We are still looking for the nugget among the first seven feature films in competition at the Berlinale, seen since the opening of the 73e edition – the festival lasts until February 26. But what is striking in the vast Berlin program, with five parallel sections, is the recurrence of the same motif: a number of films tell of the difficulty of living, of anchoring oneself somewhere, as if the characters were torn between several territories – geographic, affective, intimate.
Let’s start with the competition. In The Survival of Kindness, Australian film by Rolf de Heer, a black woman, known as BlackWoman (Mwajemi Hussein), is locked in a cage by white people and abandoned in the desert. Using all her patience, she will manage to escape. But here she is immediately subjected to multiple trials, and to the worst horrors. Question, almost philosophical: what can BlackWoman do with her freedom if she is continuously hunted down? This conceptual work, without dialogue, is like a terrible survival game. The non-professional lead actress from the Democratic Republic of Congo impresses with her expressive acting.
In a calmer genre, The Shadowless Tower, Chinese film by Zhang Lu, follows the wanderings of a man with an upset destiny in a central district of Beijing (Xicheng). Gu Wentong (Xin Baiqing), food critic, is divorced: he has a little girl but does not raise her himself, and has lost all contact with his father since childhood. To find himself, he will have to step aside. A delicate drama, which leaves the imprint of a hug- a hug. The cinema and all of humanity really need it.
Nora (Greta Lee), the heroine of Past Lives, first (American) feature film by Canadian-Korean Celine Song, has her heart torn between two countries and two men. One is his childhood friend, who stayed in South Korea while Nora and her family emigrated to the United States. The other is her husband, an American, a writer like her, with whom she settled in New York. If this romance lacks relief, it opens, through the dialogues, a reflection on ambition – leaving one’s native land to “succeed” – and the gentrification of a certain artistic milieu.
Perplexity for the Golden Bear
Let’s move on quickly to two feature films that are competing for the Golden Bear. In the (German) film by Emily Atef, Someday We’ll Tell Each Other Everything, a young blonde girl like wheat, Maria (Marlene Burow), who lives with her lover on the family farm, has her eye riveted on a house that can be seen in the distance: the one where an older man lives , dark brown, and silent. The story is set in 1990, the day after the fall of the Wall, but the film delights in the fusional and toxic relationship that Maria has with the handsome stallion.
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