It can’t go on like this | EUROtoday

SThey are “particularly proud” of their candidates for the Golden Bear as a result of they steadiness “long-respected female filmmakers and strong new voices,” defined managing director Mariette Rissenbeek and creative director Carlo Chatrian in this system booklet for this 12 months’s Berlinale. You might see it like this: a number of well-known, if not well-known, names – the French Bruno Dumont and Olivier Assayas, the Korean Hong Sangsoo, the Mauritanian Abderrahmane Sissako, the German administrators Matthias Glasner and Andreas Dresen – and a variety of movie expertise offered their first, second or third characteristic movies, from Aaron Schimberg to Victor Kossakovsky. On paper, this was an thrilling choice.

However, issues appeared totally different on the display. The powerful, the kitschy, the complicated, the poorly thought or executed had the preponderance within the Berlinale competitors, even when the Nepalese entry “Shambala” with its enchanting Himalayan landscapes was one other actual shock on the penultimate day of the pageant and the Tunisian-Canadian drama “Mé el Aïn” (“Where I Belong”) was a (sadly) undiscovered pearl. However, the vast majority of the movies didn’t meet the expectations that their announcement in this system had aroused – and this at a pageant that has not been measured by the identical requirements as its rivals in Cannes and Venice for years.

Does the jury have tomatoes of their eyes?

The Berlinale jury, chaired by the Kenyan actress Lupita Nyong'o, made a telling alternative once they awarded the Golden Bear to Mati Diop's documentary “Dahomey”. After Nicolas Philibert's “Sur l'Adamant”, it’s the second non-fictional principal prize winner in a row – and thus a transparent signal that one thing is mistaken with the competitors choice. Because both the juries have tomatoes of their eyes, or there are literally fewer and fewer characteristic movies in Berlin that deserve the principle prize at one of many three huge A-festivals on the planet.

Whether “Dahomey” would have gained a prize even in a stronger choice or whether or not Mati Diop’s movie was so significantly better than Matthias Glasner’s household epic “Die”, which solely obtained a screenplay award, or the theater adaptation “La Cocina” (“Die Kitchen”) by Alonso Ruizpalacios, one can doubt.

The precept of not inflicting offense wherever if potential

The French-Senegalese director's most vital concept is to have one of many twenty-six statues from the pre-colonial kingdom of Dahomey, which might be returned from Paris to the West African state of Benin in November 2021, communicate in a hole voiceover about its return from lengthy captivity leaves. The remainder of the movie exhibits what you’ll count on: packing and transport work, arrival on the airport, welcoming committees, receptions and a public dialogue concerning the query of whether or not the sculptures must be used for his or her earlier ritual functions or whether or not they need to proceed to be exhibited as artworks.

The different awards additionally observe the precept of not offending anybody if potential, aside from the jury prize for Bruno Dumont's “L'Empire”, probably the most controversial movies at this Berlinale. Dumont's concept of ​​setting a “Star Wars” parody in a coastal village in Normandy actually has its attraction in script type, however within the cinema its cinematic execution appeared so inflated and convoluted that ultimately many individuals now not needed to know whether or not it was Good guys disguised as sea mermaids or evil within the type of a small baby lastly beneficial properties management of the earth.

And {that a} jury made up of no fewer than 4 movie administrators missed the directorial achievements of the Mexican Ruizpalacios and the 2 Germans Andreas Dresen and Matthias Glasner and as an alternative gave the heavy-footed plodding hippopotamus farce “Pepe” by the Dominican Nelson Carlo de los Santos Arias one The Silver Bear award can solely shock those that have by no means seen a jury assembly up shut.

This is how this movie pageant ends with a last chord with out reverberation. The Rissenbeek/Chatrian duo, appointed 5 years in the past with excessive hopes to succeed long-time director Dieter Kosslick, steered the Berlinale effectively by means of the Corona pandemic, however the two administrators have been unable to reposition it among the many main festivals. In this respect, the Golden and Silver Bears of 2024 additionally mark the top of an phantasm: issues are not any higher with two individuals than alone. Starting subsequent 12 months, the American Tricia Tuttle will direct the movie pageant. Nobody is aware of but what she plans to do with the pageant. In any case, it can not keep as it’s.