Berlinale 2013: Day 1

It's been a crazy February, that begun where all Februarys should - in Berlin, watching loads of films. It comes as no surprise that after two intensive weeks of a film festival, you need at least two more to get over it, and so I did. Here I'll just share short reviews of the 35 (!) films I saw, along with the rating that I decided to introduce, the scale is 1-6, 1 being poor and simply load of rubbish, 6 being just legendary, which you might not see often. Let's begin.

 1. Opening film (out of competition): "The Grandmaster" dir. Wong Kar-Wai, with Tony Leung, Ziyi Zhang
      Being the head of this year's competition Jury, it must have been easier to have a film viewed during     Berlinale (and to open it, for that matter). Generally, although it's not my cup of tea, I can't say I was very disappointed with "The Grandmaster". It was long, at times I felt it didn't have much sense (script-wise), as the most interesting seemed to be the richly embroidered kung-fu shoes. But well, as it turned out, it definitely wasn't the worst among all the competition films (it was out of competition).

Rating: ***

2. Panorama Opening film: "A Fold in My Blanket" dir. Zaza Rusadze, with Tornike Bziava, Tornike Gogrichiani, Giorgi Nakashidze
     This debut film of a Georgian director was a rather successful one, although it lacked coherence. At times one could sense good ideas, playing with dreams and reality, but most of them were drowned by poor execution. Nevertheless, Rusadze remains a promising director.

Rating: ***
More.

3. Panorama: "I Used to be Darker" dir. Matt Portenfield, with Ned Oldham, Kim Taylor, Hannah Gross
     As it always is with Panorama, there are no boring or stupid films. Simply enough. The movies shown here are always intriguing, perhaps sometimes more, sometimes less. I never got bored during this feature debut. It is about a family of musicians that get divorced leaving their teenage daughter outside of it, but nevertheless, very much into their own problems. At one time there comes another teenage cousin to visit from Ireland, and she brings in a new perspective on certain things. There is good music, real emotions, good script, too.

Rating: ***1/2
More.

The first day of Berlinale was also marked by press conference with the members of the Jury.

... and a meeting with Zaza Rusadze