Berlin Festival Part Three

In his final report, Geoff Andrew catches the sexually explicit Taiwanese film that has been stirring up the festival.

Feb 18 2005

While this writer found no out-and-out masterpieces at this year's Berlinale, he nevertheless had a good final day, which matched the rewards provided by his early experiences with 'Paradise Now' and 'Tickets'.

Not that it started too well. Despite a characteristically engaging performance from Sergi Lopez as a therapist/teacher for deaf children who gets involved with the mother (Sylvie Testud) of one of his charges, Alain Corneau's 'Words in Blue' suffers from a sentimental, incoherent and sometimes implausible script.

The same was true, of course, of the next movie I caught, Wes Anderson's 'The Life Aquatic' (see review elsewhere), but that appears to be the point: the current American darling's wacky, ironic comedy-adventure-drama-parody is rather more about narrative and how it influences our lives than it is about life itself.

Anderson's film has its flaws, but at least it kind of succeeds on its own smartass terms, whereas Corneau is often to be found floundering in generic cliché misguidedly applied to social realism: a seaside suicide attempt is especially unconvincing.

But another French film found far greater favour. There were few left unimpressed by Jacques Audiard's 'The Beat That My Heart Missed' (pity about that English title – it'd be a whole lot more manageable if the 'That' were dropped).

It's a dark fable inspired by James Toback's cult classic 'Fingers', with Romain Duris following in Harvey Keitel's footsteps as the divided 'hero' torn between his present (working as a heavy for dubious property profiteers) and his past (ambitions to become a concert pianist).

From this simple, almost schematic premise (Audiard aligns the basic animal instincts with an elderly dad and his male colleagues, the finer virtues with a dead mother and a couple of women), a taut, visually impressive psychological noir is created as Duris struggles to sort out his future. Many loved it, and I too found it stylish, intelligent and entertaining – I just didn't find it particularly involving.

I dare say some would say the same of 'The Wayward Cloud'; after all, Tsai Ming-Liang's deadpan, enigmatic, leisurely and largely wordless movies are an acquired taste. But anyone who enjoyed 'What Time Is It There?' should enjoy this belated sequel, in which Lee Kang-Sheng's lazy watchseller is eventually reunited with Chen Shiang-Chyi's lonesome beauty, just returned from her sojourn in Paris.

Fans of Tsai's 'The Hole' should have fun, too, because here too kitschy song-and-dance sequences interrupt the 'action' (if such it can be called) by way of ironic commentary on the characters' emotional states.

There will be those, however, who will find the sudden shift into an altogether darker mood for the last quarter-hour or so problematic, even, perhaps, offensive – as long as they haven't already been upset by regular outbursts of sexual activity rather more graphic than what we’ve come to expect from this fine Taiwanese auteur. Be warned: the opening watermelons will not prepare you for the final moments!