This week brings the 30th edition of Berlin & Beyond (March 19-23), which first launched in 1996 in a very different San Francisco, under the auspices of a local Goethe-Institut that has also changed considerably in the decades since. Nonetheless, the festival—spotlighting new films from German-speaking nations—has managed to persevere, somewhat against the odds, even as some other annual Bay Area cinema events have had to scale back or fold in recent years.
Opening day this Thu/19 is back at the Castro Theatre, B&B’s traditional home—though the ensuing four days will take place at various other SF and Berkeley venues. The official kickoff feature is Ido Fluk’s Köln 75, an underdog tale about the real-life Cologne teen Vera Brandes (played by Mala Emde). Already a dedicated jazz fan in the mid-1970s, to the annoyance of her conservative family, she unexpectedly found herself in the position of concert promoter. She began with zero experience, but quickly realized her temperament and skills were ideally suited to such work. Nonetheless, it was a huge, risky leap to orchestrate a Cologne Opera House solo gig for the as-yet relatively little-known American improvisational pianist Keith Jarrett (portrayed as a near-basket case of neuroses by John Magaro), in what turned out to be a landmark performance.
It is a disappointment that when we finally get to that fabled show, which almost failed to happen, we don’t actually hear it, even in excerpt—presumably there were music-rights issues. Still, this dramatization of actual events captures the passion of a fandom so intense, it fosters a life’s profession. Director Fluk and star Emde will be present at the Castro screening.
Later highlights in the festival (which occupies SF’s Vogue Theater Fri/20, SFMOMA’s Phyllis Wattis Theater Sat/21, then moves to Berkeley’s Rialto Cinemas Elmwood Sun/22-Mon/23) include another leading role for Emre. Barbara Albert’s Blind at Heart, based on Julia Franck’s prize-winning book, has the actress as a young woman whose quest for freedom in the liberal atmosphere of 1920s Weimar Berlin runs aground in the subsequent oppressions of the Nazi era.
Other 20th-century historical dramas are Fatih Akin’s WW2-set Amrum, with Diane Kruger; and Michael Kofler’s A Land Within aka Zweitland, about the sometimes violent culture clash between German and Italian communities in post-war South Tyrol. Stefan Haupt’s Swiss I’m Not Stiller, based on a Max Frisch novel, focuses on an American traveler mistaken for a long-missing Communist sculptor in the early days of the Cold War. Paula Beer plays that MIA artist’s wife, and she is also the protagonist in frequent collaborator Christian Petzold’s latest Miroirs No. 3—another enigmatic tale of a prodigal possibly returned.
On lighter notes, there’s Bad Painter, a prankish exercise by actual veteran painter Albert Oehlen in which he’s played by none other than the recently deceased Udo Kier. It’s a self-satirizing, basically plotless goof whose other participants include Twin Peaks’ Grace Zabriskie, Sonic Youth’s Kim Gordon, and a French bulldog. A more straightforward look at the creative life is afforded by Cordula Kablitz-Post’s Kreator: Hate & Hope, a documentary portrait of the long-running (since 1982) German thrash metal band. Despite their onstage sound and fury, they’re a surprisingly amiable, well-adjusted bunch, not excluding such healthy choices as sobriety and veganism.
Contrastingly quiet The Frog and the Water from Thomas Stubor is an ingratiating road-trip buddy comedy of sorts, depicting the surprise friendship that develops between an intimidatingly hands-off foreign visitor (Kanji Tsuda) and the mute young German man with Down syndrome (Aladdin Detlefsen) who “runs away” from his assisted living facility and nonchalantly joins a passing Japanese tour group.
There’s still more in this year’s Berlin & Beyond, including films for youth (22 Lengths, Greetings from Mars), a gender-switched update of Richard III (No Beast. So Fierce.), and more in-person filmmaker guests. For the full schedule, program and ticket info, go here.
Also arriving this week:
Clara Bow has ‘It‘
Also returning to the Castro, albeit just for a single show in advance of its full annual event in May, is the San Francisco Silent Film Festival. The occasion is a new restoration of the most famous vehicle for the screen’s greatest Roaring Twenties flapper: Bow, whose screen persona crystallized that “new woman” archetype as loyal, impulsive, hot-tempered, forgiving, unpretentious, fun-loving, good-hearted, and of course sexy.
Already a star when It came out in 1927, it solidified her status by having proto-influencer “Madame” Elinor Glyn (who’d titillated readers with the then-torrid, now nearly-unreadable 1907 romance novel Three Weeks) pronounce her Hollywood’s truest distillation of the titular quality. What was “it”? Sex appeal, basically, though of course La Glyn had more lofty terminology at hand (“It is that quality possessed by some which draws all others with its magnetic force…it can be a quality of the mind as well as a physical attraction…).
No doubted doubted that Bow had It. Churned out in bulk (the prior year, she’d released eight features), her movies were seldom inspired, but she was effervescent. A limited actress, she was nonetheless full of charm, humor and “pep,” a screen natural who provided the model for cartoon character Betty Boop. Bow’s popularity endured into the early sound era, though she detested the new technology, as its bothersome microphones straitjacketed her trademark physical energy. But a series of embarrassing scandals and escalating mental health issues ended her screen career in 1933. She lived in relative seclusion for the remaining three decades of her life.
Directed by the forgotten Clarence G. Badger, It has her as a department store clerk who determines to catch the attention of dashing new boss Antonio Moreno—an actor who was nearly twice Bow’s age. She succeeds, though of course only after a considerable amount of comedic, then melodramatic contrivance. Beyond its stars’ chemistry, the movie endures in part because of its cheerfully subversive class consciousness: Shopgirl Bow’s working-class Manhattan milieu is depicted as full of life, the boss’ high society circles as stuffy and dull. (When she takes him on a date, it’s to eat hot dogs and ride the rides at Coney Island.) As a bonus, there’s young Gary Cooper in a small role as a newspaper reporter. The Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra will accompany the 75-minute feature’s Castro screening on Sun/22. More info here.
Tow
In It, Clara Bow works full-time while supporting an apparently unwed, sickly female flatmate with a baby—and makes all that looks pretty effortless. In this fact-inspired drama, Rose Byrne plays Amanda Ogle, a Seattle resident for whom nothing is easy, least of all her own jobless and homeless straits. After losing custody of a teenage daughter (Elsie Fisher) who’s now living in Utah, thanks to some significant substance-abuse and other issues, she is at least newly sober. But while seeking employment as a veterinary technician, she’s reduced to staying in her car. And a bad situation gets considerably worse when that car is stolen, ending up in a tow lot where despite being a crime victim, she can’t retrieve it without paying increasingly exorbitant fees.
The real-life heroine successfully fought that injustice in court, battling a vindictive fat-cat corporate lawyer (played here by Corbin Bernsen) with the help of a non-profit one (Dominic Sessa). But meanwhile, she was stuck in a shelter (whose various denizens are essayed by Octavia Spencer, Ariana Dubose, Demi Lovato, Lea DeLaria and others), when not out on the street.
It is duly an inspirational tale. But veteran TV director Stephanie Laing’s treatment leans towards predictably cute, sentimental beats. And hot on the heels of playing another astringent character in If I Had Legs I’d Kick You, Bryne is a little too close to caricature here. Looking like a down-market version of Absolutely Fabulous’ Patsy, this Amanda is an exhausting high-maintenance handful it’s hard to feel sufficient sympathy for. It’s the kind of movie you feel guilty for not liking more…but it’s just not that great. The best performance is from SF’s own Simon Rex as a towing service employee not impervious to this prickly heroine’s plight. Tow opens Fri/20 at SF’s Vogue, plus other Bay Area venues not yet announced at presstime.
Scary Movies: ‘1000 Women in Horror,’ ‘Bodycam’
Two new features on genre streaming platform Shudder offer some fun for fans of horror who aren’t tempted by the wide release this Friday of Ready or Not 2: Here I Come. (I enjoyed the first one, but this even bloodier direct sequel is arch without actually being witty, which lends the proceedings an oddly smug, sour tenor.)
Donna Davies’ 1000 Women in Horror, based on the book of the same name by Alexandra Heller-Nichols’, is a very entertaining survey of female participation and viewpoints in a celluloid field that’s traditionally been considered not just primarily a “man’s world,” but a frequently misogynist one. Particularly since the turn of the millennium, however, women have been making themselves known as horror enthusiasts, both on- and offscreen. There’s little room here for discussion of old-school violent sexism, the “male gaze,” et al.—of course those factors still exist, but Davies & co. are more interested in the ways that women have claimed the genre for their own.
We hear from directors, actors, screenwriters, scholars and others. They’re not a particularly starry assembly (bigger names are discussed but not interviewed), yet all offer some fresh insights. The structure is a sort of fictive-life-story one, from “Girlhood” (as depicted in films from The Bad Seed to M3GAN) through “School Years” (Carrie, The Craft etc.) and so forth to “Aging,” highlighting features in which elderly women from Bette Davis to Lin Shaye have often portrayed witchy old ladies.
A brisk progress touches on the phenomena of slasher-flick “final girls,” female vampires, rape-revenge narratives, and other tropes that can be exploitative, but also lend heroines an anything-but-passive agency. While there are plenty of famous films excerpted here, like The Exorcist or Suspiria, 1000 Women is also a goldmine of info for casual fans who’d like to find good movies further off the beaten track: Among those highlighted here are Brea Grant’s 12 Hour Shift and Natalie Erika James’ Australian The Relic. The documentary begins streaming on Shudder this Fri/20.
Already accessible on that platform since last weekend is the Canadian Bodycam from Brandon Christensen, whose prior features (including Night of the Reaper and Still/Born) I wasn’t especially enthused about. But this is the rare entry in that overexposed subgenre, the “found footage horror,” that makes it feel relatively fresh. Two city cops (Jamie M. Callica, Sean Rogerson) on night patrol get a call to investigate an apparent domestic disturbance. The dilapidated apparent drug house they must enter is creepy enough, before some disturbing encounters result in fatalities one officer is eager to cover up. Yet there is worse to come, as things take a cryptic supernatural turn.
Tense and unpleasant at the start, Bodycam (which the director co-wrote with sibling Ryan) does get a bit sillier as it goes on, traveling down a rabbit’s hole involving some sort of demon or monster. But it does sustain a sense of escalating emergency over which our protagonists have little or no control. And at just an hour and a quarter, this rollercoaster of uniformed panic does not overstay its welcome.
