OK, well it is another beautiful sunny day here in Berlin and I am stripped down to a hoodie to venture outside. Funny, as when I was here in 2013, the sun peeked its head out of the clouds on very rare occasions in the 15 days I was in town.
Regardless, it is another day to check out a few films here at the Berlinale EFM. That was after turning on the TV in my hotel room this morning , to see the strange face of cheesy German pop star Heino staring back at me, with trademark sunglasses and dyed blonde hair still intact. Good stuff:)
Well I have new Polish film called: Ederly to take a look at in an hour so I figured it was a good time to update the blog.
So far today I checked out a very slick and cool little movie titled: Diggers(Diggery; Russia 2016-Action/Horror).
synopsis is as follows with some minor additions by yours truly:
“When the last train of the night blows through the station and disappears deep into the tunnel system beneath Moscow rather than stopping and releasing its passengers, and when authorities successfully stifle all talk of the disappeared train and passengers, it falls to a group of young people to work their way into the tunnel system to try and discover what has happened to their friends.They certainly find something, but not entirely what they were looking for…” Twitch Films
A cool subterranean setting helps propel this story that has some twists and turns and rubber suited monsters-but I liked it’s atmospheric and low key style at the beginning and also the nicely ironic ending scene. The sum of the parts doesn’t equal the whole in this film,but still a pretty good ride while it lasted. Directed by Tikhov Kornev.
Big budget French production Come What May ( En Mai Fais Ce Qu’il Te Plait-France 2015-Drama) is a film I was familiar with through it’s score by Ennio Morricone. It was nice to hear that the movie was playing here in Berlin , so I squeezed into a screening this afternoon.
It is a story of French villagers fleeing the invasion of the German army in 1939. It is also intertwined with the story of a German fleeing the Nazis ,in the search for his son. The film portrays the human tragedy of the beginning of WWII in Western Europe, from a number of viewpoints; and it also captures the violence of the invasion in sporadic but effective action scenes. A nicely done film directed by Christian Carion and starring August Niehl(Inglorious Bastards),Matthew Rhys,and Mathilde Seigner. Morricones wonderful score and the sweeping cinematography, elevate the rather predictable and recycled story line and character arcs into a higher league than expected. Pure art house cinema fare I predict…
I missed my Polish film in the afternoon, but took a chance on a Spanish movie: The Exile ( El Destiero-Spain-2015-Thriller) and I am happy I did. Set in the alternately claustrophobic, and expansive , setting of mountainous Northern Spain during their Civil War, this film revolves around 2 polar opposite soldiers stuck on a lonely mountain outpost in the winter. Their only contact with the world is a weekly visit by a supply Sargent. That is until they come acros a wounded Polish woman , who is a Resistance Fighter. The two soldiers nurse her back to health, for ulterior motives, but they end up becoming attached to each other. However, the raging war will eventually intervene on their cloistered life, with tragic consequences. Directed by Arturo Ruiz and starring: Monika Kowalski, Joan Carlos Suau, and Ereic Frances. Recommended.
That’s it for tonight, no Telefilm Canada party for this guy..
HammertownNoir 