That’s a wrap for the 67th Berlinale, which saw the Elle-raising president of the jury and his lot crown Hungarian drama On Body And Soul as the winner of the much coveted Golden Bear.
The award ceremony was, it has to be said, a weird one. Not because there was clearly more Lakka coursing through Aki Kaurismäki’s veins than there was blood, but due to the fact that by and large, the right films got gongs but not necessarily in the right categories. For instance, Una Mujer Fantástica (A Fantastic Woman) won the Silver Bear for Best Script, when the true standout element of Sebastián Lelio’s impressive drama was more the direction or Daniela Vega’s superb turn as Marina. Overall, the only glaring omission is Liu Jian‘s darkly offbeat Hao Ji Le (Have A Nice Day); it feels like Team Verhoeven missed a trick by not awarding it the Alfred Bauer Prize or even the Artistic Contribution award.
But back to our winner...
Ildikó Enyedi’s return to the silver screen after an 18-year sabbatical focuses on the nascent relationship between two lonely souls who work in an abattoir: the mild-mannered director (Géza Morcsányi) and the new, OCD-afflicted quality inspector (Alexandra Borbély). The writer-director’s long-gestating comeback impressed due to its melancholic tone and affecting performances, specifically from Borbély, who never reduces her character’s shyness to a one-note portrayal.
However, many seemed bemused that it should take the top prize, especially considering Kaurismäki’s The Other Side Of Hope. Perhaps it’s because On Body And Soul screened early on the second day or that it’s (literally) dreamy beats lulled you into a pleasantly delicate dirge, but On Body And Soul film felt like a very promising start to the festival, as opposed to THE Competition standout.
There’s even been news that certain scenes in On Body And Soul apparently had some viewers fainting. Granted, one rather brutal sequence at the beginning of the film packs a punch (and prompts a tasteful note at the end of the credits, which reads: “Some animals were harmed during filming, but none of them for the sake of this film”).
The specific scene sees livestock being killed, skinned and butchered at the abattoir. These unstaged scenes of killing will impress; they carry meaning; they might even convert a few meat eaters into diehard veggies. However, fainting?
The director wisely exploits the setting but the unflinching camera never lingers on the carcasses in a exploitative way. You see enough to make you realise that the surroundings our two lonely hearts inhabit are harsh; they live in a world unconducive to tenderness, as the reality of the slaughterhouse clashes with the empathic connection they forge in somnolence.
I can’t deny that talks of fainting seems a tad extreme, but then again I still can’t watch one specific scenes in Trainspotting without feeling queasy, so who am I to say? The stomach-churning is in the belly of the beholder, and as much as the abattoir scenes were very confrontational, they weren’t overdone. Without wishing to appear cynical, the whole thing sounds like a cheeky ploy to counter the slightly lukewarm reaction the film has received and to stir up some excitement. Or a massive conspiracy orchestrated by the vegetarian syndicate known as the Hallouminati. We’ll never know.
What is for sure is that unlike the 66th edition where all bets were cast the second you left the screening for Gianfranco Rosi’s Berlinale-tailored Fire At Sea, due in large part to its timely and topical nature, this touching tale’s win took many by surprise. And that’s a good thing. It would be a sizeable shame if the unpredictable yet deserving winner of this 67th edition was reduced to that bovine snuff film or even that time when they gave the best film to a female director. Maybe we need an unusual love story to see us through the strange times we currently live in, and in that sense, On Body And Soul does deliver.