LIKE LAMBS WE JOY: Screen Test

This post is later than I intended it to be as I got sidetracked writing about football but here goes.

In February, the 64th Berlinale film festival opened with a screening of ‘The Grand Budapest Hotel’ at the Zoo Palast in Charlottenburg, kicking off twelve days of film-related festivities. Red carpets were laid, and cinema lovers, critics and Hollywood heavyweights alike came to town. Berlin’s association with film goes right back to the birth of the moving picture as it was here, in 1895, that the brothers Max and Emil Sklandowsky screened the world’s very first films to a paying audience. In the early years of the Twentieth Century, there were prestigious film studios at Weissensee, the most famous product of which is arguably ‘The Cabinet of Dr Caligari’ (1920).

During the Weimar Republic, and up to the end of World War II, the German film industry was based at the Ufa (Universum Film AG) studios at Babelsberg which produced such classics as Fritz Lang’s ‘Metropolis’ (1927) and Josef von Sternberg’s ‘The Blue Angel’ (1930). The studios achieved a global reputation, but their association after the war with the Nazi propaganda that had been produced there under the control of Joseph Goebbels, resulted in their decades-long decline.

These days the Babelsberg Studios are once again big business and in recent years film in Berlin has enjoyed something of a renaissance. The 1998 Tom Twyker film ‘Lola Rennt’ (in English, ‘Run Lola Run’) is now a cult classic. ‘Goodbye Lenin’ (2003) was widely acclaimed for its bittersweet portrayal of a son’s desperate attempts to maintain the fiction – following the fall of the Berlin Wall and Germany’s subsequent reunification – that the DDR still exists for the benefit of his dangerously ill mother, a fervent Party member who has been in a coma and knows nothing of the historic developments that have taken place. This film is one of my favourites; the story itself is implausible but it manages to retain its humour whilst exploring issues such as love and loss, truth and deception, and the impact of reunification on the citizens of the DDR. The 2006 film ‘The Lives of Others’, about a Stasi surveillance operation and its resultant tragedy, deservedly won multiple awards, including an Oscar.

Not surprisingly, there are cinemas of every stripe in the city, from vast multiplexes to tiny independent kinos whose theatres are not much bigger than a good-sized living room. The vast majority of non-German language films shown are dubbed, this being the preferred method when presenting foreign language films to German audiences. It was strange to me at first, and even a little comical, catching an English film on TV, and seeing the likes of Miranda Richardson and Jeremy Irons speaking out-of-synch German. Unfortunately, my language skills are still unequal to the task of trying to comprehend an entire movie so I always look out for screenings of undubbed English language films. Where a film is shown in its original language with German subtitles, the initials OmU (Original mit Untertiteln) will appear in the listings either after or alongside its title. Finding non-English foreign-language films with English subtitles is a bit of a challenge as naturally subtitles are almost always in German. English subtitles, where included, are indicated by the initials OmEU.

The cinema at the Sony Centre, Potsdamer Platz, http://www.cinestar.de/de/kino/berlin-cinestar-original-im-sony-center/ screens undubbed English language movies – essentially mainstream and Hollywood fare (we saw ‘Inside Llewyn Davis’ here on New Year’s Eve). As far as cinematic experiences go, this is indistinguishable from any other bland multi-screen complex where popcorn is available by the bucketload. It’s reasonable enough though if seeing the movie is your prime goal.

More intimate are the independent cinemas which can be found in practically every neighbourhood and often show films in their original languages.

Some of the city’s cinemas have historic or architectural interest, for example, the atmospheric Kino International on Karl Marx Allee, and the Babylon in Rosa Luxemburg Strasse with its Art Deco flourishes. Listings for both can be found at www.yorck.de/

During the Berlinale we went to see the French film ‘Dans la Cour’ (with English subtitles) at the Friedrichstadt-Palast. This venue is known primarily as a show place but it is rather plush and not a popcorn bucket to be seen. There was a bar but drinks could not be taken into the auditorium which meant that they had to be rushed. They were also on the pricey side.

The film was a delight – a depressive former singer (Gustave Kervern) takes a job as a caretaker in a Paris apartment house and develops a friendship with retired Mathilde (Catherine Deneuve) who has psychological problems of her own.

I was genuinely starstruck to see Deneuve (a Berlinale regular) herself attend the screening, along with Kervern and members of the production team.

In more humble surroundings, I went a couple of weeks later to see the Ken Loach film ‘Land and Freedom’ at the Lichtblick Kino www.lichtblick-kino.org/ on Kastanienallee. Loach was awarded an honorary Golden Bear at the Berlinale, and in recognition of this, cinemas throughout the city screened a selection of his films during the succeeding weeks. As ‘Land and Freedom’ is probably my favourite, I couldn’t miss the opportunity to see it, especially at such a charming kino. The theatre is miniscule – about thirty seats – and there is a tiny bar area in the front serving a limited range of bottled drinks, and snacks such as salt sticks but thankfully no popcorn buckets. ‘Casablanca’ is shown here every Saturday at midnight.

A couple of evenings later, we went to see ‘I used to be Darker’ at Brotfabrik www.brotfabrik-berlin.de/front.html a lovely venue – kino, theatre, gallery and bar all housed in a former bread factory – hence the name. It’s slightly swisher than the Lichtblick and with twice the number of seats, it’s still pint-sized, but a great option for catching the occasional English language film. Brotfabrik is situated on Prenzlauer Promenade on the renamed Caligari Platz; an information panel on the platz calls our attention – in English as well as German – to the one-time importance of ‘Filmstadt Weissensee’ just a kilometre or so away.

In the summer, there are several ‘freiluft’ – open-air – kinos around the city, where it’s also possible to see English language films.

For a further exploration of German film there are a couple of good museums: I recommend the Babelsberg Studios at Potsdam www.filmmuseum-potsdam.de/en/381-859.htm and the Film and Television Museum at Potsdamer Platz www.deutsche-kinemathek.de/de as excellent places for film buffs to while away a couple of hours.