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Short Films and Long Duty
Jan. 18th, 2009 12:47 pmLast night, the Short Film Festival in Bamberg came to a close. As a member of the jury, I had to watch every single one of the 52 movies presented, which was deeply exhausting but for the most part both fascinating and fun. Until now, I had watched the occasional short movie, of course, mostly before a long one, and never more than one or two in a row. Seeing so many together showed the amazing variety of what was possible to do with this form. Mind you, there was a slight downside to this, because while we had three awards to give, they were for best, silver and bronze, so to speak, not for categories. And comparing a comedic short film to a drama or tragedy is as difficult as in the long forms.
The length varied between three or four minutes to thirty. Mind you, none of us went for the 30-minutes contributions. They felt like missing the point of the genre, and like they would have been better off being developed into a feature length movie. On the other hand, there were contributions between eight or 14 minutes which managed to tell a complex story far better than many a feature has done. There was a lot of animation, comparatively speaking, and one of my favourites was a satire on the Deutsche Bahn, our railway system, presenting three conductors who were fired and tried to stage a train roberry in revenge, only to be foiled by their inability to not behave like conductors once they were on the train (for example, one of them saw a passenger putting his bare feet on the seat opposite him and just had to act). Two thirds were not animated films, though, and the acting was by and large excellent, with only a very few films betraying the fact their directors had to use buddies instead of "real" actors. Stylistically, they moved between bare minimalism - for example, two films showed nothing but a single actor in front of a white background - to incredibly elaborate and detailed settings. The film which won second place and is in fact on the short list for the Oscars (we'll find out next week whether it gets nominated), Spielzeugland, by contrast, is set during the Third Reich and everything from the hair style of the women to the type of suitcases used fits; it easily is up to comparison with big budget costume epics in this regard. And, incidentally, in fourteen minutes pulls off a complex story that works with two different timelines being intercut. It also takes on different types of lies, responsibilities and trusts its actors to sell the crucial moments of decision, which have almost no dialogue, just one very short sentence spoken.
The short film crowned as best, though, was another one: Dunkelrot, which in twelve minutes tells the story of a couple at the start of their 60s. The wife, Hannah, has Alzheimer, and her husband, Erich, then finds out something about their past he hadn't been aware of. What made this outstanding was both the sensitive acting and the script, which never made Hannah just into the object, the victim, but got across a sense of her strong personality even while she was falling apart, and managed to give us an impression of all the history of this couple, the complexity of their marriage, and made us believe in the decision Erich makes at the end. The sense of love and hope there doesn't feel fake or sentimental but earned.
A film I wish we'd been able to give an extra award: Sommersonntag, ten minutes long, which was the one that made me cry. About a father and son, with the father having to make a horrible choice between saving his son or saving 232 passengers on a train; the moment of decision, the actor's face - Axel Prahl delivering a fantastic performance - was incredibly intense and still haunts me. The only reason why after much discussion this one wasn't among the final three was that there was a final monologue which we felt was somewhat unnecessary; Dunkelrot and Spielzeugland didn't make that mistake and as I said trusted their actors and the power of the visuals more.
There were also several interesting documentaries, especially one about a Polish workers living near an old mine which has been closed years ago, who still illegaly scrape off what coal is left because of poverty and cold. There are no safety measures, nothing, and it was depressing but real, especially since there was the awareness it wouldn't change any time soon. On the lighter side, there was a documentary about a shephard which was fun to watch but a bit pointless, with an hilarious animated credit sequence.
Oddest occurance during the festival: when a Russian-German co production was presented, and the German producer, invited to talk about the film afterwards, used the opportunity to say he hates it now that that his romantic professional relationship with the director had fallen apart and how thoroughly disappointing he found the film now. What a jerk, thought we, and if the film had been better we'd have been tempted to give it an award just because, but alas, it was not.
Weirdest reality disconnect: when one of the journalists present wondered why there were no music vids, and whether the art died out. I said they were alive and well on YouTube but restrained myself from saying something about articles in the New Yorker about Luminosity's vids and the whole fannish art form. Clearly, he was not a geek. (Though many of the other people present were; also, the festival-visiting audience was mostly young, between 20 and 30, with only about 20% older than 40 or 50.)
My two fellow jurors never had been in Bamberg before - one was from Berlin, and as opposed to most people who moved there really from Berlin, he was born there, and became a film critic and radio moderator, and the other originally hailed from East Germany as well but like myself lives in Munich now - so I gave them a tour. Now, my hometown isn't called the "Franconian Rome" for nothing; we have seven hills, and you bet we climbed several of them in pursuit of beautiful churches and great views. The guys were somewhat exhausted after that, for some reason... Seriously, though, that was necessary because otherwise we were locked in a cinema for at least six hours in a row every day.
The length varied between three or four minutes to thirty. Mind you, none of us went for the 30-minutes contributions. They felt like missing the point of the genre, and like they would have been better off being developed into a feature length movie. On the other hand, there were contributions between eight or 14 minutes which managed to tell a complex story far better than many a feature has done. There was a lot of animation, comparatively speaking, and one of my favourites was a satire on the Deutsche Bahn, our railway system, presenting three conductors who were fired and tried to stage a train roberry in revenge, only to be foiled by their inability to not behave like conductors once they were on the train (for example, one of them saw a passenger putting his bare feet on the seat opposite him and just had to act). Two thirds were not animated films, though, and the acting was by and large excellent, with only a very few films betraying the fact their directors had to use buddies instead of "real" actors. Stylistically, they moved between bare minimalism - for example, two films showed nothing but a single actor in front of a white background - to incredibly elaborate and detailed settings. The film which won second place and is in fact on the short list for the Oscars (we'll find out next week whether it gets nominated), Spielzeugland, by contrast, is set during the Third Reich and everything from the hair style of the women to the type of suitcases used fits; it easily is up to comparison with big budget costume epics in this regard. And, incidentally, in fourteen minutes pulls off a complex story that works with two different timelines being intercut. It also takes on different types of lies, responsibilities and trusts its actors to sell the crucial moments of decision, which have almost no dialogue, just one very short sentence spoken.
The short film crowned as best, though, was another one: Dunkelrot, which in twelve minutes tells the story of a couple at the start of their 60s. The wife, Hannah, has Alzheimer, and her husband, Erich, then finds out something about their past he hadn't been aware of. What made this outstanding was both the sensitive acting and the script, which never made Hannah just into the object, the victim, but got across a sense of her strong personality even while she was falling apart, and managed to give us an impression of all the history of this couple, the complexity of their marriage, and made us believe in the decision Erich makes at the end. The sense of love and hope there doesn't feel fake or sentimental but earned.
A film I wish we'd been able to give an extra award: Sommersonntag, ten minutes long, which was the one that made me cry. About a father and son, with the father having to make a horrible choice between saving his son or saving 232 passengers on a train; the moment of decision, the actor's face - Axel Prahl delivering a fantastic performance - was incredibly intense and still haunts me. The only reason why after much discussion this one wasn't among the final three was that there was a final monologue which we felt was somewhat unnecessary; Dunkelrot and Spielzeugland didn't make that mistake and as I said trusted their actors and the power of the visuals more.
There were also several interesting documentaries, especially one about a Polish workers living near an old mine which has been closed years ago, who still illegaly scrape off what coal is left because of poverty and cold. There are no safety measures, nothing, and it was depressing but real, especially since there was the awareness it wouldn't change any time soon. On the lighter side, there was a documentary about a shephard which was fun to watch but a bit pointless, with an hilarious animated credit sequence.
Oddest occurance during the festival: when a Russian-German co production was presented, and the German producer, invited to talk about the film afterwards, used the opportunity to say he hates it now that that his romantic professional relationship with the director had fallen apart and how thoroughly disappointing he found the film now. What a jerk, thought we, and if the film had been better we'd have been tempted to give it an award just because, but alas, it was not.
Weirdest reality disconnect: when one of the journalists present wondered why there were no music vids, and whether the art died out. I said they were alive and well on YouTube but restrained myself from saying something about articles in the New Yorker about Luminosity's vids and the whole fannish art form. Clearly, he was not a geek. (Though many of the other people present were; also, the festival-visiting audience was mostly young, between 20 and 30, with only about 20% older than 40 or 50.)
My two fellow jurors never had been in Bamberg before - one was from Berlin, and as opposed to most people who moved there really from Berlin, he was born there, and became a film critic and radio moderator, and the other originally hailed from East Germany as well but like myself lives in Munich now - so I gave them a tour. Now, my hometown isn't called the "Franconian Rome" for nothing; we have seven hills, and you bet we climbed several of them in pursuit of beautiful churches and great views. The guys were somewhat exhausted after that, for some reason... Seriously, though, that was necessary because otherwise we were locked in a cinema for at least six hours in a row every day.
