1. Melancholia (Lars von Trier)
2. Суходол / The Dry Valley (Alexandra Strelyanaya)
3. A Separation (Asghar Farhadi)
4. A Dangerous Method (David Cronenberg)
5. Carnage (Roman Polanski)
My weapon du jour:
HOT TEA WITH GINGER, HONEY AND LEMON
Ingredients:
I'm taking a two-week intensive language course in Persian (a.k.a. Farsi, Parsi, Irani) at the Technische Universität...
It has always been a little dream of mine to learn Farsi, maybe it's the writing, maybe it's the fact that there's a soft quality to spoken Farsi that really distinguishes it from Arabic. Plus, from what I understand, it's a total gateway into the Dari spoken in Afghanistan (!) So, cool, definitely.
It's also nerdily exciting to be able to read simple texts like this:
man allemani am//من آلمانی ام
>> (I am German)
(Sources: islamicart.ca; UTexas)
>> SEMI-HIGH BROW
I'll let you in on a little secret. I'm kind of itching for a tattoo...If I ever get one, it will totally be in Farsi, something along the lines of "I've seen half the world", with "half the world" written as the city Esfahan (which means "half the world") in Iran. Of course I will only do this after actually having visited the city in question. What thinkest thou? We're only young and stupid once, right?
>> LOW BROW
Germany's Next Top Model Monday night was so bad, it was good. The series kicks off with a casting. A slightly older but stunning Heidi Klum and two people I've never heard of (one of them is called "Q"...how Bond villain of him) pass judgment on a group of delusional teenagers.
There was so much screaming involved. And Black Eyed Peas played. And people falling in high heels:
(Can you guess which one is Q?)
I am NOT going to be watching this again this coming week. Or, SIGH, will I?
My favourite? Definitely A Serious Man, all about uncertainty, doubt, and trying to find answers when spirituality can't offer them. I don't think you need to be Jewish to "understand" this movie. It helps, however, to be a little bit of a nihilist. (It also helps to "get" physics.) No wonder this film is so popular in Germany ;)
For its acting, An Education was brilliant...definitely an escapist kind of movie, but you also leave feeling a little disillusioned, or, as Carey Mulligan's character, Jenny, says at one point: "I feel old. But not very wise." I couldn't shake the fact that Peter Sarsgaard was *woah* creepy, too...
The first film, The Legend of Suram Fortress, which I saw at the Berlinale, was a Georgian nationalist fable that propagated the kind of exoticized folklore that Soviet-era films loved to do. But SO pretty. Especially Georgian writing --> ამბავი სურამის ციხისა (the title in Georgian).
Oh, and Aisheen? Meh. Kind of disappointing actually, even though I did get to see it in West Berlin's coolest cinema, the Delphi Filmpalast.
The only good thing about the film was this awesome featured hip-hop group, DARG Team. I felt the movie couldn't decide whether it wanted to be a documentary or not.
A trip:
(or: > 24 hrs. in Bern and Zurich)
Switzerland is kind of of on everyone's shit list right now, from Libyan leader Qaddafi calling for a global jihad against the little mountain state to German tax evaders sweating it out because they fear their financial secrets are no longer safe in Swissy.
Me? I really just can't understand what they're saying.
More pictures here.
An exhibit:
Bestiarium by Walton Ford at the Hamburger Bahnhof.
Walton Ford is originally from Larchmont, NY, and he specializes in large, jewel-toned, striking images of animals engaging in violent acts. The exhibit was all nature and brutality and the tenuous distinction between humans and animals. It was a little bit like Audubon gone to the dark side. Absolutely stunning.
A[nother costume] party:
I went as Mia Wallace in Pulp Fiction.
Am now considering dyeing my hair ;) What do you think?
The party was cool, a very international crowd (Americans, Frenchies, Mongolians ;) and we listened to Balkan Beat Box and Die Antwoord. So, a fun night!
ALSO, IT'S FINALLY SPRING!!!1!
[...for a Georgian subtitled film called The Legend of the Fortress Suram.]
Competition for tickets was intense, though. I've never seen such buzz around Potsdamer Platz, which has quickly emerged as Ground Zero of the festival...although, to be fair, it's also V-day (Happy Hallmark card day, everyone!)
Potsdamer Platz is also the site of Berlin's two biggest commercial cinemas, the CineStar and the CinemaxX (and believe me, those names are as much of a mystery to me as are to any English speaker), not to mention the Grand Hyatt and the Ritz-Carlton, favoured by Hollywood stars attending the festival. The CineStar is actually one of the few cinemas where you can see major Hollywood blockbusters *in English*, which is why it's also a popular spot for American expats/tourists.
Films compete for a Golden Bear, which is conveniently also the symbol of Berlin. It's also pretty damn adorable.
(Hamburger Abendblatt)
The Berlinale is celebrating its 60th anniversary this year (did I pick the best year to go to Berlin, or what?), and I am majorly feeling the scale and scope of the whole event and its effect on the city. It's not just the dizzying array of films that's making my movie buff heart beat faster - short films, indie films, films about war, films in Japanese, Nouvelle Vague retrospective films -, there's also been a certain unmistakable energy to the city in the past few weeks, a kind of palpable sense of pride in the legacy of film-making that the city has to offer, and of celebration in what has become a lasting and meaningful/important festival.
Anyway. I was also planning on getting one of those Berlinale messenger bags that everyone who is anyone seems to be toting around, just so I, too, can be insufferable. Unfortunately, this year's bag looks like this:
FUGLY.
Last year's was *so* much cooler:
...and in 2008:
(Süddeutsche Zeitung)
*sigh* What do you think? Should I shell out 20 Euros for a bag this mediocre, even if it is somewhat special??
