Clooneymania followed by Nymphomania in Berlin
by Alex Deleon Farba for <filmfestivals.com>
Judging from the Sunday morning papers in Berlin on day five of Berlin '64 one might get the impression that the main raison d'être of the festival is the visitation of Hollywood megastar Gorgeous George Clooney.
Mr. Clooney is here to present and promote his fifth directed effort,
"The Monuments Men" of which he also the star. The picture is a didactic all star entertainer about the recovery of stolen art works in WW II and is here in competition as a world premiere made in Babelsberg, but is more icing on the festival cake than a serious Contender for the Golden Bear palmarès. There are superstars and then there are Megastars. george Clooney is definitely MEGA.
New arrivals sighted at Tegel Airport were American actress Uma Thurman, 43, and British thespian Pierce Brosnan. 60. Uma brought along her baby daughter,Rosalind Arusha Arkadina Altalune Florence -- (Only a year and a half old and already five names!) -- presumably to disassociate herself in real life from whatever sleazy associations might slosh off from her participation in Lars von Trier's sex charged "Nymphomania" , Part 1 of which opens here tonight. Mr. Brosnan who will appear in the Berlin Special gala "A Long Way Down" was accompanied by the love if his life -- his mother.
The big event today is the breatlessly awaited uncut version of "Nymphomania" -- von Trier's salacious bid for screen immortality.
Another big event on the agenda for today is the arrival here of the much discussed doc of the year -- Jehane Nouhaim's "Al Medan" (The Square) tracing the Arab Spring and Nightmare in Egypt from the fall of dictator Mubarak to the still up-in-the-air present... a strong contender for the 2014 Documentary Oscar.
The Square was very well received and got a long enthusiastic ovation. director Noujaim could not make it but actor Khalid Abdallah and three of the producers were there to hold an intense half hour discussion following the screening. Exec producer Gavin Dougan said the The Square- Al Medan was recently shown to a highly enthusiastic Ukrainian crowd calling for the downfall of another oppressive regime in the central square of Kiev, coincidentally called Medan,
Monday, noon: caught up with Von Trier's "Nymphomania, 1" at the gigantic Friedrich Palast auditorium with Charlotte Gainsbourg as the titular nympho. Definitely not sexually exciting or of prurient interest in spite of many scenes of explicit fucking, sucking, and cunnilinctus ... Much too intellectual for that with a treatise on the relation of Bach's polyphony to the esoteric mathematical entity known as Fibonaccii numbers thrown in -- arguably the most interesting part of the picture. Lots of ribald humor along the way in a film that takes the piss out of romantic love and calls a spade a spade ~ Halt in the Name of sex! --and nothing but. This will almost certainly make an international star of serious French actress Charlotte Gainsbourg, 42, until now known mainly as the daughter of a far more famous father, composer musician and serial Parisian womanizer Serge Gainsbourg. Charlotte does a great job. Her dad would surely be proud of her. More about this film tomorrow. With a highly deglammed Uma Thurman, Swede Stellan Skarsgard as Charlotte's elder confessor in the film, and Shia LaBoeuf in there somewhere.
The intellectual aspect of oral stimulation ...
... "do you mind if I read while you eat?" ...
