Wrapping Berlinale 08.

First, once again, the Forum has selected seven films for repeat screenings over the next two weeks.

Second, more entries on individual films are on the way, but in the meantime, all awards-related news and commentary will be noted here, while this entry will serve as a catch-all for overviews, cris de coeur, notes, manifestos and so on, to be updated throughout the week.

Updated through 2/22.

In earlier entries, I've already noted two overviews, but they're worth mentioning again: Sight & Sound editor Nick James's for the Observer and Dennis Lim's for the New York Times.

"[O]ne of the things that Berlinale did particularly well in this, its 58th year, was keeping one eye cocked firmly on the cinema of bygone years while pushing headlong into the future," writes Chris Barsanti in an overview for Filmcritic.com that includes takes on Dusan Makavejev's "1971 neo-Marxist sex satire" WR: Mysteries of the Organism and Kent Mackenzie's "nearly-forgotten 1961 film," The Exiles as well as Isabel Coixet's Elegy, Majid Majidi's The Song of Sparrows, "a treat in every sense of the word," Benjamin Gilmour's debut feature Son of a Lion, Laetitia Masson's Coupable, which "takes a snappy premise and some sharp imagery and seems determined to waste it," Natalie Assouline's Shadida: Brides of Allah, "a rough-hewn video documentary shot inside an Israeli prison holding Palestinian women convicted of assisting or participating in suicide bombings," Eddy Moretti and Suroosh Alvi's Heavy Metal in Baghdad, Tony Gerber and Jesse Moss's Full Battle Rattle, Juan Manuel Sepúlveda's The Infinite Border and Guy Maddin's My Winnipeg.

"Overall, this particular critic was rather disappointed and underwhelmed by the 58th Berlinale's film offering," writes Maxine Harfield, who offers her views on the Competition lineup at cinemattraction.

The consensus among many who caught it, Dennis Lim and myself included, is that Koji Wakamatsu's United Red Army was the most significant viewing experience at the Berlinale this year. Daniel Kasman in the Auteurs' Notebook: "Bookended by an encyclopedia's worth of archive footage, title cards, dates, events, and names, the film sets the rigor and tone of the students' intensified isolation and political self-cleansing with a historical background as extensive and detailed as Wakamatsu's eventual - and total - submergence into cabin-fevered radicalism in the throes of creative self-destruction."

Also: "Wonderful Town, the promising first film by Aditya Assarat, has a great amount of outer spirit, though what it truly lacks is an expressive inner life."

Meanwhile, Blake Ethridge actually got to meet Wakamatsu.

Il y a longtemps que je t'aime (I've Loved You So Long) "may sound like the stuff of a Lifetime movie, but Kristin Scott Thomas's performance kept me from fleeing," writes Jürgen Fauth. Also: "A trashy pageant that delivers what it promises, The Other Boleyn Girl is also the perfect prequel to Elizabeth; the final image of the former seems custom-made to line up with the first scenes of the latter." And: "I can tolerate capable entertainment dressed up in historical costumes, but I found the affected minimalism of Ballast difficult to sit through."

Reminders of publications with special Berlinale sections: indieWIRE, Variety and the Hollywood Reporter.

And there's been more coverage at Cineuropa.

Blogging the German-language press: angelaufen.de and film-zeit.de.

More in German: Thomas Groh and Ekkehard Knörer.

Updates, 2/18: "In 2008, yet again, it was anything but a pleasure for a critic to have to sit through the films in the festival's Competition section," writes Ekkehard Knörer at signandsight. "Only on paper did things look rosier this year, with the return of lost son Erick Zonca, Johnnie To's pet project, Martin Scorsese's opening concert film and a general avoidance of the usual mass of pseudo-political clap-trap of which the creative director and head of the selection board for the Competition, Dieter Kosslick, is so enamoured."

"The trouble this year was that the Ingredient X - the vital catalyst that causes a film to begin foaming and bubbling to thrillingly unpredictable effect - was in short supply, at least judging by the route I took through the program," blogs Phil Hoad for the Guardian before writing up (and occasionally down) a couple of handfuls of films.

"Jean Epstein's 1926 silent film Mauprat is a wonderful discovery, thriving with unexpected, lovely impressionism to tell a seemingly old-fashioned story of brigands, unrequited love, wrongful accusation and amour fou," writes Daniel Kasman in the Auteurs' Notebook. "A number of the film's stylizations are particularly striking for the era."

Another page from the Auteurs' Notebook and Daniel Kasman: Götz Spielmann's Revanche "shows just how successfully one can transpose the plot and character based drama of Hollywood to the refined style of European art-house cinema without hampering it with a sense self-importance."

Updates, 2/19: "Yousri Nasrallah's Aquarium - the only Arab entry in all the Festival's sections - was screened on Friday in the presence of Nasrallah and Hend Sabry, the lead actress in the film," notes Samir Farid in the Al-Ahram Weekly. "This screening was attended by almost all the Arab participants and by many Berlin-based Arab diplomats, including the Egyptian ambassador.... Following the Berlin screening of his film, Nasrallah received more than one invitation to participate in other international film festivals, including the Tribeca in New York to be held next April, the Taormina Festival in Sicily next June and the Abu Dhabi Festival next October." Related: Derek Elley's review for Variety.

"Mike Leigh films frequently patronise their characters, but never so painfully as in Happy-Go-Lucky," blogs Helen Oldfield for the Guardian. Whereas Madonna's Filth and Wisdom "wasn't so bad. I went with the lowest of expectations - always an advantage if you want to enjoy a movie, and so I did."

Updates, 2/22: Patrick Z McGavin has more - and more - for Stop Smiling.

Jürgen Fauth wraps up his festival with reports on the films he caught on Days 10 and 11.

Posted by dwhudson at February 17, 2008 7:55 AM