"Bears Love Honey"

​​Happily clutching the "Golden Bear" in his hand, director Semih Kaplanoglu explained that once, while filming the story of a beekeeper in north-western Turkey, a bear turned up on set, hoping to feast on the honey in the beehives, only to think better of it and make a quick getaway when he caught sight of the film crew. Now, he said, the bear was back in the form of the top award at the Berlin International Film Festival. The film's German producer then added, as if by way of explanation, "Bears love honey."

In the run-up to the festival, there was much speculation about how the unpredictability of the jury president, Werner Herzog, would influence the awards. At the end of the day, however, he had little opportunity to make any sensational choices.

The fact that the awards for best male actor and camera work went to the Russians is justifiable, as are the two awards presented to the Romanians; Koji Wakamatsu's Caterpillar at least won one gong (for best actress); and whether the director's award for Polanski was supposed to be in some way symbolic, the jury declined to say. Maybe the members of the jury were just relieved that someone went ahead and told a straightforward story without overtaxing the audience.

Strange and foreign world in north-eastern Turkey

In short, the worst aberrations were avoided and at least one plausible winner was found in Bal, a film that manages to spirit viewers away and bring them on a journey of discovery to a strange and foreign world in a village in the forests of north-eastern Turkey, where a mysterious affliction is killing off bees and a small boy is struggling to learn how to read.

​​Semih Kaplanoglu's film is the final part of a trilogy that began with Egg, continued with Milk, which showed recently at German cinemas, and is now rounded off with Honey.

The hero is always Yusuf, who is old in the first film and a child in the last one, but is not necessarily one and the same person. In Honey, he is eight years old. The film's strength stems from the fact that it focuses on how difficult it is for the child to get to grips with the world.

He almost always talks to his father about plants and animals in a whisper; his mother remains a distant figure; his schoolmates consider him a loner; and it seems as if his silent communication with nature works best of all.

Bal dwells on the image of the world as an eternal mystery, which it seeks to visualise in long shots. It is exactly this kind of challenge that adds some excitement to a competition. Or, to put it another way, it was one of the few films that actually deserved to be in this competition in the first place.

Mediocrity at the Berlinale

Or to put it another way altogether, with this year's competition, the Berlinale is no longer a contender of the calibre of Cannes and Venice and instead has settled into a league with Locarno and San Sebastian.

This was evident even before the opening ceremony when it became clear that interesting names at the festival would be few and far between. Anyone still hoping for a few surprises was quickly disappointed. It was worse than anticipated.

It is not that the films were all so bad, but that with a few exceptions, they were all of the kind of mediocrity and filmed their subject matter in the kind of respectable and serious manner that has for years been so beloved of the Berlinale since Dieter Kosslick came to the helm.

Sometimes, one had the impression that Kosslick's only ambition for the competition was to bring together as many films about people released from prison as possible (e.g. Heisenberg's The Robber, Vinterberg's Submarino and Moland's A Somewhat Gentle Man) and then to thrill at the prospect of discovering echoes of an Argentinean jigsaw enthusiast (Puzzle) in Mammuth, in which Gérard Depardieu is given a present of a jigsaw on retirement.

One eye on the media

It is quite possible that he thinks the world press will hungrily seize on these themes and mistake them for a concept.

Of course, one can adopt the stance that the competition is only twenty of approximately 400 films and that the well-being of a festival like the Berlinale, which considers itself to be a festival for the public, cannot depend solely on competition entries, especially while the viewers continue to throng the various different sections of the festival as they do at the moment.

This variety, openness and popularity are undoubtedly what make the Berlin International Film Festival as popular as it is. Be that as it may, it is festival competition that writes film history. And with its anniversary retrospective, the Berlinale itself emphasised this point.

Cannes certainly doesn't have as much luck every year as it did last year, and the quality in Venice is notoriously changeable, but never have either of these festivals created the impression left by Berlin that it was not international cinema but the festival selection that was lacking the ambition to discover something new or to keep up with developments or names that one may or may not personally find interesting, but that are at least considered relevant at international level by the majority of those who are interested in such things.

Dieter Kosslick is a pragmatic, good-humoured doer who has really invigorated the festival. However, he has steered his competition policy into a dead-end street and is patently unable to find his way out again. Even a winner like Honey cannot hide that fact.

Michael Althen

© Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung / Qantara.de 2010

Translated from the German by Aingeal Flanagan

Qantara.de

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