There Is No Evil, by Iranian Mohammad Rasoulof, has won the Golden Bear of the 70th Berlinale. The filmmaker has been banned from leaving his country since returning to Tehran after attending the 2017 Cannes festival, where his previous film, An Entire Man, won the award for best film in the One Certain Look section. The withdrawal of his passport did not accuse him. And in There Is No Evil he has taken the opportunity to talk about two very political issues: the death penalty and the moral courage of the people on the street, through four stories exclusively linked by these reflections. Rasoulof obviously could not receive the Golden Bear in Berlin, as he is waiting for the sentence that condemns him to a year in jail "for spreading propaganda against the Islamic republic." Just the same day that the filming of the winner in Germany ended, the director, 46, read a text in the court of appeal, which was not taken into consideration.
With his decision, the jury chaired by Jeremy Irons has prioritized the political issue to the cinematographic one. There were in the Competition section of this Berlinale three films above the rest: Rizi, from Malay Tsai Ming-Liang, and the works of Americans Kelly Reichardt (First Cow) and Eliza Hittman (Never Rarely Sometimes Always). Only Hittman, who was already awarded Sundance, where his third feature was screened for the first time, has been rewarded on the medal list: at least, with the Grand Jury Prize. His portrayal of the difficulty and pain involved in abortion in the United States, through a teenage girl from a small town who travels with her cousin to New York to be able to perform the operation, is delicate, without any dawning or gloating in suffering, with the camera very close to the face of the girls, who endure constant macho humiliations. On stage, with the award in hand Hittman has dedicated it to "social workers and doctors who protect the lives and rights of these women," and thanked them for their work.
Medal winners
Golden Bear: There Is No Evil, by Mohammad Rasoulof (Iran).
Grand Jury Prize: Never Rarely Sometimes Always, by Eliza Hittman (USA).
Silver Bear: Effacer l'historique (France), by Benoit Delépine and Gustave Kervern.
Best Direction: Hong Sangsoo, for The Woman Who Ran (South Korea) .
Best actress: Paula Beer, by Undine (Germany).
Best actor: Elio Germano, by Volevo Nascondermi (Italy).
Best Screenplay: Fabio and Damiano D'Innocenzo, by Favolacce (Italy).
Artistic contribution: Jürgen Jürges, by DAU photography . Natasha (Russia).
Best Movie in Encounters: The Works and Days (of Tayoko Shiojiri in the Shiotani Basin) (USA), by CW Winter and Anders Edström.
Best documentary: Irradiés (France), by Rithy Panh.
Best prime opera of all sections: Los conductos (Colombia), by Camilo Restrepo.
Golden Bear for Best Short Film: T (USA), by Keisha Rae Witherspoon.
Best film in the competition for international critics: Undine (Germany), by Christian Petzold.
On the other hand, the four stories of Rasoulof are worse: the first one, dry, enveloping, well conducted until the final surprise; Then you can the message above the cinema. Rasoulof has sneaked away, with all official permits granted thanks to a ploy. They performed all the paperwork as if they were four short films, each with its own technical and artistic team. For the sequences filmed in public spaces, including Tehran airport, Rasoulof stayed at home, and his assistants directed the shots following his list of plans. When stories developed outside the capital, Rasoulof was able to intervene and work with the actors. Used to a more allegorical cinema, the director of The Iron Island has decided on this occasion to be much more direct. In the press conference of his film, in which he participated through a call by WhatsApp, Rasoulof explained from Tehran: "An oppressive regime like ours presses citizens every day, and you gradually give in with small sacrifices and lies, with assignments to hypocrisy ... until you have become part of the injustice. With the movie I wanted to show that there is also a possibility of opposing. " With this Golden Bear, the jury has made the same assignment to the policy as the one that occurred in 2015, when Taxi Tehran, from another Iranian persecuted, Jafar Panahi, won the club, from the Chilean Pablo Larraín.
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In the rest of the record, clear the elections for best actor and actress. The Italian Elio Germano embroiders the reconstruction of a naive art classic, Antonio Ligabue, in Volevo Nascondermi. It has physical transformation and psychic construction. The German Paula Beer has had to recreate the Germanic myth of the ondinas, antecedent of the sirens, in the film Undine , by Christian Petzold. The freshwater ondines have to kill the couples who abandon them. That concept, moved to the 21st century, works in the hands of Petzold, better this time as a director than as a screenwriter. However, his sentimental drama has also received the Fipresci award from international critics.
The new Silver Bear (former Alfred Bauer prize, founder of the Berlinale, who has been left without a name after accusations that Bauer had been part of the repression during Nazism) fell to the only comedy of the Competition, Effacer l ' historique (France), by Benoit Delépine and Gustave Kervern. The South Korean Hong Sangsoo, idolized by critics with his long exploration of masculinity and alcoholism, and able to shoot up to three films a year, received the Silver Bear for the best direction with The Woman Who Ran, which this time already focuses only on women, through three long conversations starring her fetish actress, Kim Min-hee. Two other films that have raised dust in the contest, the Russian DAU. Natasha and the Irradi- Franco- Cambodian have also received recognition. The latter, a very risky bet of Rithy Panh, filmmaker of historical memory, won the award for best documentary of any section.
It has been the first edition directed by Mariette Rissenbeek, in the financial part, and Carlo Chatrian (former director of Locarno) in the artistic. They have taken a very good note, although the increase in sections and the difficulty of establishing clear borders between them have played against them. They have sought good cinema for the Berlinale, and they have succeeded.