Berlin Review: Isabelle Huppert In ‘About Joan’

Paolo and Vittorio Taviani directed films together from the early 1950s until Vittorio died in 2018, leaving his now 90-year-old brother to carry on alone. Leonora Addio, the second film Paolo has made without Vittorio, is not only dedicated to him but picks up many of the themes that ran through their earlier work, including their enthusiasm for theater in general and the writings of Nobel laureate Luigi Pirandello in particular. The Berlin Film Festival competition entry looks and sounds sumptuous, but its two stories — both of which raise questions about what the living owe the dead — are disappointingly slight.

The Sole family grows peaches. Round white peaches ripen first; then the flat white peaches that supermarkets like; then yellow cling peaches. Their farmhouse is surrounded by the plantation they have tended for three generations, promised to them in perpetuity by the current owner’s great-grandparents during the Civil War. Memories are long in their corner of Catalonia. Nobody remembers a time before peaches. Harvesting determines the rhythm of their rumbustious family life. When the fruit ripens, it’s all hands on deck.

It sounds like the set-up to a French New Wave film: a French au pair falls in love with an Irish pickpocket leading to a whirlwind romance that changes both their lives. It might be twee, but Joan Verra (Isabelle Huppert) lived it, and on a long, rainy, nighttime drive reflects on the intense, yet fleeting relationship of her youth.

Guy Lodge Film CriticAll great actresses of a certain age should get to anchor as many starring vehicles as the indefatigable Isabelle Huppert. Her prolific output and enduring marquee-name status are testament to French cinema’s continued interest in women past the age where Hollywood mostly confines them to secondary mom roles.

Here’s another walking-and-talking film from festival favorite Hong Sang-soo, encapsulating a sliver of Korean life with his customary elusive delicacy. Shot largely in creamy black and white, Berlin competition entry The Novelist’s Film centers on the meeting between two artists who, for different reasons, have simply stopped working.

Brother in Every Inch definitely offers the world something it’s never seen before — the training of Russian air force pilots on an actual Russian air base — but guess what: It looks exactly flight training in any other country. All the same, this second feature from director Alexander Zolotukhin (after his debut three years ago with A Russian Youth) does take you somewhere new as it examines the progress of twin brothers as they undergo the rigors of learning to fly jet fighters, even if it’s presented in a semi-arty way that is both aesthetically pleasing and dramatically skimpy. This visually entrancing short feature (just 80 minutes long) premiered in the Encounters section of the Berlin Film Festival.

Heroism, obsession, sheet ice and huskies. It’s a winning combination, the stuff of stories that show men – because these were stories about men – reaching beyond themselves to survive the elements. Sometimes, even in stories, they didn’t survive because they sacrificed themselves for their comrades, finding their best selves in tough situations. Before imaginary superheroes took over, these tall tales and true of derring-do used to fill children’s annuals.

An isolated house in the country, a small tribe of peculiar characters mostly keeping a wary distance from each other: That Kind of Summer (Un Ete Comme Ca) is a film set up perfectly for the pandemic era. The bonus zinger is that the house is a live-in retreat for supposedly, or maybe just possibly, recovering sex addicts. Nobody leaves, and everyone talks dirty. Denis Cote, the prolific Quebecois provocateur, must have been hugging himself when he thought of that one.

Isabelle Huppert has tested positive for COVID-19.

Manori Ravindran International EditorIsabelle Huppert, this year’s recipient of the Berlinale’s Honorary Golden Bear, has pulled out of attending the festival after testing positive for COVID in Paris.The festival confirmed the French star’s absence on Monday night.“Unfortunately, today Isabelle Huppert has been tested positive for the coronavirus in Paris and therefore she will not be able to attend the Berlin International Film Festival,” reads a statement from the Berlinale.“While informing the festival, she emphasized that she feels very dedicated to the Berlinale and wants to participate in any possible way also to support her latest film ‘À Propos de Joan.'”Berlinale artistic director Carlo Chatrian explained that because Huppert “doesn’t feel sick,” the festival will go ahead with its planned ceremony on Tuesday honoring the “Elle” actor with its lifetime achievement award. Huppert join in via a live link from Paris.

Isabelle Huppert, recipient of this year’s Honorary Golden Bear is unable to attend the Berlin Film Festival in person due to testing positive for Covid, the festival has announced.

A couple struggles to process the aftermath of the Bataclan terrorist attack in One Year, One Night (Un Ano, Una Noche), an affecting Berlin Film Festival competition title from Spanish director Isaki Lacuesta (Between Two Waters). Inspired by a book from Ramón González entitled Peace, Love and Death Metal, it’s based on recollections from real survivors of the 2015 attack in Paris, and the level of detail is compelling.

“Do you believe in God?,” Julia asks her stepfather on his sickbed. He looks down at her little face. Not much captures his interest these days. “I think so,” he mumbles. Julia continues, undeterred. “I believe in something else,” she says firmly. “The sun, mountains, animals, trees. And snow.” Marco says nothing — he never said much, even at his most hale and hearty — but his big body seems to soften in acceptance. She’s talking his language.

Of all the unsolved mysteries in Claire Denis‘ new Berlin Competition film, the biggest may just be its U.S. retitling to a generic and not particularly representative “Fire.” The film’s English title in the rest of the world, “Both Sides of the Blade” — a line from the terrific Tindersticks track that ends the film —is not just cooler and more compelling.

Since her Sundance hit An Education in 2009, Denmark’s Lone Scherfig has become something of an honorary Brit, specializing in prestige adaptations of best-selling English novels (or, in the case of 2014’s The Riot Club, critically acclaimed stage plays). Surprisingly, none of these ever quite tipped in the way An Education did, and after a mixed reaction to One Day (2011), which mostly rounded on Anne Hathaway’s Yorkshire accent rather than her performance, Scherfig’s first real attempt to tap into the American market — 2019’s The Kindness Of Strangers — was an uncharacteristic misfire and pretty much vanished into the ether after opening the Berlinale that year.

We’re back in 1981 — among placards, lapel badges and whooping young people. François Mitterand, a socialist, has just been elected president of France. It isn’t a date that resonates much now — certainly not outside France — but the palpable sense of excitement in the opening scene of Mikhael Hers’s Berlin Film Festival competition entry The Passengers Of The Night suggests we are about to take a sweeping look at lived history.

Juliette Binoche puts in another tremendous performance in Claire Denis’ drama Both Sides Of The Blade (aka Fire, and also aka Avec Amour Et Acharnement). The Berlin Film Festival competition title is an intimate slow-burner that sets a credible scene, but doesn’t quite deliver on the mystery it promises. 

A determined Turkish mother takes on the authorities in Rabiye Kurnaz Vs. George W. Bush, Andreas Dresen’s drama that takes a light approach to a moving true story.