April 16, 2006
February 18, 2006
If you're gonna be a tourist, act like one
Yesterday was my first out and about day in Berlin. It was raining, the kind of rain that can't make up its mind. I felt like yelling to the sky, you can stop, or you can give me a storm, just don't drizzle.
My first destination was the Jewish Museum, a monument lost somewhere in the South of Berlin. Apartments that were once squeaky yellow cubes neatly arranged along a boulevard now blended in color with the smoky gravel at their feet. Bleak neighbourhood, I thought, my tourist mind proudly calculating that this must be the authentic, untouristic part of Berlin.
The museum was a surprising, solemn experience. The exhibition begins in the underground, a German expressionist maze organized along jagged shapes straight out of Nosferatu. The actual exhibits are nestled within the dissymetric walls. They are belongings of Jewish families that successfully or not, tried to flee Berlin during the antysemitic exterminations.
Passports of those that successfully exited the country, the number of stamps on them testifies to the onerous process through which this is possible.
On the other side of the underground, there is a grey stone flight of stairs leading up to the first and second floors. They run through 2000 years of Jewish history. Here again, the setting is little reminiscent of traditional exhibition spaces. There are some pictures hanging on the wall, some old fragments of stones in glass cases, but for the most part, these two floors consist of interactive games which project the player into Jewish life at a particular time and place. I indulged in the computer game "Would you be a good court Jew in 1300s Germany?" It was a multiple choice questionnaire. Questions ranged from "Would you lend money to the prince to go to war or stay in your home town and start a business?" to "would you live with the local prince and work at the court or stay at home and open a refuge for poor jewish people?". After I had answered (rather guessed at) all these questions, the computer came up with the following analysis: You will ruin yourself in the space of a few years. You have had enough sense though to preserve your life.
The following rollers document Jewish people that have Christianized their names out of necessity.
The following, as you may have guessed, are celebrations of Berlin everyday life. The Berlin subway in one word: glorious. It works on a system of trust. You can buy a ticket, or not buy a ticket. No annoying automatic doors or turning metallic bars, just pure space and steps. The inside of the subway trains, German quality in the mold of fake wood.
Next picture: witty illustration of how the new and the old meet and assemble in Berlin.
Every little boys and girl's dream: a giant "babby foot"(as we would call it in french)
Another document of authentic touristic activity, yes I took the picture of the Dome Church on the island of museums. More interesting though (and I know this makes me sound like a cultural philistine) were the pieces of ice silently gliding along the adjacent canal.
The Berlinale bear, in the modern center of town, you can't miss it. Towering red bears pop up at every street corner or immerge on every square center. Here we are at the center of the modern center of town: the sony center. A glass roof, a movie theatre, a red bear; what more could you ask for. Other interesting characteristic of the Berlin festival is the logo. Different fragments of the messy calligraphy of Berlinale. The fragment varies with the spot, so behind the bear, the movie theatre has a big 'le' over its entrance.
The first time I have ever seen one of these: an automatic cigarette dispenser.
My first destination was the Jewish Museum, a monument lost somewhere in the South of Berlin. Apartments that were once squeaky yellow cubes neatly arranged along a boulevard now blended in color with the smoky gravel at their feet. Bleak neighbourhood, I thought, my tourist mind proudly calculating that this must be the authentic, untouristic part of Berlin.
The museum was a surprising, solemn experience. The exhibition begins in the underground, a German expressionist maze organized along jagged shapes straight out of Nosferatu. The actual exhibits are nestled within the dissymetric walls. They are belongings of Jewish families that successfully or not, tried to flee Berlin during the antysemitic exterminations.
Passports of those that successfully exited the country, the number of stamps on them testifies to the onerous process through which this is possible.
On the other side of the underground, there is a grey stone flight of stairs leading up to the first and second floors. They run through 2000 years of Jewish history. Here again, the setting is little reminiscent of traditional exhibition spaces. There are some pictures hanging on the wall, some old fragments of stones in glass cases, but for the most part, these two floors consist of interactive games which project the player into Jewish life at a particular time and place. I indulged in the computer game "Would you be a good court Jew in 1300s Germany?" It was a multiple choice questionnaire. Questions ranged from "Would you lend money to the prince to go to war or stay in your home town and start a business?" to "would you live with the local prince and work at the court or stay at home and open a refuge for poor jewish people?". After I had answered (rather guessed at) all these questions, the computer came up with the following analysis: You will ruin yourself in the space of a few years. You have had enough sense though to preserve your life.
The following rollers document Jewish people that have Christianized their names out of necessity.
The following, as you may have guessed, are celebrations of Berlin everyday life. The Berlin subway in one word: glorious. It works on a system of trust. You can buy a ticket, or not buy a ticket. No annoying automatic doors or turning metallic bars, just pure space and steps. The inside of the subway trains, German quality in the mold of fake wood.
Next picture: witty illustration of how the new and the old meet and assemble in Berlin.
Every little boys and girl's dream: a giant "babby foot"(as we would call it in french)
Another document of authentic touristic activity, yes I took the picture of the Dome Church on the island of museums. More interesting though (and I know this makes me sound like a cultural philistine) were the pieces of ice silently gliding along the adjacent canal.
The Berlinale bear, in the modern center of town, you can't miss it. Towering red bears pop up at every street corner or immerge on every square center. Here we are at the center of the modern center of town: the sony center. A glass roof, a movie theatre, a red bear; what more could you ask for. Other interesting characteristic of the Berlin festival is the logo. Different fragments of the messy calligraphy of Berlinale. The fragment varies with the spot, so behind the bear, the movie theatre has a big 'le' over its entrance.
The first time I have ever seen one of these: an automatic cigarette dispenser.
February 17, 2006
God Grew Tired of Us or How I Started Growing Less Tired of the Berlin Film Festival
How? Marketing Screenings: a jewel of an invention designed to avoid early-bird ticket queues for people interested in buying. You just pop up in front of the door at the screening time, show your card (mine is blue with a photo looking like some goth freak: I had just gotten out of bed) and enter in a virtually empty theatre, it stays that way until the end of the movie at which point it becomes empty.
I have been to three market screenings (four actually if you count my cutting off one to get to the other) in the last two days. The first was God Grew Tired of Us, an inspiring documentary on Sudanese that were offered refuge in the United States.
There are two big names up on the film's front cover in Variety:
it is narrated by NICOLE KIDMAN and executively produced by BRAD PITT.
Those are crowd attracting devices. Nicole's voice comes on in sparse twenty second spurts, its silky almost suggestive undertones ring discordant in the footage of civil war and famine. Brad Pitt stays behind the camera.
The documentary is not as dynamic or catchy as Fahrenheit 911, it maintains a respectful, unexaggerated tone gilded with touching moments and even a little comic relief. The interviews begin in the Sudanese refugee camps in Kenya. The Sudanese children that fled their country's civil war on foot have spent over 10 years in the camps, despite their age, they are still called the Lost Boys and Girls.
In 1991, the United States picks a few among their crowd and welcomes them to cities such as Syracuse and Pittsburgh. Before the departure, interviews receptacle justified curiosity and anxiety "What is a shower?" " I have never used electricity in my life, it will be very hard for me to use." On the plane, their faces frown as they unbeknownst gobble up whole sticks of butter, "It is not as good as our food back in the refugee camps" comments one of the Lost Boys.
But they are determined to survive and send money back to their family and friends. The touching part is that most of them suceed to do so. John grinds his teeth through three jobs but finally manages to find the family he had lost during his flight from Sudan and bring them to the United States.
Panther fights through factory life for three years, at the same time receiving his high school diploma and continuing on for a bachelor's degree. He returns to Africa for a short while to marry his girlfriend there and bring her back to the United States with him. The Lost Boys and Girls become a community in the United States and continue striving for peace in their homeland.
Life inside the EFM booths
Here is a short detail of daily life inside the European Film Market:
It is located in the modern center of Berlin (Potsdamer Platz), a jumble of polygonal glass buildings that look like truncated versions of the skyscrapers in 1980s science fiction films. Number 11 of the Platz, a rising triangle of glass cuts right into Stressemann Strasse traffic.
Each movie seller (can be a production company for example) has a booth in the EFM and the glass skeleton of Number 11 contains a portion of those booths on the fourth and fifth floors. All day long, buyers (of their country's distribution rights) and service sellers (legal protection, market research etc...) pop in, discuss deals and then pop in a few more times to continue discussing them, until a deal memo is signed. Most of them ask to see clips of the movie that is being sold.
Interior decoration specifics:
The carpeting is grey
Tall windows rise like their stained glass counterparts in cathedrals
A meter wide screen squats in the corner
Grey telephone, fax machine and black tables and chairs which can be added or substracted from.
On the side of the elevators are two drink refrigerators, they contain floor after floor of low calorie flavored drinks from this sponsor brand. I forgot the name, but I can tell you which is the all time favorite flavor (judging by the relative emptyness of that level in the early afternoon). It is granat-rosen. It tastes nothing like Granat (whatever that is) or Roses, probably something in between.
It is located in the modern center of Berlin (Potsdamer Platz), a jumble of polygonal glass buildings that look like truncated versions of the skyscrapers in 1980s science fiction films. Number 11 of the Platz, a rising triangle of glass cuts right into Stressemann Strasse traffic.
Each movie seller (can be a production company for example) has a booth in the EFM and the glass skeleton of Number 11 contains a portion of those booths on the fourth and fifth floors. All day long, buyers (of their country's distribution rights) and service sellers (legal protection, market research etc...) pop in, discuss deals and then pop in a few more times to continue discussing them, until a deal memo is signed. Most of them ask to see clips of the movie that is being sold.
Interior decoration specifics:
The carpeting is grey
Tall windows rise like their stained glass counterparts in cathedrals
A meter wide screen squats in the corner
Grey telephone, fax machine and black tables and chairs which can be added or substracted from.
On the side of the elevators are two drink refrigerators, they contain floor after floor of low calorie flavored drinks from this sponsor brand. I forgot the name, but I can tell you which is the all time favorite flavor (judging by the relative emptyness of that level in the early afternoon). It is granat-rosen. It tastes nothing like Granat (whatever that is) or Roses, probably something in between.
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