Day 04 — Tuesday, February 12

Ezequiel Schmoller reviews There Will Be Blood by Paul Thomas Anderson
Shaibu Husseini reviews Night And Day by Korean director and writer Hong Sangsoo
Ezequiel Schmoller talks to Abderrahmane Ahmed Salem, the founder and director of the Mauritanian "La Maison des Cinéastes"
Martyna Olszowska reviews Dennis Lee's debut film Fireflies In The Garden
Mayank Shekhar meets UK film and theater director Stephen Daldry
Natalia Ames visited a conference with Andrzej Wajda, the Polish filmmaker

Used by History
By Ezequiel Schmoller

At present Paul Thomas Anderson is one of the most ambitious American film directors. In There Will Be Blood, his latest film, he is somehow echoing the legacy of directors like John Ford and Martin Scorsese, especially films such as The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (Ford, 1962) and Gangs Of New York (Scorsese, 2002). Like There Will Be Blood, they revolve around the interrelation between the history of the United States and the stories that take place "within" that history. How, indeed, these modest stories are both a cause and a consequence of the bigger historical picture. But if Ford in as The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance was particularly interested in the way myths and legends made possible the expansion towards the West ("This is the West, sir. When the legend becomes fact, print the legend!") and Scorsese in Gangs Of New York dealt with the importance of blood-related issues in the early development of New York, Anderson is interested in more evident and directly historical problems: economic and religious-ideological factors which contributed to the growth of some areas of the Midwest at the dawn of the 20th century.

In There Will Be Blood the discovery of oil in a forsaken town triggers fierce competition between oil companies, one of which is owned by Daniel Plainview (Daniel Day-Lewis) as well as between Plainview and the local religious leader, Eli Sunday (Paul Dano). Anderson depicts the unfolding of events in a harsh and critical way: after all, his film is called There Will Be Blood and not "There will be flourishing cities." The tone of his film is ominous, the elegant camera movements create a mood of gravity. The discovery of oil and the construction of oil wells are depicted in a horrific manner, almost as if Anderson's was a horror film and oil was cursed. This is exemplified in the tragic accident that causes Daniel's son to go deaf.

Frequently throughout There Will Be Blood the oilfield and the church share the frame, as if they were mutually dependant. It is easy to see in the clash between an enterprising businessman and an ambitious priest the conflict (and relationship) between money and religion. But it is also simplistic. Daniel Plainview and the youthful Eli Sunday are far too special to represent abstract things like money and religion. Daniel Plainview is not just another businessman whose actions contribute to the expansion to the West. He is far too aggressive, too egocentric and too impulsive. He is much less diplomatic than the other businessmen that appear in the film. Those other businessmen will prevail. Daniel Plainview is an anomaly, a by-product of history. And Eli Sunday, with his incredible dose of greed and megalomania, too. None of the characters will have a happy ending. It is as if history created them, history used them and finally history disposed of them. (Ezequiel Schmoller)

Caught in the Middle of Night and Day
By Shaibu Husseini

With his new film Night And Day, Korean director and writer Hong Sangsoo, who won the best director prize at the 2007 Mar del Plata International Film Festival in Argentina with Woman On The Beach, brings to Berlin a deftly produced work, one that is grounded in reality and is driven by simple and spontaneous dialogue.

Night And Day focuses on human relationships, interactions and cross-pollination. The film also deals with the experience of travelling and the different levels of struggle found in relationships and how best to heal them.

Sung-nam (Kim Yeong-Ho) is a Korean artist who wins a national competition but flees Seoul for France, fearing he will be hounded by the state for a pardonable crime. In France, Sung-nam finds himself trapped between three women: his wife back in Seoul, an art student studying in Paris and his ex-girlfriend, a North Korean student. Sung-nam eventually returns to Seoul, but through him Sangsoo tells his audience some truths about relationships. He challenges the cliché of true love and in its place offers a thesis on what people can become as partners.

Sangsoo's cast makes the movie believable and pleasurable. They prove by their depth of character interpretation that Sangsoo worked brilliantly with them. One of the film's other pluses is Sangsoo's suggestive, rather than literal, portrayal of mature cinematic sex scenes.

Night And Day would have been tighter without some of the repetitive dialogue and action. There are also some problems with details: Sung-nam's source of income is never established. He embarks on a spending spree in Paris, an expensive city for a jobless immigrant.

Even so, Night And Day is a story that grows on you as you watch along. The movie's mechanics are well-oiled, culminating in an achievement of contemporary filmmaking. (Shaibu Husseini)

Images on the Move
By Ezequiel Schmoller

Abderrahmane Ahmed Salem is the founder and director of "La Maison des Cinéastes", a Mauritanian association that works on a voluntary basis and which, in his own words, "has the objective of spreading cinematic culture throughout the country, using the culture of images to bring people together." "La Maison des Cinéastes" travels throughout Mauritania screening films, introducing young people to movie technology, promoting debates, and allowing participants to shoot short films.

Considering the geographical and ethnic situation in Mauritania, the work of "La Maison des Cinéastes" is truly heroic. Can you comment on that?

Salem: Mauritania is a country with several different cultures and ethnic groups. Seventy per cent of the country is desert. There are many isolated zones and a high illiteracy rate. "La Maison des Cinéastes" tries to unite people and cultures: to show them what other regions of the country are like and how other ethnic groups live. So it plays an important role in development and education.

One of the main objectives of "La Maison des Cinéastes" is the screening of movies throughout the country, using a caravan that goes from place to place. What do you want to achieve with such projections?

Salem: With our screenings we try to address all kinds of subjects. We address education, we look at the different ways people behave, and we try to bring up ethical questions and problems. We work on health issues as well, issues such as AIDS, malaria, and giving birth safely. In addition, the idea is to create a sense of involvement, of closeness to people. So before the screenings we perform highly entertaining sketches, "starters" to grab their attention. We try to combine entertainment with education. There are in fact a lot of nomadic people in Mauritania, many of whom have never seen films.

How do people who never watched movies respond to them?

Salem: They see films and images as something really amusing, both entertaining and intense. There is a sense of complicity in some cases but in others there is an absolute rejection of films. To some degree they perceive it as magical. After some screenings in the villages, the kids come and touch the screen, to see if the movies are actually in there. At other times they make good-luck charms to protect themselves from the images. But in every case, at the end of the day, we feel that we have contributed to bringing people in Mauritania together. (Ezequiel Schmoller)

Life after 11:11?
By Martyna Olszowska

"The art of remembering is easier than the art of forgetting," declared a Polish philosopher, Tadeusz Kotarbinski. In Dennis Lee's debut film, Fireflies In The Garden, featuring the Berlinale Competition, there are two kinds of memory: one within the novel being written by the main character, Michael (Ryan Reynolds), and the other stemming from the family's home movies. And the question is: does the family fake happiness in order to look good on camera? Or does the animosity between father and son distort a recollection of a vanished summer when the idealized figure of mother, wife and sister (Julia Roberts) almost left home? 

The domineering father (Willem Dafoe) repeats like a mantra: "When you don't look after something enough, you don't deserve it." But does he deserve to be at the head of his family? Dafoe, in a remarkable performance, creates a character that has gone off the rails, like everyone in Fireflies. Depressed by his unsuccessful career as a writer and professor, he tries to an almost sadistic degree to make his own family perfect. The barrier between father and son grows larger and a tragic accident involving the mother cannot destroy it, even after a lapse of years. Michael has to return home and come to terms with his memories.

Lee constructs this domestic drama with considerable sensitivity, mixing the light, sometimes comic atmosphere with strong emotions. It's moving, but never corny. He brings the audience into this family world at a decisive moment, guiding them through the mosaic of characters. And in fact, the strength of the film lies in its actors. Julia Roberts proves once again (as in Erin Brockovich) that the more she matures, the more interesting an actress she can be. She builds up an image of the warm-hearted woman who must adopt the mask of both good mother and loyal wife, and then has to abandon her dreams. Her playing is subdued, as is that of the marvelous Emily Watson as the sister. The child actors also take the eye, especially Cayden Boyd as young Michael.

At 11:11 am precisely Michael's mother died and each day he looks at his watch to remember her. In fact, time stopped for him during that one particular summer so long ago. Time stops for each of the characters. Now, they must try to move forward – to 11:12. (Martyna Olszowska)

Stephen Daldry, a Non-Filmmaker
By Mayank Shekhar

Stephen Daldry is a chain-smoker we can see. Or he's turned into one as we catch him for a few minutes after a marathon discussion at the Berlinale Talent Campus on Sunday evening. By now, he's ordered himself a drink, a rather tall glass of red wine. The first sip suggests he needed one desperately.

Until this while, Daldry had been explaining key differences between theatre and films. Given his background as a stage-doyenne of sorts, we're sure he gets asked that a lot. He admittedly loves talking about being "a theatre person who has directed movies", as Daldry calls himself, repeatedly stating he is not a filmmaker. Despite a cent-percent success-rate at a best-director Oscar nomination on his filmography (The Hours, Billy Elliot), Daldry's self-description may not be incorrect. For one, theatre pays him considerably more. His hour-to-hour salary from filmmaking matches that of a home-cleaner's, he says. This unusual economics of public-art may be true for few countries in the world. Daldry comes from the United Kingdom.

His approach to movie direction as well appears to belong more to stage than cinema. Baffling to many, he takes week-long rehearsal breaks with actors in the middle of shooting schedules. To Daldry, the words, "I don't know", pretty much separate a director of films and theatre. If a movie-director were to use them, it would create panic on the film set. In theatre, the words merely suggest a work under progress (than a lack of pre-planning). You have to battle with the movies, he says.

But more importantly, Daldry mentions he prefers theatre as a reproduction of reality and an effective political tool, to cinema which is dream-like. "I may not go so far as to say it," he goes on nonetheless, "but film is intrinsically a right-wing medium (and theatre left-wing)." That statement may serve well Daldry's Marxist leanings from his youth. But what about the question of reach, we ask the director still globally known for his movies. "I don't give a shit about people in Cincinnati," he says.

Daldry's forthcoming film The Reader (Ralph Fiennes, Kate Winslet), about obsessive love and set in post-war Germany, is due out next year. You may look forward to it, even if in Cincinnati. (Mayank Shekhar)

In the Presence of a Master
By Natalia Ames

It is always enlightening to listen to a great director who is conscious of his personal contribution to film history and is able to talk about his work without false modesties or pretentiousness. Andrzej Wajda is one of those directors who has a clear task in his life, as he said in his panel: "I think it is my duty to show the history of my country, and I want to fulfill it down to the end."

The film critics Mark LeFanu and Ulrich Gregor asked questions about Wajda's work, focusing on the films Man Of Marble and Katyn, the latter of which, after finding box-office success in Poland, is being shown at the Berlinale and has been nominated for an Academy Award. After excerpts from these movies were shown, the conversation highlighted Wajda's engagement with the political history of his country, portrayed in his 49 movies. The ambitious reconstruction of the past in films like Land Of Promise and Pan Tadeusz was compared by LeFanu with another movie screened in the Berlinale, There Will Be Blood by Paul Thomas Anderson.

Gregor commented on the fight for truth we find in Wajda's movies, especially in Katyn, based on the events after the Katyn massacre in 1940, in which thousands of Polish policemen were killed, including Wajda's father. In a way, this is Wajda's most personal movie, but it keeps trying to reach the same objective that all his other movies do: as he said, "I want Polish people to be a nation, not a group of random people."

The dialogue was thorough in one important aspect of Wajda's cinema: the way movies influence people's collective beliefs. Gregor asked a provocative question: "Is it possible for a film to change people's minds?" Wajda responded by talking about his fight for freedom in the past: "Along with other Polish artists and writers, we were convinced that we had to push the boundaries of what was allowed by the government".

Wajda also spoke about the Film School he directs in Warsaw and he touched topics like casting, actors' directing and music for movies, making this conference a real lesson on cinema. (Natalia Ames)

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