auteurs' Notebook. "But while the return to more mother-based melodrama and hockey references definitely wears thin, there is no denying that Maddin is pushing himself as an artist, as well as the expanses of his unique form of early-talkie pastiche with each one of these films."

Posted by dwhudson at February 14, 2008 3:28 PM