As the Berlinale tips past its half way mark, the quality of the films has risen considerably. Many of the early competition entries felt out of their depth in the weightiest strand in one of the world’s largest film festivals, though it seems programmers have planted a lot of the good stuff right in the middle.
Ursula Meier impressed with her surreal 2008 film, Home, about a family choosing to plant their roots on the hard shoulder of an unbuilt motorway. With her superb follow-up, Sister, she takes a giant leap from ‘one to watch’ wunderkind to the very top ranks of European auteur cinema.
Easily dismissed as Dardennes-lite, Sister dives straight in to the wayward life of 12-year-old Simon (Kacey Mottet Klein), who spends his days darting around a ski resort and nabbing all the equipment and hardware that the well-heeled jetsetters have left lying around. He then sells it on to anyone who will buy it, siphoning profits through to his scatty older sister, Louise (Léa Seydoux) with whom he lives. There’s no mention of his parents, and when anyone asks, the ultra-industrious Simon is swift to spin them a yarn.
As the title suggests, this is foremost an investigation in to family bonds, and Meier builds a very vivid, and it times unnervingly touchy-feely relationship between Simon and Louise. But, as Simon wheeler-deals his way up and down the mountain, the film appears to become something bigger than the fragile drama on show. Like Home, this film also poses huge questions about civilisation and society, as Simon’s craven desire for hard cash is eventually dashed by the fickleness of the marketplace.
This is a much more humane and naturalistic film than Home, and Meier proves more than adept at formulating Dardennes-esque tension by simply watching a young, misguided soul go about their nefarious business and daring us to guess exactly when and how they’re going to come a-cropper. But this was a really great film, hopefully one that will win prizes and UK distribution.
Another big surprise is the return of Billy Bob Thornton to the director’s chair, with his utterly charming ’69-set family saga, Jayne Mansfield’s Car. Old-school to its very marrow, this throwback ensemble drama is a piece of robust, gently paced artisan craftsmanship of the likes rarely seen in cinemas these days, and one can only hope that militantly unfashionable down home gem will find an audience.
The film charts the bizarre meeting of the thoroughly English Bedford family with the Southern-fried Caldwell clan over a balmy few days in the sun-bleached climes of the latter’s Alabama stack. Yet, this isn’t your average culture-clash comedy, more Royal Tenenbaums-style juncture where family members from both sides take stock of their lives, loves, regrets and resentments. Thornton is mightily impressive, as writer (if this doesn’t at least win a best script award, something will have gone seriously awry), director and one of the lead actors, reprising his The Man Who Wasn’t There naïf schtick with endearing results.
Lastly, a big shout-out goes to Melissa Leo for her stunning turn in Francine, by young directorial twosome, Brian M Cassidy and Melanie Shatzky. Playing the eponymous ex-convict who finds solace in her pets, the film chronicles her gradual downward spiral as readjusting to life back on the outside doesn’t come as easy to her as initially expected. It’s a small, minor-key, observational film with a few especially arresting scenes (a cat getting spayed being a particular odd one). But its Leo’s bold and unselfconscious performance for which this film will be remembered.
For more information on this year’s Berlinale visit berlinale.de
Berlin International Film Festival 2012 – Day 4 (text) by David Jenkins is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
