Luis Martínez Berlin
Berlin
Updated Thursday, February 15, 2024-7:59 p.m.
Controversy The deputies of the far-right AfD are not welcome at the Berlinale
Official section Spain will not compete in the official section of the Berlinale
Sadness is bad. And it is because it is obvious and because Spinoza already said it, that in matters of the affections of the soul he was, above all, very rigorous. The philosopher maintained that sadness is man's passage from greater to lesser perfection. And he reasoned, making it clear that joy, as its opposite, cannot be perfection itself since if man were born perfect he could not be affected by anything that would produce joy, much less sadness. If you read it again, you understand. Moving on to the issue of film festivals in general and the
Berlinale
that opens on Thursday in particular,
there are reasons to be sad.
The
Berlin festival
has been far from perfection for years and, therefore, is very likely to cause more joy than sadness. And yet, few calls are as acutely sad as this one. With artistic director
Carlo Chatrian
in retirement pending the arrival of
Tricia Tuttle
next year, the 2024 call leaves much to be desired. It seems strange that after a year full of cinema like last season, the first international festival of the year appears so devoid of arguments with some of its most attractive films either bounced from Sundance or out of competition. We will see.
To know more
Cinema.
Cillian Murphy wins his first Golden Globe on Oppenheimer night
Editorial: EL MUNDO Madrid
Cillian Murphy wins his first Golden Globe on Oppenheimer night
Cinema.
Oppenheimer and Succession dominate the dullest night of the Golden Globes
Editor: PABLO SCARPELLINI Los Angeles
Oppenheimer and Succession dominate the dullest night of the Golden Globes
For now, the inauguration was carried out by
Cillian Murphy.
In the most radical sense of Cillian Murphy. His new work after
Oppenheimer
, by Christopher Nolan, bears few definitions beyond being the next thing to his probable Oscar. And that is, rigorously and
Spinozianly
, sad.
'Small Things Like These
'
,
by
Tim Mielants,
is the story of a man haunted by his past and his present. A harassed man and that's it. In a deep and recent Ireland that is too reminiscent of the one imagined by Peter Mullan in his very risky, cruel and heartbroken
'
The Magdalene Sisters',
a charcoal burner faces the dilemma of denouncing the unbearable or bowing to the rules of the community and remaining silent. . During one of his fuel deliveries, the situation of a young woman, a single mother and enslaved in one of these convents managed with all the cruelty in the universe by the Sisters of Mercy in the name of the Catholic Church makes him remember his harsh existence. as a child out of wedlock. Of him and his mother. It is then that doubt arises and our hero, an always hieratic Murphy, is torn between reacting and endangering his life and that of his five daughters or bowing to everyone's hypocrisy. The nuns control morals, manners, customs, influences, the education of young women and the local economy itself. All.
The director, known mainly for his work in series such as '
Peaky Blinders',
as well as the author of such notable films as the romantic drama '
A Love in Scotland
' or, more recently, the disproportionate war film '
Will
', is now dedicating himself to a delicate intimacy
that is as willful as it is slightly unfocused.
Based on the novel by Claire Keegan, the film strives at all times to stay away from the most obvious crudeness that the story invites.
Mullan's role model is too heavy to want to compete with him.
At all times, the film wants to approach evocative cinema built entirely on the real memories of the characters portrayed and those, necessarily fictitious, of the viewer. Think for a moment about the cinema of Terence Davies and remember how the Liverpool author managed in masterpieces like
'Distant Voices'
to place the film in a perfect and weightless space in which memory disputed reality's reign. Mielants' strategy is not very different. The camera always close to Murphy's tortured gaze invites us to cross the screen, to stand on the other side. The real time of the film mixes with the other, with the remembered, in a game that does not seek so much denunciation as simple and obvious pain. And from his hand reconciliation, help and, if necessary, forgiveness.
However,
the exercise of containment, at times, comes dangerously close to the much more routine inexpressiveness.
'
Small Things Like These'
trusts each shot to Cillian Murphy's proven ability to remain absent from everything, including himself. This continuous dedramatization plays against a story that, from the first second, demands emotional involvement. Let's say that the film can't quite decide between being Mullan or being Davies.
He wants to be everything and, at the same time, he can't be anything but Cillian Murphy.
As I said, a sad film for its plot, sad for the sad result and sad as a symptom of a Berlinale that announces itself as exaggeratedly sad. How sad and raining.