My Berlinale Minutes 2012, Friday
"Paziraie sadeh" (Modest Reception) is worth watching for the opening scene alone - and for the rest just as well. An obviously rich urban couple travels the outer rural mountain area of Iran, trying to distribute seemingly endless plastic bags full of money among the poor people they meet. Watching them humble and offend those people in the process and being humilated in the end is a lot of stuff to think about.
"Hemel" provides a wide variety of explicite sex scenes, very few of them pleasant. The young woman who lives closely together with her father sees to it that her encounters with other men are short and non-committal. Her problems start (which is the end of the film) when she truely falls in love with a man who himself said from the beginning that their affair cannot last - obviously, since he is married to the closest co-worker of her father.
After "Elles" I was tired of sex in movies for some time. Here a Paris journalist interviewes students who prostitute themself to earn their living. Their tales are shown as film story of course ... Apart from Juliette Binoche - who's brilliant - the film has not much to offer for my liking.
"For Ellen" is an unspectacular film about a young rock musician. Seemingly out of a reflex he tries to fight to keep custody for his six-year old daughter which his ex-wife wants him to give up. He's obviously quite unreliable since he drinks heavily every night. Nevertheless he gets to spend an afternoon with his daughter and they get along well. The film ends by him spontaneously hitch-hiking on a truck on long-distance trip. And away he goes.
"Hemel" provides a wide variety of explicite sex scenes, very few of them pleasant. The young woman who lives closely together with her father sees to it that her encounters with other men are short and non-committal. Her problems start (which is the end of the film) when she truely falls in love with a man who himself said from the beginning that their affair cannot last - obviously, since he is married to the closest co-worker of her father.
After "Elles" I was tired of sex in movies for some time. Here a Paris journalist interviewes students who prostitute themself to earn their living. Their tales are shown as film story of course ... Apart from Juliette Binoche - who's brilliant - the film has not much to offer for my liking.
"For Ellen" is an unspectacular film about a young rock musician. Seemingly out of a reflex he tries to fight to keep custody for his six-year old daughter which his ex-wife wants him to give up. He's obviously quite unreliable since he drinks heavily every night. Nevertheless he gets to spend an afternoon with his daughter and they get along well. The film ends by him spontaneously hitch-hiking on a truck on long-distance trip. And away he goes.