EXBERLINER Issue 170, April 2018
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WHAT’S ON — Film<br />
Editor’s Choice<br />
Radical gestures<br />
A trio of ambitious auteurs offer bold spins on<br />
staple genres, with mixed results. By Paul O’Callaghan<br />
DON’T MISS<br />
Too Drunk to Watch -<br />
Punk Film Festival<br />
Head to Moviemento<br />
for five days of films<br />
that embody punk’s<br />
anarchic spirit, kicking<br />
off with Wildes<br />
Herz, a rousing doc<br />
about Jan Gorkow,<br />
big-hearted frontman<br />
of Ostsee-based<br />
punk outfit Feine<br />
Sahne Fischfilet.<br />
Apr 11-15<br />
Queer Faces<br />
Migrant Voices<br />
One World Berlin<br />
joins forces with the<br />
International Queer<br />
Migrant Film Festival<br />
Amsterdam to present<br />
a podcast workshop<br />
featuring LGBTQ<br />
refugees, followed by<br />
the Berlin premiere<br />
of inspiring doc Mr.<br />
Gay Syria. Apr 14,<br />
16:00, Xenon Kino<br />
Exblicks:<br />
Achtung Winner<br />
Check out the winner<br />
of the <strong>2018</strong> Exberliner<br />
Award, guaranteed<br />
to be a highlight of<br />
this month’s Achtung<br />
Berlin festival. Visit<br />
exberliner.com on<br />
<strong>April</strong> 19 to find out<br />
exactly what you’ll be<br />
watching at Licht<br />
blick. Apr 30, 20:30<br />
Based on Jonathan Ames’<br />
noirish 2013 novella, You Were<br />
Never Really Here (photo)<br />
charts the grim exploits of a New York<br />
contract killer named Joe (Joaquin<br />
Phoenix) who uncovers a paedophile<br />
ring while investigating the disappearance<br />
of a senator’s daughter, and<br />
takes justice into his own hands while<br />
battling PTSD. It might sound like<br />
the premise of a recent Liam Neeson<br />
schlocker, but in the hands of Scottish<br />
auteur Lynne Ramsay, this lurid tale<br />
proves an unshakeable foundation for<br />
a confounding, remarkable revisionist<br />
thriller. The filmmaker has pared<br />
her narrative source as far down to<br />
the bone as possible: Joe’s harrowing<br />
backstory is relayed through jolting<br />
images, presented devoid of context.<br />
Despite an outrageous body count, violence<br />
is rarely directly depicted, with<br />
Ramsay preferring to linger instead<br />
on its quiet aftermath. And Phoenix<br />
delivers a typically enigmatic central<br />
performance, revealing a flicker of<br />
humanity only when goofing around at<br />
home with his elderly mother (Judith<br />
Roberts). The result is one of the most<br />
breathtakingly precise, formally radical<br />
genre films in recent memory.<br />
With Transit, Christian Petzold (see<br />
interview, page 28) makes a similarly<br />
laudable attempt to breathe new life<br />
into tired cinematic tropes. Inspired<br />
by Anna Seghers’ 1944 novel, it tells<br />
the relentlessly twisty tale of Georg<br />
(Franz Rogowski), a German refugee<br />
in Paris on the run from his fascist<br />
countrymen. Fleeing the capital for<br />
Marseilles, he assumes the identity<br />
of a recently deceased writer. This<br />
hastily made decision has unforeseen<br />
consequences for Georg, including an<br />
uneasy romantic entanglement with<br />
the writer’s young widow (Paula Beer).<br />
Petzold boldly relocates the action to<br />
the present day, or at least some hazy,<br />
impressionistic version of it – it’s as if<br />
the current migrant crisis was a direct<br />
continuation of the Holocaust. Adding<br />
to the Kafkaesque vibe is an extremely<br />
jarring third-person voiceover narration,<br />
in which an unknown observer<br />
offers a glib interpretation of the<br />
events. It’s perhaps fitting that a film<br />
about false identity should revel in its<br />
own artificiality, but I have to confess<br />
I found the relentless tricksiness<br />
ultimately exhausting. So effective are<br />
the film’s distancing devices, its occasional<br />
bids for emotional engagement<br />
fall flat. And Petzold’s adventurous approach<br />
to filmmaking feels hampered<br />
by a frustrating literal-mindedness, as<br />
in the exasperatingly on-the-nose use<br />
of Talking Heads’ “Road to Nowhere”<br />
over the end credits.<br />
Seemingly determined to solidify<br />
his reputation as Hollywood’s preeminent<br />
disruptor, Steven Soderbergh’s<br />
latest venture sees the veteran<br />
director wage war on the bloated<br />
studio system in headline-grabbing<br />
fashion. Shot entirely on iPhones in<br />
under two weeks, Unsane is a slick,<br />
multiplex-friendly thriller delivered<br />
on a shoestring budget, which should<br />
serve as an inspiration to budding<br />
genre filmmakers all over the planet.<br />
But any fears that Soderbergh might<br />
be in danger of turning into a tedious<br />
Apple evangelist are swiftly allayed,<br />
with the film offering a playfully<br />
nightmarish riff on the dangers of<br />
modern technology. Claire Foy stars<br />
as a young woman who clearly conducts<br />
much of her life online, whose<br />
life becomes an outlandish nightmare<br />
when she’s committed against<br />
her will to a sinister psychiatric facility.<br />
It’s rough around the edges and<br />
wildly implausible, but Soderbergh’s<br />
prankish, pioneering spirit ensures<br />
a wild ride. n<br />
Starts Mar 29 Unsane HHH D: Steven Soderbergh (US <strong>2018</strong>) with<br />
Claire Foy, Joshua Leonard | Starts Apr 5 Transit HH D: Christian<br />
Petzold (Germany <strong>2018</strong>) with Franz Rogowski, Paula Beer | Starts Apr 26<br />
You Were Never Really Here (A Beautiful Day) HHHHH D: Lynne Ramsay<br />
(UK, France, US 2017) with Joaquin Phoenix, Ekaterina Samsonov<br />
26<br />
<strong>EXBERLINER</strong> <strong>170</strong>
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