Why do we actually do this? Why do we eagerly await the Berlinale every year, used to queue for hours for tickets, now sit excitedly in front of the computer in the morning hoping that we will all get tickets, and then spend the whole day in the darkness of the cinema?
Of course, we want to see the stars we usually admire on screen in person and enjoy the unique festival atmosphere. But really, we do it all for the love of film – in the hope of seeing that one very special film. That magical moment drives us when we lose ourselves in a film, are carried away by it and leave the cinema as a different person.
And time and again, the Berlinale offers us these magical moments, but sometimes it's completely different emotions in the cinema seat: helplessness, boredom and the realisation that, unfortunately, you've chosen the wrong film. That's how I felt on Sunday in the competition, but luckily the Panorama section came to the rescue.
Dust
Perhaps it's just a case of false expectations. I had imagined the Belgian competition entry Dust to be a film like Blackberry : an entertaining look behind the scenes of the business world with pointed dialogue. Instead, Dust is an almost meditative, slow-paced film about dealing with guilt.
It is set in the late 1990s, at the time of the first technology boom. Luc and Geert, whose company develops speech recognition software and whose high stock market value is based on illegal activities, learn from a journalist that their shady dealings have been exposed. Their company reacts quickly, and it is clear that the two will be arrested the next morning. Each of them now has one night left to sort everything out and face up to their responsibilities. And so we watch them do just that.
In this respect, the film is more similar to Spike Lee's 25 Hours, which was also screened at the Berlinale. But unlike 25 Hours, there is never a sense of urgency, of time passing and with it freedom.
Unfortunately, the story remains so dryly told that one remains indifferent to the two protagonists and their (self-inflicted) fate, and in the end one only wonders when the night, and with it the film, will finally be over.
The Education of Jane Cumming
The description of the Panorama film The Education of Jane Cumming is also reminiscent of well-known works such as Girls in Uniform and The Children's Hour, which is hardly surprising, given that Billy Wilder's film is also based on the historical court case in Scotland in the early 19th century. But Sophie Heldmann's film finds its own images and its own language to tell the story in an atmospherically dense way.
The two governesses Jane Pirie and Marianne Woods have founded their own small school. The wealthy Lady Cumming Gordon sends her three granddaughters there. Jane Cumming is the illegitimate daughter of her son and an Indian mother, which makes her an unloved outsider and also socially excluded. Slowly, however, she opens up to the two teachers, and when the three spend the summer together in a cottage by the sea, she gets a sense of belonging.
But when Jane and Marianne refuse to let her stay with them as a teacher and thus belong to them forever, Jane Cumming returns to her grandmother and triggers a scandal with a serious accusation that leads to years of litigation .
The film takes its time, telling the story more through glances than dialogue, with its beautiful images reminiscent of paintings from that period. In this way, it almost casually creates a convincing tableau of a time when female desire was still unheard of.
Outlook for the Berlinale day
On Monday, two festival favourites, Isabelle Hubbert and Lars Eidinger, will be presenting their joint film Die Blutgräfin (The Blood Countess). The competition programme once again offers a colourful mix of international films with At the Sea, Nina Roza and Wo Men Bu Shi Mo Sheng Ren .
