Now that the 2016 Berlin Film Festival has officially come to a close, and I’ve had a full day to get my bearings (get it?), it’s time I ran down the Top 5 films I’ve seen at the festival. Now, it would’ve been more than 5 had I not felt too disappointed (Midnight Special) or indifferent (Soy Nero) towards many of the films I saw (some of which were so horrendous and inconsequential, they didn’t even call for coverage)—but these are things you cannot predict when it comes to festivals. Especially one like the Berlinale, which has such a wide range of selections for its competition titles.

Read below for my 5 favorite films from the 66th edition of the Berlinale. They’re all quite different from each other, but every one is highly recommend for when you’re in a specific kind of mood for a specific kind of movie night. Unfortunately, many things went against me in Berlin and prevented me from watching the eventual big winners like Fire At Sea (Golden Bear), Death In Sarajevo (Jury Prize) and United States of Love (Silver Bear for Screenplay), but that doesn’t mean the films below are any less deserving of recognition and praise.

Favorite 5 Films of the 2016 Berlin Film Festival

#5. War On Everyone

Sandwiched between philosophical quips that give the film its few injections of thoughtfulness, John Michael McDonagh’s War On Everyone is mainly filtered through a scandalous, satirical and borderline psychedelic vision of American police work. Skarsgard and Pena make the unlikely central duo in this bad-cop-worse-cop buddy comedy work with such a generous dose of hilarity and raunchiness that you’ll easily forgive the film its naive moments and predictability. It’s so unabashedly anti-PC that it’s definitely not recommended for the sensitive souls out there. But that’s part of the appeal. [Review]

#4. Being 17

Andre Techine’s spirited film about two teenage boys in a French mountain countryside town is brimming with raw, untethered emotion and naturalistic performances. So much so that you’ll end up understanding Damien (Kacey Mottet Klein) and Tom (Corentin Fila) through so many scenes where a darting glance speaks the loudest. Flowing like an evergreen waterfall, Being 17 captures teenagehood on the precipice – and only falters near the end, but by then your heart won’t care that much. [Review]

#3. Zero Days

It’s a bit funny that I caught the two films above and Alex Gibney’s Zero Days on my very last day of movies in Berlin. It’s like the festival took pity on me for drudging through the pain of watching Creepy or almost being struck by angina pectoris while watching Lav Diaz’ 8-hour mega-epic (more on that at the end). In any case, Gibney’s Zero Days is a must-watch documentary by everyone interested in understanding just how far our world has advanced. Michael Mann’s Blackhat was pummeled by critics, but it’s getting a bit of a boost with a recent director’s cut – and will surely be looked at more closely once Zero Days hits public theatres. Cyber warfare is now, and countries need to start talking about it. [Review]

#2. A Quiet Passion

Terence Davies’ soft, luscious, and impossibly refined biopic of Emily Dickinson should appease lovers of exquisite shot composition and immaculate sense of character depth. Davies’ camera glides through the Dickinson household, while Cynthia Nixon, Jennifer Ehle, and the rest of the dazzling ensemble dive into Davies’ treasure chest of a screenplay in search of gold. They keep finding it in almost every scene, and thanks to Florian Hoffmeister’s blindingly beautiful cinematography, the audience feels the glow right on their skin. Aside from a couple of slips, A Quiet Passion enthralled me and I was a bit shell-shocked from how closely I felt to this woman, this American introverted poet from the 1800s felt more real to me than most of the characters I’ve seen on the screen in Berlin. [Review]

#1. Things To Come

All due respect to Davies, but nothing, and no one, felt more real than Mia Hansen-Love’s Things To Come and Isabelle Huppert’s Nathalie. It’s hard to fathom how a young director like Hansen-Love can show so much maturity, poise, control, and life experience while still in her early 30s; inspiring what will very likely be one of the most tender and memorable roles for the iconic French actress. Watching Nathalie go through the motions of losing touch with modern school system, letting go of her husband and kids who have moved on, trying to connect with today’s youth, and hopelessly falling in love with a cat ended up being the very best cinematic experience I’ve had at the festival, and indeed, the year so far. What makes it all the more special is that it was the very first film I saw at the Berlinale. [Review]

The Albert Bauer Honorable Mention

Lav Diaz’ new film goes against the conventional grain so much, you can almost feel the granulation forming on your skin as you sit there watching it. With a colossal running time of 485 minutes (nothing Lav Diaz fans will be too surprised about), A Lullaby To The Sorrowful Mystery is made of static shots of various characters lamenting, musing, longing, confessing, discussing, sharing, divulging, singing, listening, and crying over the intolerable cruelty suffered by the Filippino people under an oppressive Spanish rule. It’s absolutely stunning, with the greatest production design and cinematography (well, Crosscurrent might slightly have the edge in cinematography, but they’re milliseconds away from each other) I’ve seen at the festival, but the indulgence is, at too many moments, insufferable.

Considering how perceptibly poignant his first two features are, it was hard to picture a John Michael McDonagh movie quite like the unapologetic and misanthropic War On Everyone. But hey, you know what they say: everything is bigger in America. With War, McDonagh turns away from the finesse we witnessed in The Guard and Cavalry, perhaps as a way to satirize the version of the US everyone else sees. It’s tonally erratic, loud, and rude, and a hundred times funnier than his previous works. Unhinged, like a rabid dog running around that you still have the urge to pet, this anti-hero buddy cop movie has cult status written all over it, giving us a good hard look at the funny side of Alexander Skarsgard and reminding us that Michael Pena is a comedic national treasure.

Terry (Skarsgard) and Bob (Pena) are close friends and partners on the force, a job they use as a springboard and get-out-of-jail free card to do shady, corrupt business. Never starting their sentences with “You have the right to remain silent,” Terry and Bob abuse lowlifes to score drugs and money while trying to keep their private lives in some kind of order (but not really giving a shit about it). Bob is married to Delores (Stephanie Sigman), with whom he has two overweight sons; Terry is the loner alcoholic with the vibe of private eye in the 1940s from a parallel universe with a country twist, one that plays Glenn Campbell 24/7 on the jukebox. When a major deal goes bad, a British criminal (Theo James) gets on Terry and Bob’s radar, and the shitstorm starts brewing.

If you start looking at War On Everyone as anything other than a hilarious journey with entertainment as the only destination, you’ll be left with a pretty shallow outer shell. It’s all about setting up scenes, throwing punchlines, working off of McDonagh’s zing-tastic screenplay, and the unlikely dynamic that builds between Skarsgard and Pena (oh, and Caleb Landry Jones looking he stepped out of a post-modern stage play of A Clockwork Orange is not to be missed). Underneath the garish surface, there’s philosophy a-brewing; but too many swerves to random dead-end scenes stopped me from wanting to explore further. Luckily, it keeps getting back on the main road with a mean streak of anti-PC humor that’s ballsy, vibrant and refreshing.

Rating:
7/10

In just a matter of days, the first major European festival will be opening its doors for the 66th time. That’s right (or, stimmt); it’s Berlinale time again and I’m flustered, delighted, honored, and absolutely beside myself to be covering the festival on the ground for Way Too Indie. It’ll be my first time around The Grey City, a first in discovering all the venues and screening rooms that look like they’re located all over the map (i.e., Berlin’s public transportation system shall be discovered as well) and my very first Berlinale! Together with my WTI cohort C.J. (who will be helping me out remotely with some reviews), I’ve gone through the extensive selections and hand-picked 10 films that, to me, sound like the hottest tickets in town during the 10 days of the fest.

Of the major-event films that I’m 100% missing, Joel and Ethan Coen’s Hail, Caesar! is the glaring standout. It’s all good, though, since Bernard has already reviewed it for you guys (and it sounds bloody fantastic). Other than that, I’ll be bouncing around press and public screenings, spilling coffee all over my notebook(s), and writing a mix of capsuled and full-length reviews. If I can squeeze in an interview or two, I most certainly will.

For those interested to see how I go about covering film festivals, jolt your memory with my Cannes 2014 coverage. Other than that, I will let the films do the talking as far as this year’s handsome-looking slate for Berlinale is concerned. Oh, I will just mention one last thing that makes this year’s Berlinale extra special: the venerable Meryl Streep will be handling Jury President duties for the first time in her legendary career. That’s pretty wunderbar no? OK, while I try to restrain myself from fitting German phrases and words into every sentence from now until February 20th, get set to start predicting who takes home the esteemed Golden Bear!

Berlin 2016: 10 Most Anticipated Films

Being 17

France has always played a prominent role in world cinema as a country with one of the richest cinematic histories out there. Now, at Berlinale, seasoned and beloved post-New Wave French auteur André Téchiné will unveil his latest and, hopefully, give us all another future French classic. His elegiac cinema hit a major peak in 1994 with the fantastic Wild Reeds, but he’s been quite prolific in the 21st century as well, working with acting heavyweights (Catherine Deneuve on more than one occasion) and directing the compelling multi-narrative AIDS drama The Witnesses in 2007. Being 17, a story about teenage tension between two boys forced to live together, is more than just a little promising as it feels like Téchiné is just about ready to peak again.

The Commune

The Carrey Mulligan film adaptation of Far From the Maddening Crowd was supposed to be Thomas Vinterberg’s big break into international directorial superstardom. At least, that’s what many of us within the film commune figured. The end result was shaky, to say the least, which is why I’ve recharged my anticipation batteries for the Dane’s next project set to compete for the Golden Bear. The Commune brings Vinterberg back to Denmark, zeroing in on a tight-knit self-appointed community where dark secrets no doubt bubble up to the surface (the kind that made the director’s previous stand-out efforts The Hunt and Festen inherently captivating). Featuring what look like riveting turns by a couple of Festen alumni in Ulrich Thomsen and Trine Dyrholm, The Commune has all the makings of the Vinterberg we know and love.

Creepy

When a director makes one of your favourite films of all-time, you can allow them some leeway. That’s been the case with me and Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s films ever since I watched Kairo, his apocalyptic horror film that scared the ever living hell out of me. Since then, the quality of his output has taken a slow downward trajectory, with 2008’s Tokyo Sonata marking the last time he made a truly great film. Yet after getting let down once again in 2015 with the interminable Journey to the Shore, I will do my self-imposed duty and watch Creepy whenever it comes my way. Why? The fact that Creepy sees Kurosawa returning to more genre-based fare helps a lot, considering his thrillers tend to hit more than they miss (see the aforementioned Kairo along with Cure and Retribution). From what I know, Creepy is an adaptation from a novel centering around a detective investigating the disappearance of a family while dealing with his potentially dangerous new neighbours. Could this be a return to form for Kurosawa? Potentially. But going by his last several films, all signs point to this one being a dud. I’ll still anticipate and watch, of course; loyalty is the price auteurists have to pay. [C.J.]

Elixir

“A magical or medicinal potion,” is the first dictionary-definition of elixir that pops up, which is—interestingly enough—a spot-on description of how I feel about Russian cinema as of late. With recent gems from Andrey Zvyagintsev (Leviathan), Yuriy Bykov (The Fool), and a posthumous masterwork from Aleksey German (Hard to be a God), Russia is on a bit of tear. All this translates to me not needing much to get riled up when I see that a brand-new Russian philosophic mind-boggler will have its premiere in Berlin. Daniil Zinchenko’s Elixir promises to be a narrative-bending parable with striking visuals (a forest is featured prominently, and the film camera has had an age-long love affair with forests) about a group of people, seemingly suspended from any time or physical space, searching for the elixir of immortality. Expect biblical metaphors, contemporary parallels, and at least one metric ton of deeply cerebral food-for-thought. Mmm.

A Lullaby to the Sorrowful Mystery

Lav Diaz’s films tend to avoid making their way into major festival competitions, usually getting relegated to sidebars or competing in fests more willing to showcase his lengthy, slow-moving works (looking at you, Locarno). So it came as a shock, and further proof of Berlin’s status as one of the top film festivals in the world, when they announced Diaz’s eight-hour A Lullaby to the Sorrowful Mystery would play in the festival’s main competition. A brief synopsis of the film explains that it’s about the search for the body of Andres Bonifacio—described as “the Father of the Philippine Revolution”—but if this is anything like Diaz’s other films (which, based on everything we’ve seen and read so far, it is), Lullaby will have much more going on within it than what its plot suggests. A project that’s taken Diaz years to make, Lullaby looks like yet another immersive, political and contemplative work from the Filipino master. [C.J.]

Midnight Special

Speculations over when exactly Jeff Nichols’ first real big-budget studio film would premiere have been growing over the past few years. Many of us pegged 2015 as the year we’d see Midnight Special, a film that puts a father-son relationship at its epicentre, and gives it a nice (supernatural?) twist when the dad discovers his son has special gifts and they go on the run. Thankfully, the wait is over! The 66th Berlinale gets the honours of world premiering what is, for many, the most anticipated title of the festival. Watching Nichols grow out of his indie roots (Shotgun Stories, Take Shelter) and tackle an all-too common motif with his lyrical script and silky-smooth direction has us pumped and giddy. Helping Nichols tell his story is de-facto awesome Michael Shannon (may these two never stop working together), Kirsten Dunst, Joel Edgerton and the red-hot Adam Driver.

A Quiet Passion

Feels like it was only yesterday when Terence Davies’ gorgeous Sunset Song premiered at TIFF. A skip and a hop and we’re in for another brand-new Davies treat at the Berlinale (not competing though, curiously, but rather as the clear-stand out of the Special Gala). A Quiet Passion features Cynthia Nixon (who, if all goes well, will be consolidating a career boost after her searing turn in last year’s James White) in the role of beloved American poet Emily Dickinson. She was an introverted, philosophical, and wholly unconventional woman and artist, something that Davies reportedly uses to tie into the nature and movements of her poems. Even half as majestic as it sounds and it’s already special. To top off the excitement, the virtuoso director is re-teaming with his Deep Blue Sea DP Florian Hoffmeister, and working with the criminally underrated Jennifer Ehle (she plays Emily’s sister and confidante, Vinnie). Excited is an understatement.

Soy Nero

The subject of immigration and refugee hopes is going to be looming like an ominous, topical, cloud over the 66th Berlinale (get up from under that rock if you don’t know why). While many films will be tackling this hot-button subject, I’m betting all of my chips on Iranian-born, British-bred, Parisian-based Rafi Pitts to broach the subject in the most profound way. A regular at the Berlin festival, Pitts is back this year with his latest displacement drama, Soy Nero. It’s about a young Mexican man dreaming of becoming a US citizen and unusually finding himself in a Middle Eastern warzone fighting for his green card (and a clean conscience, presumably). As a regular who’s never won the coveted Bear, early rumblings suggest that it could be Pitts’ time. A multi-cultural examination of national identity handled by the kind of pedigree that Pitts boasts would’ve had me planted in my seat, regardless.

Things to Come

Mia-Hansen Løve follows up her excellent Eden by teaming up with French acting legend Isabelle Huppert to tell a story about a liberated woman who attempts to put her philosophies into practice. How do you read that and not get excited? Jumping a few decades from the youths of the Parisian clubbing scene circa 1991, the gifted director will be applying her mature sensibilities to mature characters for the first time in a while, which is going to be fascinating to watch even if Huppert wasn’t in the lead. Luckily, having someone with the screen dominance of France’s greatest actress (yeah, I said it) in the mix is the mouth-watering cherry on top. Full of promise to be one of the highlights of the year, let alone the festival, L’ Avenir (a.k.a. Things To Come) is a certified must-see.

War On Everyone

If you’ve seen either of John Michael McDonagh’s two Brendan Gleeson-starring films, Cavalry (2014) and The Guard (2011), then you know why I’m licking my chops at the idea of his next one. War On Everyone sees McDonagh expanding in more ways that one; his cast is younger (led by Alexander Skarsgård and Michael Peña, featuring up-and-comers Caleb Landry Jones and Theo James) and the setting is some miles away from his familiar Ireland. New Mexico to be exact, where we’ll follow two corrupt cops and their corrupt run-ins with local crime lords. All that laced with McDonogh’s caustic humor, sensitive direction, and pensive moral afterthoughts? Yes please.

But that’s not all!

Film festivals are an organizer’s worst nightmare; they are full of unexpected chaotic and frustrating variables. In other words, I’ll do everything possible to catch the above 10 films, but there’s always a chance that I’ll miss one or two.

But the finicky nature of the schedule leaves room for a number of other surprises. Like Eldorado XXI by Salomé Lamas, which promises breathtaking panoramic visuals and an hour-long static shot (who doesn’t love those?) of mine workers going through their day-to-days, and Boris Sans Beatrice from one of the more interesting LGBT art house directors out there, Denis Côte. This one sees the Canadian director veering toward psychological thriller territory and competing for Gold. Joining him in competition is the star-studded Alone in Berlin, featuring a pair of thesps in Emma Thomson and Brendan Gleeson circa 1940s Germany. And while we’re on star-power, I’ve certainly got my eye on Genius, with Colin Firth, Jude Law, Laura Linney (she’s back!) and Guy Pearce, set around an editorial house in 1920s New York.

We’re not going to be losing our indie focus too much, though. Eugene Greene’s The Son of Joseph, Danis Tanovic’s Death in Sarajevo, Ivo M. Ferreira’s Letters From War and Petr Kazda and Tomas Weinreb’s I, Olga Hepnarova are blinking on my radar and brimming with potential. I’ll be making every effort to catch them.

On a final note, I have to mention Susanne Bier’s The Night Manager. It’s a miniseries, co-produced by heavyweights AMC and BBC, featuring Tom Hiddleston and Olivia always-brilliant Colman, and based on a John Le Carré novel. Excuse me while I roll up my tongue off the floor. The first two episodes are set to premiere in the Special section of the festival, it’s scheduled at a tricky time, but I’ll do everything in my power to get in. Might need crutches by then, but that’s never stopped me before.

Watch this space for Way Too Indie’s coverage of what looks to be another fabulous edition of Berlinale! See you in a few days. Till then, Auf Wiedersehen!