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Early on in the Berlinale, the organizers already knew that this year was a great success, having already sold more than 267,000 tickets in the early days. Add that to the fact that the new location of Verti Music Hall, substituting the Friedrichstadt-Palast, seems to have been well received by the public.
On the other hand, however, along the corridors and in the press room, the insiders as always, have found something to complain about. For them, this year logistics aren’t as smooth. One of the reasons is indeed probably the number of participants, which haven’t been so high since 2019. PR folks and Journalists are dissatisfied with the poor organization of the interview locations and the always nerve-wracking ticketing system, which instead of improving seems to make even less sense than last year.
Colonialism is the new family
While already the first speculations about the possible winners are beginning to spread, not all the movies in the competition have been shown. Between Thursday and Friday five more movies will debut. Therefore, the game is more than still open. Especially when we remember that last year’s Golden Bear Winner Alcarràs by Catalan director Carla Simón, was the last film shown.
In this year’s Berlinale, the usual themes of love, family, and finding oneself are present. However, maybe for the first time, another one is coming to the fore. Namely, how to deal with the legacy of colonialism. At least three films in competition, and many more in the parallel sections, are dealing with this complex issue. The Survival of Kindness by Rolf de Heer, Disco Boy by Giacomo Abbruzzese, and Limbo by Ivan Sen are competing for the Golden Bear. Not all of them however succeed in subverting the colonial power structure embedded in western’s cinema imagination.
Survival of Kindness by Rolf de Heer
The protagonist of Survival of Kindness is BlackWoman (Mwajemi Hussein), a black woman who, after being abandoned in the middle of nowhere, embarks on a journey toward civilization, which however seems to be a much worse place to live, than the wilderness in which the white people wanted her to die. In the end, despite being repeatedly brutalized because of the color of her skin, the kindness within her survives. As also demonstrated by the desire to help some sick friends, despite the risk of contracting a mortal plague.
This rather non-narrative feature, with intelligible dialogue, leaves very little room for poetry and imagination. The plot, and the message behind Survival of Kindenss, or rather better say in front of it, are so obvious and didactic that you wonder if you are not dumb. Is it a complex philosophical masterpiece you will never comprehend? Something like a satire of this new wave of forced “decolonization” in arts, reaching also cinema, mainly triggered by the desire to access public funds and being shown in politically committed festivals?
Dutch director Rolf de Heer, known for his work with the aboriginal actor David Gulpilil in the trilogy The Trackers, Ten Canoes and Charlie’s Country, argues that this “tale” was conceived at a time in which the Black Lives Matter movement and Covid19 were ruling his world. As made very clear by the gas mask worn by the bad white people mistreating the Black people. Survival of Kindness condemns institutional racism resulting from colonialism. However, it shows, once more, the same images of abuse and degradation that Black people had to suffer throughout history, and still endure today.
Disco Boy by Giacomo Abbruzzese
Like Heer’s movie, this one shows a Black woman being beaten, humiliated, and without proper clothing. Abbruzzese’s first narrative feature, Disco Boy reinforces the “good” old colonial stereotypes of western visual culture. Beautiful Black naked bodies dancing at deep beats for the pleasure of mainly white western spectators, armed Africans struggling to survive in the jungle, Nigerians killing each other in civil war while using very rudimental technology, a white man dangerously attracted by the beauty of a sensual black woman.
Aleksei (Franz Rogowski) is a young Byelorussian fleeing his country to find a better future in France. There he joins the foreign legion, which will grant him European nationality in five years. While on a mission, he ends up in the Niger Delta where he meets Jomo (Morr Ndiaye), a local eco-terrorist trying to resist the petrol industry exploiting his country. Director Abbruzzese claims he wanted to shoot a war movie from two perspectives, rather than one, as usual. However, as in most war movies, the white man survives, although coming out in pieces.
Accused of stealing from Claire Denis’ 1999 French Foreign Legion feature Beau Travail, Abbruzzese had to struggle in finding funding for his first narrative feature. Also convincing the actors Rogowski and Ndiaye to join the production, which lasted a total of ten years, was apparently not easy. In the meantime, director Abbruzzese worked on other documentary projects. This probably explains the fragmentary nature of Disco Boy, which seems to be kept together by the energetic soundtrack of techno composer Vitalic rather than a clear vision. The vivid colors, as those shown by the use of infrared cameras, give at least a twist to the obvious scenes of soldiers being mistreated at a boot camp, migrants suffering while crossing the borders to access Europe, African dancing around a fire or on stage, and combats in the jungle. All this reiterates a white (man) gaze.
Limbo by Ivan Sen
Limbo is a liminal place, a state of being, like purgatory, where you are suspended before getting to know if you will go to hell or paradise. This is what detective Travis Hurley (Simon Baker) hears when entering the church of a small town in the Australian outback. He is there, to finally understand what happened to Charlotte Hayes, a young aboriginal girl who disappeared 20 years before. Limbo however is also the physical and spiritual place, where Charlotte’s siblings Charlie (Rob Collins) and Emma (Natasha Wanganeen), and their children, have been trapped since then. Without knowing the truth, they cannot carry on with their lives.
Limbo is a black-and-white desert noir, alluding to a dichotomous Black-White society. The established director Ivan Sen brings across the screen the heavy weight of injustice carried every day by indigenous communities, in Australia but also around the rest of the world. He does so with very few lines. For example, when detective Travis asks Charlie why the police accused two random aboriginals of his sister’s killing, the devastated brother candidly answers “Because they are Black”. Thus, reassuming in three words that Charlotte’s case has never been solved because Australian postcolonial institutions are based on structural racism and discrimination.
The breathtaking images of the brutally exploited landscapes of the opal-mining capital of Coober Pedy mirror the existence of the movies’ protagonists. This is the postcolonial existence of many aboriginal people in Australia, seems to argue director Sen, who is himself aboriginal. We don’t see any of the stereotyped singing or dancing often associated with ‘natives’. Instead, in a few scenes the spectator gets a glimpse of the richness of this culture from an indigenous perspective. As when Emma shows a painting of her sisters and explains the symbology associated to it, or when Charlie talks with an uncle in one of the 300 aboriginal languages existing in Australia.
Subverting power structures
But why are actors of color too often trapped into such roles of subalternity also in fiction? Real empowerment consists in subverting the existing power structures, without exoticizing “the other”, but rather showing Black and white as equals. In this sense, director Sen does a great job of representing the everyday struggles of the Australian indigenous community, without romanticizing or dramatizing them, exposing the political nature of discrimination as it is since colonial times.
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