{Alois Nebel}
{Beyond}
{Barbara}
{Violeta Went to Heaven}
{In the Fog}
{The intouchables}
{The Hunt}
{Neighbouring Sounds}
{Farewell, My Queen}
{Pola X}
{The Lion of the Moguls}
{La Pirogue}
{While the City Sleeps}
{Wuthering Heights}
So, here we are, fifty films seen in a small period. The film festival is intense. Brilliantly intense. It is all about endurance and complete saturation as you go from one session to the next. You can find yourself going from the company of a security firm in urban Brazil to a railway station on the Czechoslovak border drawn in black and white in but a flash. One handful of cashews chewed, one takeaway coffee knocked back, one shuffle from one cinema to the next, and there you are, somewhere else. Do you know the surrounds? Is the environ familiar? Expected? Often not. It plays out almost like one giant collage that you are a paper piece of until festival’s end. That, or a musical medley. A grab bag. Once we were in the summertime, in East Germany in the year 1980, and now it seems we are in costumes splendid by the Russian-born artist Boris Bilinsky in Jean Epstein’s The Lion of the Moguls. This is one brilliant patchwork. Are you dreaming in Swedish? Awaking in Paris? Not sure? Look out! There rides Catherine Deneuve on a smashed up Norton, mascara streaming mask-like down her face. My subtitles are blurred.
Yes, late this Monday afternoon, I miss already this intensity. This hurtling from one land to the next. Lurching from Chile with Violeta to the German-occupied Western frontiers of the Soviet Union. Blown from Africa in an 11 o'clock session to Bergman’s Sweden for a 1.30 screening. I miss, too, the living by a routine determined solely by a film schedule of my choosing. I knew where I had to be. 1.30, Greater Union, cinema 3. 4 o’clock, ACMI 2. 6.30pm, The Forum. 9 o'clock, The Forum. I miss the surprise of not knowing what film I was about to see. Is this the Romanian one? The one with such-and-such by what’s-their-name? Yes? No? Another handful of almonds?
As one friend messaged this morning, “You made it! You loved and lost and died in marvellous succession! Don’t get depressed now. Buy a big bar of chocolate and munch it on a park bench under an umbrella…” Wise words. Will do.
Seen:
Alois Nebel (Director: Tomáš Luňák)
Beyond (Director: Pernilla August)
Barbara (Director: Christian Petzold)
Violeta Went to Heaven (Director: Andrés Wood)
In the Fog (Director: Sergei Loznitsa)
The Intouchables (Director: Olivier Nakache)
The Hunt (Director: Thomas Vinterberg)
Neighbouring Sounds (Director: Kleber Mendonça Filho)
Farewell, My Queen (Director: Benoît Jacquot)
Pola X (Director: Léos Carax)
The Lion of the Moguls (Director: Jean Epstein)
La Pirogue (Director: Moussa Touré)
While the City Sleeps (Director: Ingmar Bergman)
Wuthering Heights (Director: Andrea Arnold)
+ With 11 more to go