Berlinale. Bears and other awards.

A few of the International Jury's awards wrapping up this year's Berlinale - there's just one more day of mostly repeat screenings tomorrow - will not sit well with many of the people I spoke with or the critics I read throughout the festival, starting with the Golden Bear for José Padilha's Tropa de elite (Elite Squad). Dennis Lim, for example, writing in the New York Times this morning, calls the film "a violent, cop's-eye view of Rio's favela drug wars that registers more as glorification of the fighting than as critique." I don't entirely agree, but again, that's an opinion I've heard and read often this past week.

Updated through 2/20.

A Silver Bear, the Jury Grand Prix, goes to Errol Morris's Standard Operating Procedure, whose leading proponent is probably David D'Arcy. His four-star review in Screen Daily led to a lively discussion on a cold Thursday afternoon. We heard each other out, though I'm not sure either of us budged much from our original positions.

The Silver Bear for Best Director goes to Paul Thomas Anderson, and few will argue with that decision. There Will Be Blood picks up another Silver Bear, too, going specifically to Jonny Greenwood for Outstanding Artistic Contribution (Music), and again: agreed all around, I'm sure. Those of you who read German may be interested to know that the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung is running director Tom Tykwer's interview with PTA today.

Silver Bear for Best Actress goes to Sally Hawkins for her performance in Mike Leigh's popular favorite, Happy-Go-Lucky. Many have pegged Happy as a frontrunner for the Golden Bear. Considering the contribution Leigh's actors make to his films, and considering, too, how much this one rests on Hawkins's shoulders, this runner-up award is running just about as up close to the top prize as Happy could get without actually taking it.

Silver Bear for Best Actor goes to Reza Najie for his performance in Majid Majidi's Avaze Gonjeshk-ha (The Song of Sparrows), a decision I personally find about as bizarre as awarding the Silver Bear for Best Script to Wang Xiaoshuai for Zuo You (In Love We Trust).

The Alfred Bauer Prize goes to Fernando Eimbcke for Lake Tahoe, and I'm very, very happy to see him not fly home empty-handed.

Meanwhile, "Eran Riklis's Lemon Tree has won the 10th Panorama Audience Award," announces Variety, which points to a full list of awards from a slew of independent juries.

Update, 2/17: Filmbrain is so infuriated by the Golden Bear decision, he's entertaining the notion of foul play: "Easily the worst film in competition, this ultra right-wing (bordering on fascist) Police actioner set in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro had nothing going for it, except for its pushy American distributor, Harvey Weinstein.... Did Harvey in any way influence this win? We'll never know for sure, but I'm finding it increasingly difficult to believe this was the result of an honest vote." Seems kind of out-there to me. On the other hand, in a world in which Barack Obama can score zero votes in Harlem, maybe I'm simply naive.

Update, 2/18: "For the past two weeks, I had the honor of serving as the jury president for the Berlin International Film Festival's Teddy Awards, the oldest (of two) major mainstream world film festival LGBT film awards." Basil files a report for NewFest.

"Brazilian director Jose Padilha, winner of the top prize at the Berlin Film Festival for his movie Elite Squad, hit back at critics on Monday with all the force of its antihero, police captain Nascimento," reports Pedro Fonseca for Reuters. Padilha: "To call the film fascist is to ignore what the word fascist means."

Updates, 2/20: Teddy Awards juror Vicci Ho files a diary entry for Variety's Circuit.

Reeler ST VanAirsdale talks with both Fernando Meirelles and Paolo Morelli about Elite Squad. Interesting stuff. Meirelles: "[E]ven in Brazil, critics called it fascist. It isn't." Morelli: Padilha's "not condemning the torture. We know it's a bad thing, but the film needs to condemn it. That's how the problem started."

Posted by dwhudson at February 16, 2008 1:20 PM