Our Man In Berlin – 2010

This year we have a couple of Picturehouse staffers over at the Berlinale. As well as our head of programming, Clare Binns, we have Jon Barrenechea, manager of the Duke of York’s Picturehouse in Brighton, and after a difficult first day with intermittent wifi and a giant queues for tickets he’s managed to send through his first reviews:

APART TOGETHER
A sweet family drama from China, this small but endearing film opened the Berlinale after its director won the silver bear two years ago. A friend who’d seen it before me warned me, “don’t watch it if you’re hungry” and boy was she right: scene after scene of cooking, eating, and drinking frame each family encounter and fight. A perfectly observed, often funny, and moving little film.

HOWL
Given its pedigree of producer (Gus Van Sant) stars (James Franco, Jeff Daniels, Jon Hamm) cinematography (Ed Lachman) and subject matter (Allen Gingsberg) this had the chance of being special. Instead its a car crash of a movie, with embarassing animated interpretations of gingsbergs poems, clunky courtroom scenes, and the sight of franco with a false beard and extended ears. Its a testament to the power of gingsberg’s work that even through the silly conceit of this film you are touched by his poetry.

THE GHOST WRITER
I won’t address any of the off screen controversy surrounding the director, but suffice to say that this film was partially edited from a prison in Zurich last year. You couldn’t tell from the slick, efficient thriller Polanski has constructed from Robert Harris’ novel. Pierce Brosnan is almost as sleazy as the Prime Minister this whole film is clearly based on, and Ewan McGregor turns in a surprisingly decent performance. All Hitchcock twists and turns, this slightly unbelievable but very watchable story could be a hit.

MY NAME IS KHAN
Billed as Bollywood’s first Hollywood, this is a really hard flm to review: its all about context. Without being familiar with India’s style of moviemaking, with long running times, outrageous plot developments and sentimental scenes this might seem like a film from another planet. That said, it does skip the song and dance routines and embrace a controversial subject matter, that of racial profiling in America post 9/11. As if that wasn’t enough though, it also decides to tackle Asperger’s Syndrome, American presidential politics, race relations, Katrina and hindu-muslim tensions. A tough watch.

More from Jon Barrenechea on his excellent cinema blog Splendor Cinema