Munich Fest 2015, The name of the Rose...

"The name of the Rose",  1986. Dir. Jean-Jacques Annaud

With Sean Connery as William of Baskerville, learned monk and Franciscan sleuth engaged to investigate the mysterious death of a monk at a secluded Benedictine Abbey in the mountains, which he believes to be murder.

His young sidekick is Christian Bale (then twenty) and the most evil inquisitor, Baskervilles nemesis, is M. Murray Abraham, fresh from his embittered ßSalieri role in Forman's Amadeus. Basically a shaggy dog whodunnit set in medieval Italy, based on the best-seller by Umberto Eco.  

French director J-Pierre Annaud took the stage to receive a career achievement award prior to the screening. The event was moderated in impeccable English by Stauesque German actress Veronica Ferres who, at fifty, is still quite an eyeful. All of Annaud's major films including the monumental "Quest for Fire", were also screened during the week as a personal homage.

"Latin Lover" 2014, from Italy, directed by Cristina Comencini, is the tale of a handsome Italian movie star who fathered five daughters by five different women. 

On the tenth anniversary of his death they gather in his hometown but are strangers to each other. but as film clips from his screen carrer are shown they finally get to know each other and learn some disturbing facts about their philandering father, but are genuinely touched seeing him again and being reminded of their amorous affairs with him.

This is something of a bitter-sweet comedy starring Verna Lisi in her last screen aporance. The Italian star who had a brief fling in Hollywood back in the sixties, 

Passed away in December at age 78. Francesco Scianna is the handsome Central figure of the story -- easy to see why all these women fell for this serial love 'em and leave 'em Lothario.

Cristina Comencini is the daughter of well known Italian director Luigi Comencini and demostrates that his talent flows freely in her bloodstream.

"LEBERKÄSELAND" is a film about Second generation Turks living in Germany directed by Munich helmer Nils Willebrandt and based on a first person novel by Lale Akgün. The story retraces the life of an upper lass Turkish woman who earned a doctorate in mathematics back in Turkey. but became a "normal" housewife when her family, husband and three daughters, moved to Germany.  What is unique about this film is that it is the first film about German Turks to center on a successfully assimilated bougeois milieu, not the usual milieu of outsiders and underclass Turks and their adjustment problems in Germany. The main actress, Neda Rahmanian, is not Turkish but Iranian, and a striking new German screen presence.

The "leberkase" of the title refers to the typical german Meatloaf sandwich that is primarily identified with Munich but a popular snack all over the country. 

This excellent film was shown without subtitles. Hopefully a subtitled version will eventually be prepared because this is a film that deserves to be seen beyond the pale of the German speech zone.

Another special guest of the festival is American director Alexander Payne who was also honored with a complete retrospective of his films.

The only one i got to in a busy week was "Nebraska", the 2013 opus for which Bruce Dern was awarded the Best Actor accolade at Cannes two years ago for his most uncharacteristic role as a curmudgen grizzled wreck of an old man who is conviced he has won a million dollars by an advertising scam and sets out to walk from home in Billings, Montana, across the faceless upper mideest to Lincoln, Nebraska, in order to claim his imagined winnings in person.  He is accompanied by his estranged son who rediscovers dad on this dizzy tour of small towns along the way.  

All I can say is that when I saw Nebraska two years ago at a festival in Hungary I was bored to death, but this time the very things that bored me I now found interesting. Just goes to show that sometimes you can't trust your own opinions, or that opinionations are subject to change -- whimsically, just like the weather in Montana.

One if the most interesting events of the entire week was a "Master Class" delivered with style and verve by British actor Rupert Everett, who plays wartime British King George VI, the stuttering king who was so vividly portrayed by Colin Firth in 2010.  That will be the subject of my next Munich report.