The Focus Pull Film Journal The Focus Pull Film Journal
The Focus Pull Film Journal The Focus Pull Film Journal
  • Full Issues 
  • Reviews 
  • Features 
  • OUR TEAM
  • Info.
    • OUR TEAM
  • Content
    • Full Issues 
      • Issue #01
      • Issue #02
      • Issue #03
      • Issue #04
      • Issue #05
      • Issue #06
      • Issue #07
      • Issue #08
      • Issue #09
      • Issue #10
      • Issue #11
      • Issue #12
      • Issue #13
      • Issue #14
      • Issue #15
      • Issue #16
      • Issue #17
      • Issue #18
      • Issue #19
      • Issue #20
      • Issue #21
      • Issue #22
      • Issue #23
      • Issue #24
      • Issue #25 - Horror Week
      • Issue #26
      • Issue #27
      • Issue #28
      • Issue #29
      • Issue #30
      • Issue #31
      • Issue #32
      • Issue #33
      • Issue #34
      • Issue #35
      • Issue #36
      • Issue #37
      • Issue #38
      • Issue #39
      • Issue #40
    • Reviews 
      • (All Reviews)
      • Action Adventure
      • Animation
      • Biography/History
      • Comedy
      • Crime
      • Documentary
      • Drama
      • Foreign
      • Horror
      • Romance
      • Sci-Fi
      • Thriller
    • Features 
      • (All Features)
      • Bonding with Bond
      • Double Exposures
      • Essays
      • Event Coverage
      • Lists
      • New to Netflix
      • News
      • Retrospectives
    • OUR TEAM
REGISTER
@
LOGIN
Features
0
previous article
Berlinale 2015: Knight of Cups
next article
Berlinale 2015: Day Seven

Berlinale 2015: Day Six

by Maximilien Luc Proctor on February 11, 2015

Berlinale 2015

Because I got off to a slightly late start this morning, I had to start running by the time I had hit Potsdamer Platz in order to make it to the Palast 9 o’clock screening of Russian director (as if you couldn’t guess from his name) Alexej German, Jr.’s Under Electric Clouds. What a trip. An absolute cinematic tome, its main subject seems to be the idea of Russia itself.

Told in seven chapters and exploring different moments in time (including a look into the future set in 2017), there is a circular structure to it involving a set of characters always looking to the past and future simultaneously as they examine and discuss decay, art, memory, and politics. While it is unquestionably languid in its dead-serious musings, there are touches of unexpected humor to the whole affair which would not be too out of place in a contemporary Jean-Luc Godard film. While far more accessible than, say, the final film directed by his father, Hard to Be a God (which German Jr. helped assemble the final cut for after his father’s passing), it is clear he learned a great deal from his father about blocking, camera movement, and visual poetics. It is also difficult to avoid making comparisons to the work of the great Andrei Tarkovsky, but to only compare Under Electric Clouds to existing works (and only cinematographical ones at that) would be a great disservice to this brilliantly realized anthology of a film.

I ran to the press conference after the film had finished, only to wait for a late beginning in a half-empty room. It seemed I hadn’t been the only one behind schedule this morning. German proved just as lyrical and long-winded as his film. The question asked how he’d decided to choose a science-fiction setting for the film. He said that it was “very important to portray time,” as “Russia is not very optimistic as far as time goes.” He went on to explain that in Russia, time goes from point B to point A instead of A to B, that it is a country which is very confused in terms of time and memory, and that they wanted to visualize time as a series of circles, like ripples in the water. He offered that by using a series of chapters, they wanted to “shed light on different perspectives,” that the film is a “poetic one,” and that making the film was a journey “not to explain, but to go into the essence of where the country is going,” because “it’s important to try and examine the world.” German also said “Russia is covered by this darkness by not being able to understand itself, and it believes it is not understood by the outside world […] Our film is an attempt to shed light on this situation.” The cast and crew spent five years shooting, with an extra year of preparation in pre-production for the script. Finally, people began to ask questions to the other nine individuals representing the film, and I was very interested in hearing from the actors, but upon checking the time sadly realized I had to decide between staying to hear from the actors and seeing the next film on my schedule.

Berlinale

I bolted to CinemaxX (that’s right, the second ‘X’ is capitalized), and got into Every Thing Will Be Fine (in 3D) just in time. My, what a strange film. The latest from New German Cinema director (and now frequent documentarian) Wim Wenders, it is a film which walks an unbelievably dangerous line between ‘outright bad’ and ‘self-consciously analytical.’ The use of 3D is strange and subdued, but occasionally really lends the perfect pop to cinematographer Benoît Debie’s (Spring Breakers, Enter the Void) already stellar compositions. James Franco turns in yet another Franco performance, Charlotte Gainsbourgh looks like she’s stumbled out of a Lars von Trier film, and Rachel McAdams speaks with the worst fake French-Canadian accent you’ve never heard. Apart from an interesting new theme from composer Alexandre Desplat (alongside its less-interesting counterpart) and a surprise cameo by singer-songwriter Patrick Watson, the whole film is a great big boring mess which holds back until the end to half-reveal it just might’ve been stagey, contrived, and poorly-acted on purpose as a means of self-examination of narrative drama through the relationship between an author and his or her audience, and expectations. A dangerous line which Every Thing Will Be Fine walks on a tightrope, a hundred feet in the air, and in 3D, no less.

Something I’ve now seen in at least three films here: nosebleeds.

Return to Our Berlinale 2015 Daily Coverage
Features, The 65th Berlin International Film Festival
BerlinaleBerlinale 2015Every Thing Will Be FineFilm FestivalsHard to be a GodUnder Electric Clouds
Berlinale, Berlinale 2015, Every Thing Will Be Fine, Film Festivals, Hard to be a God, Under Electric Clouds
About the Author
Maximilien Luc Proctor
Maximilien Luc Proctor
Maximilien Luc Proctor graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in Film and Media Studies at the University of Oklahoma. In his spare time he plays guitar and sings in a band, as well as watching and making films however and whenever possible – as a one-man-production-team making avant-garde shorts or as a director of a small-scale independent feature productions. He likes what he sees in cinema and wants to celebrate the good stuff whenever possible.
You might also like
BerlinaleBerlinale 2015Every Thing Will Be FineFilm Festivals
 
berlinale 2015 victoria

Victoria: 1 Take, 140 Minutes

by Maximilien Luc Proctor on August 30, 2015
Victoria's two-and-a-half hour long-take lets you vicariously live a night of criminal activity, but ends up being more like a theme park ride than a great film.
 
Berlinale 2015

Berlinale 2015: Day Ten

by Maximilien Luc Proctor on February 15, 2015
Tonight marked the closing ceremonies of the Berlinale 2015. Despite the existence of tomorrow’s repeat screenings, this was effectively the end of the festival. At this point, I had seen all the competition titles I could and the ones I still wanted to see were no longer screening (except for an already sold-out repeat of El […]
 
Panahi Taxi

Berlinale 2015: Best of the Fest!

by Maximilien Luc Proctor on February 14, 2015
Berlinale 2015 had an incredible amount of screenings to offer. As such, I wasn’t able to begin to see everything, or even everything I’d hoped to see, but I was very lucky to get to see as much as I did. Three of the big winning films were ones I didn’t manage to see (45 […]
 
Berlinale 2015

Berlinale 2015: Day Nine

by Maximilien Luc Proctor on February 14, 2015
It took me nine days – now the penultimate day for press screenings and the third from last of the festival – to find out the Berlinale Palast (where the majority of the screenings I attended were held) has not one, but two (!) balconies. I went all the way to the top to take […]
Comments
Leave a reply
Add Comment Register



Leave a Response
Cancel reply

The Focus Pull in your inbox!

Subscribe to this list, and we'll send you each week's new issue directly to your inbox. One email a week, packed with essential film writing!

Latest Reviews

View All
 
Taylor Sinople Picks: The 16 Best Films of 2016
 
Form and Function in Alex Ross Perry’s “Queen of Earth&...
 
Digging for Fire and Unexpected: Husband and Wife Process Parenthoo...
 
Every Thing Will Be Fine 3D Review

Latest Features

View All
 
Taylor Sinople Picks – The 17 Best Films of 2017
 
Taylor Sinople Picks: The 16 Best Films of 2016
 
Taylor Sinople’s Top 10 Films of 2015: “The Duke of Bur...
 
8 Films to See at the 51st Chicago International Film Festival

Our Partners

Advertisement

FESTIVAL COVERAGE

View All
 
8 Films to See at the 51st Chicago International Film Festival
 
Every Thing Will Be Fine 3D Review
 
Berlinale 2015: Eisenstein in Guanajuato
 
Berlinale 2015: Sworn Virgin
 
Berlinale 2015: Under Electric Clouds

LISTS

View All
 
Taylor Sinople Picks – The 17 Best Films of 2017
 
SNL40: A Look Back at 40 Years of SNL in Film
 
Six Must-See British Films Opening in 2015
 
Oscars 2015: Ranking the Best Picture Nominees
 
Our 26 Most Anticipated Films of 2015
Tweets by @thefocuspull
  • "Popcorn - check. Soda - check...I have a date with Netflix on Friday night." - Sherry
  • "[…] nails it.” I disagree, and frankly wonder what movies John is talking about. The original G..." - Dear Godzilla Fans: Please Stop Defending that ...
  • "[…] www.thefocuspull.com […]" - Annie Hall
  • "[…] more vibrant monologue or confrontation, like the dinner scene that comes at just the right time ..." - Taylor Sinople's Top 10 Films of 2015
  • "[…] of the year is also the stuff of a best picture winner. With Michael Keaton, hot off praise from ..." - Taylor Sinople's Top 10 Films of 2015
TRENDING ON TFP
   
Try a different filter
© 2014 THE FOCUS PULL FILM JOURNAL
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.