The Edge of Heaven

dir Fatih Akin

Bright young thing of German cinema Fatih Akin returns with this complex tale of six characters crossing gender, ethnic and physical boundaries.

The story is divided into three parts and the titles presage major plot points, which I shall not give away. But Akin, both writer and director, seems especially interested in how things happen, making for a twisty journey with an uncertain end.

And journey is an appropriate word because transit is a major theme in this film: characters fly in and out of cities, coffins are transported, and there is much to-ing and fro-ing as the story criss-crosses from Germany to Turkey.

At the centre of all this is Nejat, a German with a Turkish background who leaves Hamburg to look for Ayten, whose mother, Yeter, has died. As he searches for her in Istanbul, and she seeks her mother in Bremen, a web of relationships is created. Bonds are forged and broken. Loyalties are tested and tragedy ensues.

Family relationships are especially trying, as Nejat's relationship with his father Ali breaks down. Ayten's girlfriend Lotte rebels against her middle-class upbringing, castigating her mother Susanne for being "so German".

Yet, even in these seemingly polarised situations Akin finds subtle parallels, drawing threads of the story together. For example, Nejat and Ayten both declare that education is a human right, and Susanne and Lotte share traits that are only gradually revealed when the mother arrives in Istanbul looking for clues about her daughter.

There is no neat resolution as Akin leaves the viewer hanging, wondering whether certain characters will ever meet and recognise each other. But he does seem to suggest that the ties that bind can be found in the most unlikely places.

Deutsche Borse Photography Prize 2008

Photographers Gallery, London
Through 6 April

The DB Prize always throws up an interesting array of photographers, some traditionally journalistic in approach, some more experimental and I frequently wonder: a) how they are selected for the shortlist and b) how the winner is chosen.

This year's crop, all male, are: John Davies (UK), Fazal Sheikh (USA), Jacob Holdt (Denmark) and Esko Mannikko (Finland).

Davies, separate from the others in the Cafe, takes large format black and white shots, documenting the changing face of Britain's landscape. Many of his shots are of the north of England, with its complex relationship to the Industrial Revolution. It is a fruitful exercise, but I found his shots a bit dull.

Mannikko has his own quirky world, and his entry is drawn from several exhibits, giving it an un-unified feel. Close-up shots of animals' faces sit side-by-side (and indeed are jammed in together, at his behest) with shots of weathered wooden doors, these being two of his interests but not intended for one exhibit. So. An interesting character but again not really my bag.

Holdt's work I found extremely problematic. For a long time he lived a nomadic existence, hitch-hiking across the USA in the 1970s and frequently, it appears from his captions, shacking up with all and sundry as he did so. His interest is in the marginal in society: drag queens, prostitutes, poor black Southerners, drug addicts.

But his approach I find extremely exploitative. He frequently refers to his "friends", as well as various girlfriends, in his captions to the photos. Really? Did his "friends" know he was going to publish his work and benefit from their poverty and degradation? Did they really want everyone to know they were street-walking or taking illegal drugs? It truly smacks of the worst kind of smug colonialism: the European artist sweeping in to decry the lives of the poor, suffering natives.

The work I did find impressive and moving was the series by Sheikh, about continuing discrimination against women in India. He approaches the project as an outsider but his portraits (taken with consent) are both dignified and dramatic. There is also considerable context given in the accompanying text.

Some of these women have suffered extreme abuse: set on fire by their husbands, abandoned by their families, trafficked into prostitution. But they want to tell their stories and his work is helping to raise awareness of the consequences of the cultural preference for male children.

Berlinale: Panorama

I have a habit of picking Teddy Award winners to see. Last year it was Zero Chou's Spider Lilies while this year it was Olaf de Fleur Johannesson's The Amazing Truth About Queen Raquela.

In truth, I was a bit underwhelmed by the latter: great story, panoramic sweep (Philippines, Iceland, USA, France, and a bit of Thailand are in there). But, for me, the faux documentary style was distracting.

The director explained after a screening that he originally wanted to make a documentary about ladyboys and contacted various candidates via email. When Raquela Rios replied from the Philippines, he decided she was the one. But then he thought her story deserved a more cinematic treatment. The Amazing Truth contains a mix of fiction and non-fiction techniques. Many characters have the same names as the actors and speak directly to camera in some scenes. Some scenes appear to be improvised but at other times are more cinematic.

It is a gripping film, with Raquela longing to meet her Prince Charming and stroll through the streets of Paris. In some ways she gets her wish but life is no fairy tale and she goes back to the Philippines and an uncertain future.

Probably the standout performance is by Stefan Schaeffer as the sleazy American chatroom boss who embodies the ugly side of globalisation. This character is based on a real person but is not played by him, the director was at pains to point out, lest the audience lynch Schaeffer. He really is a b-----d in the film, with a hilarious rant about France that brought laughter from the audience.

Also viewed was the documentary Shahida: Brides of Allah (Natalie Assouline). This one is quite contentious, as the director, a Jewish Israeli, spent two years visiting failed Palestinean female suicide bombers in prison. She explained after the screening that she wanted to meet them face-to-face to see why they did it. She had expected them to be hard and ugly (why?) but found them beautiful and engaging. One does wonder how much her expectations led to the shaping of the film, which was, at times, a bit emotionally manipulative.

In fact, the theme of manipulation is interesting to investigate: the prisoners have a spokesperson and a lot of sensitive negotiation went on behind the scenes to get the project made. Very little of that makes it to the screen, although there is one scene in which a prisoner concludes an interview with the camera crew, goes into the prison yard and is met by another prisoner who asks: "What did you tell her?" "Nothing. Just the usual interview stuff." Hmmm.

The interviewee who made the biggest impression on me was Ranya, who said she is shunned by the others because she refuses to join Hamas or any other organisation. During the filming she left the prison, but then returned, and explained that prison life was better than at home. Truly heartbreaking.

The film suggests many of the prisoners had difficult home lives and that this contributed to them agreeing to help or become suicide bombers. But no context is offered for the larger conflict between Israel and the Palestineans.

Berlinale: Forum + Expanded

Isabella Does Cheap from Val Phoenix on Vimeo.

In my second year at the Berlinale I have become more acquainted with the different strands of the festival. Forum is the home of art cinema and its spinoff Forum Expanded shows installations utilising film. Both are housed in the Filmhaus complex in Potsdamer Platz and I have become a frequent visitor there. The dramatic glass-fronted lifts go up to the 9th floor and there is a definite hierarchy in place, with the European Film Market at the top level off-limits to the non-accredited, while the Cheap Gossip Studio in the basement is open to all. Hmmm.

The most fun place to be is definitely the latter, back for a second year. I missed Patti Smith's spoken word performance there but did see Isabella Rossellini (see film), a swarm of press in tow, wowing the crowds as she visited. Her film Green Porno is showing in the festival and a related installation is part of Forum Expanded. For this, she dresses up as various forms of insect life to explain their sexual behaviour. "This is a strange role for her, no?" enquired a TV journalist. "Yes, I think she wanted to stretch herself as an actress," was my reply.

Cheap is presenting a series of Underground Über Alles awards, the first of which were handed out on Sunday night. One went to filmmaker and friend of Cheap Marie Losier, who was swept into the arms of Cheap's Vaginal Davis, twice her size, as she collected it. Clearly emotional, Losier said she felt she was among family. Moments earlier, I overheard part of her conversation with Guy Maddin, in which he described someone peeing. I guess that's familial.

As for the films, well, they were certainly arty. One Hand on Open (William Wheeler and Stefan Pente) is an experimental feature featuring drag queens pondering violence and appropriate responses. It looks fantastic, shot with a blue screen and a lot of animation. But I found it a bit of, um, a drag. Too long and a bit pretentious.

The same could be said of some of the shorts. I saw two programmes, Grandmother Threading Her Needle and Locations and Speculations. The latter featured two quite long shorts, and I can't recall ever experiencing so many people leaving a screening in my life. It really is a case of voting with one's feet. If I were one of the filmmakers I would be mortified. But one could understand: 33 minutes of a silent film consisting of shots of a building site (In die erde gebaut--Ute Aurand) is a bit too künstlerisch for me.

Shorts highlights for me were Schein Sein (Bady Minck), a lovely evocation of a 2D orchestra coming to life from the page to the stage, and Bruce Lee in the Land of Balzac (Maria Teresa Alves), a witty juxtaposition of kung fu sound and French pastoral images. Arty and captivating, a wonderful combination.

Berlin museums

While waiting for the opening of the Berlinale, I have availed myself of the plethora of museums on offer in Berlin.

First up was the DDR Museum, which I have meant to check out since it opened in the summer of 2006. With late openings seven days a week, it`s pretty accessible and surprisingly busy on a weekday evening visit. Star attractions include a Trabant in the window and a replica DDR living room, complete with the dreaded Black Channel for one`s viewing pleasure. More enjoyable was the DEFA film on housing available in the screening room. Definitely worth a visit.

In a very much more sinister vein is the Stasi Museum, previously headquarters of the security police and now on show to the public to see just what the police were up to for all those years. Behind the bland wallpaper and plush chairs, hideous things went on, and the contrast is startling and disturbing, even now. Most of the complex has been taken over by doctors and Deutschebahn, which lends a peculiar air to the place and it`s easy to walk by without noticing it. Easily worth three hours and there`s an adjacent archive, which has limited opening hours.

On a more cheery note, one can find the Museum for Communication within walking distance of Potsdamer Platz. Current exhibits include photos by Erika Rabau of Berlinales of the past. Famous names on show include Kirk Douglas, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, and Shirley MacLaine. One gets a tinge of faded glamour from the array of photos draped over railings around a central courtyard patrolled by robots. Most peculiar. Also showing is Andreas Gox`s exhibit of Berliners at streetlights. But these are not just any streetlights but the fabled Ampelmann lights. Why one would want to devote a year to shooting people at streetlights is anyone`s guess. Anyway, clearly the spirit moved Herr Gox to pursue this project and the photos are, at times, charming.

Oscar nominations

Just a couple of thoughts on this, as there is little that reflects my tastes. Ho, hum. Grumble.

But I am glad to see two nominations for Sarah Polley's Away from Her, previously reviewed here. One for Polley for best adapted screenplay and one for Julie Christie, brilliant in the lead role. Maybe a few more people will go see this small, subtle and beutifully crafted film about people, not explosions.

And well done to Cate Blanchett, a double nominee, with Best Actress for Elizabeth: the Golden Age and Best Supporting Actress for I'm Not There. Queen Elizabeth I and Bob Dylan: now that's what I call range!

5th London Short Film Festival

Though 13 January

Previously known as Halloween, this festival now bears a more generic title to reflect its reach but still features an ambitious array of guest curators, events and awards.

On the 8th the Roxy Bar & Screen hosted a night of music-focused films, featuring contributions from BBC Film Network, Thinksync and SeaBuzzard.

Highlight for me was musician-filmmaker Xan Lyons' live "audio-visual" performance (see pic), the nearest thing the modern age has to the long-ago Exploding Plastic Inevitable. Lyons' films have a strong style which is not to everyone's taste: highly arty, ethereal, wordless, dramatic and with a focus on the female form. To this, he added live accompaniment from fiddle, which he looped and then played back from his Mac. I found it highly engaging.

Which is not something I can say about the programme closer, a retrospective of videos and film clips from the duo Sea Buzzard. Clearly, they have established close relationships with many up and coming bands such as Foals and Mystery Jets. But the clips they showed were, for me, tedious and self-indulgent, a kind of "look at me and my semi-famous mates" approach to film-making. At least the Noisettes, featured in a tour doc and video, make good music and have a charismatic singer. But most of it was uninspiring.

BBC Film Network and Thinksyncoffered work by winning filmmakers in their competitions, the former for videos using Warp music and the latter offering free music for films. These varied enormously in approach. I quite liked 72 Hours From Now, from Thinksync, which had a post-apocalypic feel greatly aided by the choice of music.

End of Year

This being the first full year of my blog, I shall give a brief round-up of things that made it enjoyable:

1. Berlin!!!: three visits were not enough but highlights included Ladyfest, the Berlinale, and shooting two films

2. Halloween with Kleenex/Liliput in Zurich: it was delightful to meet three of this pioneering band on their home turf

3. The Gossip at the Barfly: a small gig for this red-hot band

4. Young Marble Giants--Colossal Youth and Collected Works: a timely reissue for these post-punks underlines their brilliance

5. films at festivals: Caramel, Vivere, Brand Upon the Brain and the short Le Lit Froisse were standouts

6. first listens: Las Furias, Kaputt, and Grace and Volupte Van Van are ones to watch in 2008

7. catching up with: Girl Monster and Malaria!'s back catalogue were brilliant late discoveries

8. Tate Modern: Maya Deren's films, the slides, and Doris Salcido's crack made this a great visit for all ages

9. West Ham and Leyton Orient both staying up: hurrah for East London football!

10. also seen/heard: New Young Pony Club, Bat for Lashes, Duke Spirit, Ida Maria, Electrelane (RIP), Milenasong, CSS, Normal Love, The Lives of Others

Enchanted

dir Kevin Lima

Not my usual fare but if one is feeling a bit jaded and out of sorts, why not enter the magical world of Disney, in which animals dance, heroines twirl and sing and a happy ending is de rigueur?

Indeed, Enchanted is the latest entry in the "ironification" of Disney, as the company has become aware of how out of step its values are in the modern, cynical world.

Thus, while would-be princess Giselle starts off in cartoon mode, regaling her animal friends with her search for "true love's kiss" from a handsome prince, about 15 minutes in, poor Giselle (Amy Adams, strangely reminiscent of a young Nicole Kidman) is stumbling around New York in her wedding dress, meeting unfriendly humans.

It's a clever hook, but, sadly, the film doesn't make the most of it. Despite knowing nods to Cinderella, Snow White, and other Disney classics, the jokes aren't quite sharp enough for an adult audience and the message seems quite traditionally Disney: true love comes to those who wait.

As our heroine lurches from one misunderstanding to another, with her prince (James Marsden) and chipmunk pal Pip in pursuit, it's only a matter of time before the happy ending arrives. The only question is which prince she chooses: the cartoon version or the single dad earthling (Patrick Dempsey) who befriends her.

For a brief moment when she and Dempsey are cavorting around Central Park and discovering the "King's and Queen's Ball", I thought there might be a foray into drag. Now that would have been an interesting culture clash. But no. A pity.

The funniest scene finds Giselle ensconced in Dempsey's apartment, intent on cleaning up the mess in her usual manner--getting the animals to do it. But, rather than cute woodland creatures, her call attracts more typical New York inhabitants--rats, cockroaches and pigeons---to tidy up as she sings merrily about getting work done.

The always watchable Susan Sarandon, playing the evil steopmother (and how come that stereotype is not challenged?), is restricted to one scene in the flesh, a rather flat climax which owes more to King Kong than Bambi.

The State I Am In

dir Christian Petzold

Showing as part of Baader's Angels, this German film from 2000 centres on disaffected teen Jeanne and her struggles with her parents. But Jeanne has a particularly hard time of it as her parents are on the run from the law and she never settles anywhere or forms relationships.

During a stay in Portugal, she meets Heinrich, a surfer, and falls for him. As her parents drag her away, she becomes increasingly disenchanted with their nomadic lifestyle and makes a series of decisions that lead to disaster.

While I enjoyed the film, I left the cinema bemused by the ending and feeling curiously detached. I realised that what was missing for me was context: why are the parents on the run? What have they done? How do they feel about it?

Although the story is told from Jeanne's point of view, surely she would have some knowledge of what happened to put her family in its precarious position. There is a scene in which she confronts her parents: "after 15 years you want to take it back!" And they are chastened by the knowledge that their actions have caused heartache for their daughter. But that is as much insight as the audience ever gets into their world. To paraphrase Marianne Faithfull: "what are they fighting for?"

The ending is also problematic as the family is confronted by some form of authority and forced off the road. Do they die? Are they arrested? Who knows? Writer/director Petzold is clearly not interested in tying things up neatly but leaves it hanging. Sometimes this is effective but I was left feeling he wasn't sure how to end the film.

Baader's Angels Preview

ICA, London
6-10 December

Coming up at the ICA in London is the intriguingly (if irreverently) titled film series, Baader's Angels, looking at the role of women in the German terrorist group Red Army Faction (aka Baader-Meinhof Gang). The series covers some 30 years of work made by German directors such as Schlöndorff, von Trotta, Fassbinder and Kluge.

Coming 30 years after the notorious Deutscher Herbst and in the current political climate in which terrorism is an omnipresent buzzword, the programme is a timely arrival. I emailed curator Pamela Jahn for some comment on it. Our exchange follows.

Kunstblog: I wanted to know why you picked this topic and what the themes were that linked the films.

Pamela Jahn: Marking 30 years since the deaths of Andreas Baader, Gudrun Ensslin and Jan-Carl Raspe in Stammheim Prison in October 1977, I wanted to look back at the history of the RAF, the German Autumn and the events of that time, but not simply as a historical retrospective of what happened back then. I was interested in finding a different angle or perspective and, at the same time, I wanted to look at more recent attempts of filmmakers dealing with this topic - especially after the reunification of Germany.

On the one hand, it is striking to see the number of women who were part of the RAF, not just the leaders Ulrike Meinhof and Gudrun Ensslin, but many other young women. On the other hand, while researching the films, it was striking to see the great number of films which concentrate on female protagonists and the role women have played in the revolutionary struggle -- direct and indirect, politically and personally.

Given the striking number of female members of the RAF, this season revolves around questions of the roots and potential paths of women’s resistance and revolt as explored in many of the films about the RAF and German terrorism. Though some of the films are made in the 70s and responding to the paranoid political climate in West Germany 30 years ago they still feel timelier than many films made today, especially in regard to the world's current political situations.

KB: It seems to me the films look at individual stories, mostly fictional, but do not address the question of what drew women into terrorism.

PJ: By choosing these films, I am trying to create a space between both fiction and reality, that encourages people to think and to get their own idea about the whys and wherefores. Although all five films of the season have west German terrorism in common as a central theme, they do not all adopt the same position but offer a honest portrayal of the West German crisis in the 1970s and 1980s, or use their engagement with the past to suggest subtly different analyses of personal and state histories, and the role women have played in the revolutionary struggle, both politically and personally.

An idea of the atmosphere of fear, hysteria and public denunciation which was whipped up at the time, and of the role that the conservative, self-censoring media (yellow press) played in this, can be re-experienced through The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum. The film is directed by both Volker Schlöndorff and Margarethe von Trotta who give the film a documentary feel though the story itself is fictional (the film is an adaptation of the novel of the same name by Heinrich Böll).

What is also interesting is the comparison between this earlier film by Schlöndorff and The Legends of Rita, made in 2000. In Katharina Blum you see a woman who came into contact with a terrorist but is not actually one herself. In The Legends of Rita, Rita is actually a terrorist. She is seduced into the terrorist movement through her sense of justice and she’s been involved in violent action. You would almost think that Rita is a kind of composite of various female members of the RAF. There are elements in her character that come from the real life of female members of the RAF. For example, in Rita’s story there are echoes of the life of Inge Viett, a member of the RAF who took refuge in East Germany to escape prosecution in the West and whose life is documented in detail in the documentary Greater Freedom - Lesser Freedom.

Christian Petzold’s film The State I Am In is less about history than about public memory in Germany today, which shows no sign of having resolved the social contradictions that led to terrorist violence in the 1970s. The film centers on the life of Jeanne, a teenage girl who is leading an underground existence with her former terrorist parents. For Jeanne ideological struggle has become a kind of banal reality, something that is obstructing her need to engage with the social reality around her. What remains in this film, which has won wide acclaim as one of the most powerful and controversial German films in the years since reunification, is the complex question of the personal and the political: the original German title Die Innere Sicherheit demonstrates the independence of the political (state security) and the psychological (the inner security, stable identity).

Baader's Angels runs 6-10 December at the ICA, London. The films are: Germany in Autumn (DEUTSCHLAND IM HERBST); The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum (DIE VERLORENE EHRE DER KATHARINA BLUM); The State I Am In (DIE INNERE SICHERHEIT); The Legends of Rita (DIE STILLE NACH DEM SCHUSS); Greater Freedom - Lesser Freedom
(GROSSE FREIHEIT - KLEINE FREIHEIT). For further details please see www.ica.org.uk.

German Film Festival

London
Through 29 November

Vivere
dir Angelina Maccarone

Having seen Unveiled, one of her previous films, I was keen to see this latest work from the prolific writer/director Angelina Maccarone and it didn't disappoint. Family relationships, loneliness, Christmas Eve, a road trip to Rotterdam.... From these various strands she has crafted a subtle, complex and delightful film shining a light on the things people often keep hidden from themselves and others.

Francesca and Antonietta are two squabbling siblings stifling in their small town until Antonietta runs away to Rotterdam to join her musician boyfriend on tour. Francesca, a stand-in parent for her since their mother left and their father went to pieces (this character spends much of his screentime mumbling in Italian and German and is truly sorrowful), follows her in her cab and encounters a car-crash victim along the way. This is the mysterious Gerlinde (a resplendent Hannelore Elsner), who is having woman troubles in a big way.

Francesca finds herself attracted to Gerlinde and also responsible for Antonietta and the film takes unexpected turns as these three characters try to sort their lives out. While the film starts from Francesca's point of view, it retraces its steps to show the same scenes from the other two characters, and also fills in the backstory, giving depth to the character's actions. Very impressive.

After the Fall
dirs Frauke Sandig / Eric Black

Less story-driven but brilliantly shot is this documentary, a retrospective piece from 1999 looking at the Berlin Wall ten years after its fall. Sandig and Black focus a lot on images and gradually a story emerges of how people view the wall now, how they viewed it from opposite sides pre-unification and then, most bizarrely, how opportunists are seeking to preserve and make money from it.

This last strand features the most bizarre array of characters, including Bavaria's answer to Del-Boy, a man with a "recycling machine", who is extremely frustrated by the refusal of German museums to buy pieces of the wall from him.

In possibly the funniest scene, he plays his accordion while recounting how he stood in the former Death Strip making a toast to the wall with various officials.

However, this pales in comparison to the appearance of the two homeopaths from Tunbridge Wells who explain how the dark energy emanating from the wall makes a useful but dangerous remedy. Every word out of these people's mouths sent the audience into raptures of merriment. It was not a great advert for alternative medicine.

Anyway, the film looks beautiful, with many dusk and dawn shots of Berlin under (re)construction in the late 90s and some thought-provoking commentary from an historian about the way the east was left behind and had its history consumed by the western part.

La Vie en Rose

dir Olivier Dahan

Still on show at various art houses is La Vie en Rose, a long overdue bio-pic of French chanteuse Edith Piaf, a born drama queen.

She certainly had a life full of incident: born to bohemian parents who neglected her, left in the care of her grandma who ran a bordello, discovered singing in the streets of Paris and put on the stage, passed from one alpha male to the next, before descending into various addictions and dying young. So much for Amy Winehouse to live up to, n'est-ce pas?

Portraying the singer, actress Marion Cotillard has a difficult task, called upon as she is to spend much of her time in heavy prosthetics/make-up as the film projects forward to Piaf's decline in later years before shooting back to her childhood, where she is played by a younger actress. Cotillard's task is to pick up the thread from the early years and carry it through to the singer's later drugged-out phase. She does get to perform on-stage, but the singing appears to be done by others.

Some of the actress's best moments come in the depiction of two very different but key relationships in Piaf's life: one with her friend Momone, whom we first encounter with her on the streets of Montmartre, Piaf singing and Momone collecting money. The tone is set: Piaf is the talent in the duo, Momone the support act. This later becomes a problem once Piaf becomes famous and doesn't depend so much on her friendand and the two split acrimoniously. A pity, as Momone is an intriguing character and her disappearance two-thirds of the way through robs the film of a point of context for Piaf.

The other relationship is with boxer Marcel Cerdan, married and thus not truly available to Piaf. But this doesn't stop her entering into a passionate affair with him, curtailed by his death in a plane crash. This scene is cleverly turned into a kind of dream sequence, with Piaf not recognising that he has not returned to her as promised, but is dead. She goes into a kind of catatonic state, and is propelled on-stage, the implication being that the stage was her true home, where she could express her innermost emotions.

The figure of St. Therese is a motif, with Piaf praying to her at various dramatic moments, hoping for protection. Religion and sin are thus juxtaposed, exposing a certain amount of hypocrisy in the various circles in which she moves.

Other narrative threads are left hanging. One early trauma of Piaf's life was being spirited away from the bordello by her father, with no warning, leaving behind Titine, a prostitute who had acted as a mother figure to the young girl. I rather expected this character to reappear at some point, so important did she seem. But nothing doing. One senses that the film may have been subject to some insensitive editing to cut down its running time.

The film is well-executed, looks sumptuous and the performances are good, but I was left largely unmoved. What stayed with me were the songs, especially what became Piaf's theme song: "Je ne regrette rien". "Rehab" just can't compare.

M is for ...

The independent Berlin label Monika Enterprise is celebrating its 10th anniversary with a hometown gig on 4 November. This seemed an opportune moment to visit label HQ and chat with founder and owner Gudrun Gut, a long-time Berlin mover and shaker.

Having arrived in a still-divided Berlin in the 1970s in order to attend art school (that venerable training ground for musicians--does anyone study art at art school? Anyway...), she has stayed on and continued making music as well as acquiring many quirky artists for the Monika label, Barbara Morgenstern, Quarks and Cobra Killer among them.

Settling down in the kitchen with coffee and cigarettes, Gut, smoky of voice and eye, explained the label ethos: "It is more an artist-orientated label. We do more artist development and every artist has to have their own expression."

In 1997 when the label started, there wasn't much industry interest in the quiet Wohnzimmer scene that produced Morgenstern and Quarks and so Gut, who already ran her reissue label Moabit, turned her attention to new artists. With a handful of releases per year, Monika is a small concern, concentrating on quality rather than quantity.

In addition to solo albums, the label has also produced compilations and the series 4 Women No Cry, with four women artists from different countries. Gut explained, "Each artist has 20 minutes and they have to fit on one album. The idea is we get so many nice demos and lots from women, too, because they know we do lots of female releases."

The internet has proved a fruitful source of talent. "I mostly find the artists on MySpace, actually. It is a really good space for finding new artists."

Recent releases include albums by Milenasong, Chica and the Folder, Michaela Melián and Gut herself. "I was working on it for quite awhile. It was more a question of finishing it 'cause I never had the time." She cleared her throat and continued, "To finish an album you have to have some concentrated time to dive in to it and really finish it."

She works with a small studio set-up: "Oh, it's really simple. A big Mac and a good mic and a good compressor." Highly textured and multi-layered, the record draws from many genres and each song has its own inspiration and dedication. "I wanted it to have not too much of an electronic record. I wanted to have some more... atmosphere."

What with the labels and Ocean Club, her weekly radio show with Thomas Fehlmann, the record was a long time coming but as she explained, Monika pretty much runs itself now. "My assistants can do what I do, more or less, so I could do my own record last year. That was very good. I needed that."

Gut's previous work includes the bands Mania D, Malaria!, and Matador and spoken word collaboration Miasma. The eagle-eyed will spot these names all start with M. She explained: "in the '80s we just did so many projects and to have something in common, we did the M thing. That was really simple. M is for mother, money, moon and it's in the hand. You know, you've got an M in the hand." She held out her hand and one saw that the lines of the palm could be interpreted, by an imaginative art student, as a swirly M. "That's where it comes from," she concluded with a dirty laugh.

Over the last decade Berlin has transformed and Gut welcomes changes to the city, which was something of an island when she arrived. "You couldn't go out. You had the wall around it. You had to pass the borders and it was a pretty tough border crossing.

"Now the last 15 years what's changed the most is business is coming to Berlin. You see people in suits and white collars and we didn't have that before. It's like 'Wow! It's a real city now.' I think it's healthy. It needs that. Because we had it without it and it's a little claustrophobic."

Still, for her Berlin remains a place of boldness and creativity. "Berlin has mostly everything I like because it has this border feeling... The culture is really interesting. It has this underground feel always, kind of daring in the arts. I like that."

Ten Years of Monika, Volksbühne am Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz, Berlin, 4 November, with live performances by: Chica and the Folder, Gudrun Gut, Michaela Melián, Barbara Morgenstern + short appearances by Quarks, Cobra Killer and Masha Qrella.

Michaela Melián is included in the art exhibit Same same, but different, exploring "minimal deviations from the status quo". Curated by Lena Ziese, it is on at Jet, Memhardstrasse 1, Berlin, through 10 November.

LFF: The Unpolished

dir Pia Marais

"By the way, our daughter worries we're losers." Given the large number of films viewed at the festival focusing on dysfunctional families, it is fitting that the final film viewed is The Unpolished, a German ode to parental irresponsibility and childhood accommodation. Stevie, who looks to be about 12, is the most mature and rational member of her brood: her mum takes drugs, Dad's a dealer just released from jail and they move around Europe in pursuit of his business activities.

Stevie's not been to school in ages and the scenes of her parents attempting to enrol her without any documentation are amusing. Eventually, she sends them out of the room in order to reason with the head herself; true to form, she offers the woman a bribe. It's not often one sees a child trying to get INTO school.

Rather than attending school, Stevie spends her days breaking into homes and stealing family photos so that she can paste her and her family's heads over the more conventional poses. Yearning for attention, she attempts to seduce Ingmar, one of her father's many hangers-on. She also befriends the kids next door, wowing them with made-up tales of her exotic past in Brazil. Observing the morning after a night of Bacchanalian excess, which includes adultery, drugs, etc. her neighbour observes drily, "Your parents have a weird ethos." It all ends in tears, the parents go off and Stevie must decide whether to trail in their wake or strike out on her own.

One can only imagine how Hollywood would have depicted the same scenario: either a Home Alone-type gross-out comedy or a shocking drama, ending in tragedy or punishment. Not so in this film. Stevie chides, acts out, and lies when it suits her, but she copes with the situation and eventually makes a decision. It's all presented quite matter-of-factly, no matter how many acceptable boundaries are crossed in this family's life.

LFF: The World Unseen

(dir Shamim Sarif)

Adapted by Sarif from her own novel, this plays a bit like Desert Hearts, as a forbidden romance is played out in the wide open spaces and stifling society of the 1950s, in this case Cape Town, 1952.

Housewife Miriam and cafe owner Amina are emigres from India, occupying a niche somewhere between the native Africans and the ruling whites in the apartheid hierarchy. Amina does her best to resist the restrictions placed on her, running the cafe with her "coloured" partner Jacob, wearing trousers and resisting her family's entreaties to marry. By contrast, Miriam is under the thumb of her husband Omar, who is having an affair with a family friend, and finds herself expecting her third child and trying to run a shop in a remote location outside the city.

Amina proves to be a lifeline for Miriam, reawakening her love of books and encouraging her to question what she has been taught. The two spend much of the film making eyes at each other and it's only a matter of time before they are having "driving lessons" under Omar's nose as their attraction develops. In a parallel storyline Jacob is romancing the white post-mistress, also transgressive behaviour. How will it all turn out?

Beautifully shot, the film is enjoyable but flawed: some characters and underwritten and the ending feels far too glib. The lead performances are uneven: Miriam seems to have stepped out of a 1940s Hollywood film, with her deferential glances and excessively slow speech, while Amina reminded me a lot of the Cay Rivvers character from Desert Hearts. Indeed, Donna Deitch is thanked in the end credits. But, there are intriguing insights into apartheid society and how the different strata could be simultaneously oppressed and oppressive.

Speaking at a publicity appearance the morning after the screening, Shamim Sarif told me that the ending is not meant to focus on the love affair but Miriam's increasing independence. There is no guarantee the romance will continue, but whatever happens, "Miriam will be OK."

She spoke also of the inspiration for the story, her grandparents' and parents' stories from when they lived in South Africa. She said emigre Indians seem to have a "knack of fitting in" and making the best of whatever situation. Nor was the racism expressed by the Indians toward black Africans something she ducked, explaining it as something that occurs in a "system that promotes stepping on people below you."

Her own parents, she said, would have been horrified if she had brought home a black man to marry. She laughed. "As it happened, I ended up with a woman, so a black guy would have been good."

Though set in the past in a disappeared system, the story is still relevant, she said. "People always feel confined in some way", whether from expectations or religion. The film is about "what it takes to think outside the box. It upsets things," she explained. "I think of it as a maturity thing, learning to critique."

LFF: Caramel / At the River

Caramel (dir Nadine Labaki)

A delightful film about the bonds between women and set in a beauty parlour, this plays as a kind of Lebanese Almodovar picture, substituting Beirut for Barcelona. The writer-director Labaki also plays the lead, Layale, a Christian who is having an affair with a married man and putting her life on hold for him. Her colleagues are equally troubled, "living a lie" as one character puts it. Nisrine, a Muslim, is about to marry but is not a virgin and takes extreme measures to keep this fact from her fiancé. Rima has an unspoken passion for a client. And Jamale, another client, is not dealing with the ageing process.

However, the film does not play like a drama, but a comedy. The atmosphere in the salon is full of squabbles and banter. Layale has a flirtatious running feud with a traffic cop. Jamale goes to disastrous auditions and next-door neighbour Rose has to keep an eye on her mentally fragile sister Lili. Some of these situations do turn dramatic and even sad, but the film's world is one of warmth, both emotional and lighting-wise, and the women are all engaging. Even the wife who is the rival for Layale is drawn sympathetically. Given the subsequent bombing by Israel, the peacetime world depicted here may seem out of step with current events but Labaki feels it gives the world a political element she didn't expect.

By contrast, At the River (dir Eva Neymann) is about the ties that bind, whether one wants them to or not, as an aged Ukrainian mother and daughter play out a love-hate relationship in their shabby apartment before taking a day out to continue hostilities on the river. It is painfully slow-going and laughs are thin on the ground. Even more puzzlingly, the whole middle section is given over to minor characters who appear and disappear without explanation as to why they are there. A most peculiar film.

LFF: Docs

A Walk Into the Sea (dir Esther Robinson)
We Want Roses Too (dir Alina Marazzi)

Two docs to ponder: Esther Robinson's is an exploration of the disappearance of her uncle, Danny Williams, in 1967. Using interviews with those who knew him from his work as a film editor and member of Warhol's Factory circle, the film creates a portrait of a sensitive young man, who seemed to be damaged and defeated by the competitive, druggy atmosphere of the Warhol crowd. While there is no narration, Robinson's voice is heard in the background asking questions of her family and associates of her uncle. She is puzzled as to how he could just walk out on a family gathering one evening and not return.

Most puzzling is Warhol's indifferent reaction at the time to Williams' disappearance, as they were lovers. But as a range of interviewees, including Factory acolytes Billy Name, Gerard Malanga and Brigid Berlin, explains, sensitivity to others wasn't Warhol's strong suit. Much like the Wagstaff documentary, A Walk reveals as much about the self-centred manipulation of the famous artist as it does about the less celebrated partner.

Even less conventionally authored is We Want Roses Too. Its subject is not immediately apparent as a woman is seen in lurid Technicolor window-shopping. Gradually, a picture emerges of Italian sexual mores from 1967 (that year again) until the late '90s, with women's roles shifting amid much protest and social ferment. Marazzi makes much use of found footage and women's diaries over the period, with voiceover reading the passages.

Again there is no narration but a patchwork of sources, including animation, tells an intriguing story of women's ambitions being thwarted by a combination of church, state and family and the attempts of feminism to change everyone's thinking. An hilarious advert for feminism exhorts: "Ladies, young ladies, girls. We're expecting you."

LFF: Brand Upon the Brain / Black, White and Gray

Though I've never met Guy Maddin, I think it's safe to say he has issues. This view is formed not only from Brand Upon the Brain, his latest work, but also my attendance at his birthday party at this year's Berlinale. This was a very public event hosted by Cheap, at which Marie Losier premiered Manuelle Labour, a faux silent featuring her giving birth to Guy Maddin's hands, the result, she explained, of her wanting to do a portrait of him.

If this wasn't startling enough, Maddin was as surprised as any of the onlookers when he was presented with a cake and forced to exorcise the painful childhood memory of being terrorised by a monkey at a birthday party. This was accomplished via a series of silent film titles, filmmakers dressed as monkeys and, back in the Cheap Gossip studio, a quick number on a piano--Marlene Dietrich's piano, no less, specially wheeled in for the occasion from the adjacent Film Museum. The cake was then smashed on the floor.

At the Berlinale, Brand Upon the Brain was given a gala staging with musicians and live voiceover by Isabella Rossellini. At the LFF it is playing as a standard film, but is still enormously inventive, witty, beautifully executed and clearly the product of a delightfully twisted mind.

A man, called Guy Maddin, returns to his childhood home on an island, after an absence of 30 years, summoned by his mother to give the lighthouse two coats of paint. Most people's memories of childhood are charged enough, but poor Guy has quite a lot of baggage to unearth, as his memories emerge over 12 chapters. His mother ran an orphanage while his father carried out mysterious experiments in the lab. When teen sleuth Wendy Hale arrives on the island, all kinds of passions are unleashed, all under his mother's omnipotent gaze, equipped with the lighthouse searchlight and the aerophone, which she uses to keep tabs on eager-to-please Guy and his sister.

Mother and son have an unsettlingly close relationship and all kinds of dynamics within the family are hinted at. Guy and his sister Sis end up vying for the attentions of Wendy, who disguises herself as her brother Chance and confuses everyone. So, in the midst of a lot of sci-fi hokum and family melodrama, a very sweet lesbian romance unfolds, leaving Guy on the sidelines.

All of this is accomplished in Maddin's signature faux-silent style, with voiceover, intertitles, asynchronous sound, no dialogue and vignetted black and white photography.

Much black and white photography is on display in Black White and Gray (dir James Crump), a documentary on the life of New York art curator/collector Sam Wagstaff, a powerful figure in the 1970s who is almost forgotten now, unlike his protégé and lover Robert Mapplethorpe. It was Wagstaff, 25 years older, who promoted Mapplethorpe and drove up prices for his work. Wagstaff also left much of his enormous wealth to Mapplethorpe, who profited greatly from the relationship.

In fact, there are those in the film who suggest Wagstaff was nothing more than a convenient sugar daddy for Mapplethorpe. By contrast, Patti Smith, who lived with Mapplethorpe when he met Wagstaff, insists that the photographer loved Wagstaff and she paints a picture of a threesome who all got along, despite the differences in their backgrounds and outlooks. Wagstaff came from a privileged Ivy League background, whereas Mapplethorpe was more rough around the edges.

As a curator, Wagstaff favoured modern art and hated photography until he had a change of heart and pursued his interest in voracious style. It is suggested that he was a collector of people as well as art. And so the two formed an alliance that lasted until their deaths from AIDS in the late 80s, during which time Wagstaff changed from a Brooks Brothers suit-wearing establishment figure to a leather-jacket wearing habitué of the meat-packing district.

The doc features work by artists favoured by Wagstaff, such as Tony Smith and Mapplethorpe, as well as interviews with various art world figures from New York and London and a few archive clips of Mapplethorpe and Wagstaff. Wagstaff's photography collection is now owned by the Getty Museum.

LFF: I'm Not There / Hounds

I'm Not There, Todd Haynes' much-anticipated riff on the life of Bob Dylan, is quite the ambitious enterprise and a huge disappointment. Using six actors to portray various aspects of Dylan, the film jumps back and forth in time and location and confuses greatly. Perhaps Haynes is just too much of a fan, trying to cram in every last utterance of the great man, but the film is deadly in its talkiness, encompassing long, existential monologues and endless debates about whether the artist cares about his audience and whether he feels protest can change the world.

Most successful of the unconventional casting is the mercurial Cate Blanchett, who proves a surprisingly foxy Dylan, whether performing on-stage, or chasing an heiress in the forest. Christian Bale offers a hollow impression while Ben Whishaw and Marcus Carl Franklin are irritating.

And what exactly is Richard Gere doing in this picture? He seems to have wandered in, astride his horse, from a Clint Eastwood western shooting next door. Guest appearances from Julianne Moore, Kim Gordon and Calexico can't save a story that drags badly. No doubt Haynes intended this to be an artful, ambitious alternative to the typical biopic but there's no there there.

Hounds (dir Ann-Kristin Reyels), by contrast, is an engaging art-house picture on a theme of loneliness. Set in a small, wintry German town, the film is engaging and at times enchanting.

Ignored by the locals and estranged from his father, teenaged newcomer Lars bonds with mute Marie, much to the disapproval of her father. Lars' father, on the other hand, has taken up with his sister-in-law and seems insensitive to his son's feelings. The boy consoles himself with long walks in the forest with the eponymous dogs, but even this loses its allure when one of the dogs is killed.

The relationship of Lars and Marie is charted painstakingly, with many silent conversations and visits to a swing by a frozen lake. In one scene Lars and Marie put on masks and prance about on the surface, two outsiders finding understanding.

When Lars' mother arrives with her new boyfriend, the stage is set for a confrontation and resolution but the film then loses its way and the ending is unsatisfying. But the first 85 minutes are a delight.