Tag: Karim Ainouz

Firebrand

Posted on by victorfraga

The year if 1546 and the place is London. Henry VIII (Law) is a morbidly obese, sadistic and repulsive 55-year-old. He is married to Catherine Parr (Alicia Vikander), after having personally ordered the beheading of two of his previous wives and possibly poisoned a third one. She claims unwavering devotion to her husband, however she is friends with English writer Anne Askew (Erin Doherty), an agitator who insisted in translating the Bible to English at her own accord, and spurring the English people to fight for reform. Anne ends up burning at the stake, and Catherine is concerned that the same could happen to her should the King ever find out about her connection to the “heretic”.

The rest of this 120-minute movie basically revolves around Catherine attempting to concern her ideological inclinations. plus the fact that she gave Anne some money to finance a rebellion. from the murderous King and his sidekick Stephan Gardner (Simon Russel Beal), a bishop and politician always ready to assist His Majesty, taking the dirty investigations into his own hands. His interrogation techniques are particularly chilling. Most of the court is on Catherine’s side. This includes Henry’s own children Elizabeth, Mary and the tiny Edward, who have a maternal affection towards their stepmother. The ghost of the former wives, however, is always around, with Catherine being constantly reminded how they were killed.

Jude Law outshines Vikander. The Swedish actress delivers a cut-and-dried performance lacking a little edge. Law is unpleasant, sadistic, self-righteous, smug and sanctimonious, with the perfectly repugnant smile. Henry VIII is revered, feared and despised by those around him. Praise must also go to the pallid and determined Doherty, as well as to the menacing Beale.

In the other hand, this is a movie entirely devoid of directorial identity. So much so that the director’s name doesn’t appear until the end of the film. This would be ok for a Hollywood flick of a British television drama. But not for a Brazilian auteur such as Karim Ainouz, a regular at the Cannes Film Festival for more than 20 years. Such events are very director-driven. Film listings display the film title, the filmmakers name, the time of the screening and nothing else. Karim’s usual themes (the director is more recognised for his topic than his aesthetic choices) are absent from Firebrand: sexuality, immigration, national identity (Brazilian, Algerian), female sensibility (despite being billed as a film about Catherine Parr, the spotlight here is on Jude Law, and this is by no means a female-driven film), and more. Your will recognise the actors because their faces appear in the film. Yet there is nothing to identify the 57-year-old helmer. In other words, this could be a film directed by any prominent filmmaker.

Based on the 2013 novel Queen’s Gambit by Elizabeth Fremantle, Firebrand makes some historical assumptions, which are presented here as undisputed facts. One of them is the romanticised nature of Henry VIII’s death. Another one is also highly unlikely confrontation between the King and his morally virtuous children (who would’ve thought that Bloody Mary was a kind and altruistic teen!?). The film strangely omits Catherine’s death the year after her husband’s. To boot, it ends with a strange (and also highly romanticised) focus of Elizabeth II, failing to mention that her two other siblings – Edward and Mary – became monarchs before she did, and that they had a far less impressive record in power. Selective and creative history.

This is a movie that relies on production design, art direction and top-drawer actors than historicity and auteurism. The wigs and the hairdos are impeccable, as is the reconstruction of the Tower of London at a time when the English capital was a far less urban place, and the castle was instead surrounded by verdant hills and dense woods. Law’s make-up is excellent, making him look like a decaying old man (his appearance perfectly matches his detestable personality). He has a leg and a butt double, making his character look genuinely fat while having sex or treating the wound on the leg that could eventually claim his life. In other words, an enjoyable period drama lacking any particular distinction.

Firebrand premiered in the Official Competition of the 76th Cannes Film Festival, when this piece was originally written. Also showing at the 53rd International Film Festival Rotterdam.

Madame Satã

Posted on by Paul Risker

Brazilian director Karim Aïnouz’s Madame Satã, celebrates its 20th anniversary this year. This groundbreaking LGBTQ film is a racially and sexually charged piece of cinema. Raw and intense, it belongs in the present as much as the past. Blessed with a timeless aura, even if the cinematography gives away its age, the film will resonate with today’s audiences, for the hostility it depicts towards the expression of one’s racial and sexual identity.

The story is inspired by the real life figure João Francisco dos Santos, who passed away in 1976. Played by Lázaro Ramos, Aïnouz undoubtedly takes creative licence in the portrait he crafts. Who was this icon of Brazilian culture? The short and simple answer is that he was a groundbreaking gay performer, who shattered accepted conventions, and fulfilled his dream of being a star. In keeping with his aspirations of stardom, his costume designs drew inspiration from Hollywood, including Cecil B. DeMille’s musical comedy, Madam Satan (1930).

João Francisco dos Santos the man, had a dramatic life offstage to rival his onstage character. A convicted reoffender, he was a fierce street-fighter and a father. He gave a home to prostitute Laurita (Marcelia Cartaxo) and her baby daughter, and was friends with Tabu (Flavio Bauraqui), a vibrant hustler and prostitute.

Madame Satã has a contradictory vibe. It’s visually alive with the movements of the bodies, but the emphasis on the spoken word leaves the audience with the feeling that we’re witnessing a flamboyant hybrid of cinema and theatre. It’s an echo of João’s personality, that sees the aesthetic connect with the character. Laurita tells him in one scene, “You’re like a wild animal.” While João only aspired to be a star on the stage, his vibrant persona feels as if it were destined to appear on the screen.

The character captivates, yet there’s a restraint. Aïnouz refuses a critical exploration of dos Santos and Madame Satã. Some audiences will perceive the absence of a deeper character study, and accuse the director of being seduced by the personality of his protagonist. The point, however, is to become lost in the frenetic lifestyle of dos Santos, that allows the quieter and intimate moments, particularly with Laurita and Amador (Emiliano Queiroz) who runs the Blue Danube Club, to take us deeper into his persona.

Aïnouz effectively captures the internal conflict, which emerges gradually, rewarding the patient viewer. It slowly opens itself up to the audience, and by its conclusion, we are rewarded with an interesting insight into a captivating man, far from at peace with himself, and is seen as provocative by others.

The 20th Anniversary celebration of Madame Satã plays at the BFI Flare on March 20th 2022, in a joint screening with DMovies and African Odysseys. Just click here for more information, and secure your ticket as soon as possible!

Our dirty questions to Karim Ainouz

Posted on by victorfraga
Picture: Denny Sachtleben

The year of 2019 has been a very difficult year for Brazilians, with reckless neo-fascist president Jair Bolsonaro coming to power. Brazilian cinema, however, begs to differ. Two Brazilian movies won two brand new prizes in Cannes. Kleber Mendonca Filho and Juliano Dornelles won the Jury Prize Ex-Aequo with the ultra-violent and highly-politicised sci-fi Bacurau, while Karim Ainouz took the Un Certain Regard award for Best Film for the very feminine melodrama The Invisible Life of Euridice Gusmao. That’s the highest accolade bestowed upon movies showing outside competition. Ainouz’s film has also been pre-nominated for an Oscar, and we think that it could become the first Brazilian film ever to snatch the statuette.

The 145-minute epic drama follows two sisters from Rio de Janeiro in the 1950s who are tragically separated throughout the decades thanks to a society that subjugates females in more ways than one. The story investigates the subtle and also the not-so-subtle oppression mechanisms that males use in order to perpetuate their position in society. The story forwards to present days at the end, and there’s a dirtylicious surprise in store for you.

Our editor Victor Fraga (who’s also Brazilian) travelled to Berlin, where Karim has lived for many years. They met in a local cafe and talked about The Invisible Life of Euridice Gusmao, the role of women in the resistance, what it means being a Brazilian immigrant in Europe, the failure of capitalism, religion, Netflix and much more!

The Invisible Life of Euridice Gusmao is in cinemas on Friday, October 2021. This interview was originally conducted in 2019,

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Victor Fraga – Your latest film won a major prize in Cannes, and so did Bacurau. Can you please talk about the significance of such double achievement for Brazilian cinema, particularly at a time when censorship is biting in?

Karim Ainouz – It’s very important in general because it’s the first time we had such a big number of Brazilian films in Cannes, and that we won the Un Certain Regard as well as a major competition prize. It’s important historically but also contextually because it’s a prize for both the movies and the trajectories (Juliano is a bit younger, but Kleber and I are from the same generation). And not a trajectory as directors and auteurs, but a trajectory of policies that made the films possible. It’s a coronation of the films but also of the political work that has been done throughout the years. It’s like winning the World Cup. But you don’t win the World Cup without practising.

VF – Who created these policies?

KA – The film supported was discontinued in the Collor government of the early 1990s. Embrafilme was completely shut down. There was a struggle to bring back public funding. Things began to change with the Audiovisual Law brought in by Fernando Henrique Cardoso. The real beginning of the renaissance of Brazilian cinema was in the nineties and the noughties. What came afterwards were the decentralisation politics, moving away from Rio de Janiero and Sao Paulo towards other regions of Brazil. This started in the first Lula government.

VF – During a speech in Cannes (and I was there) you dedicated The Invisible Life of Euridice Gusmao to Brazilian women. Can you please talk about the role of Brazilian women in the family, in the film and also in the resistence?

KA – My film is a shout against patriarchy. It’s also a continuation of my first short film Seams (1993), a portrait of a my grandmother. My grandmother was a single mother, my mother was also a single mother. I was talking to a friend yesterday about the French Revolution, and the role of women. The moment the women invaded the Paris City Hall was a pivotal one because women could not be shot. There’s no one with more leverage and legitimacy than women to fight against the establishment.

When the film began in 2015, it was the year my mother passed away. She was a scientist, and she raised me on her own. So it was a very personal project. Of course any project has a political agenda, nobody’s a fool. But it was a very personal journey to me. When my mother died I realised how difficult it was being a single mother, supporting a family. This film was about shedding light on women of that generation. The political relevance of the film became much bigger as the years went by. If you think of the crisis we’re going through today, it’s all because of patriarchy. Women have a pivotal role in challenging this.

VF – Your film is set in the 1950s. Do you think that your protagonists Guida and Euridice would be just as oppressed and ostracised had the story taken place at present?

KA – No, I don’t think so. I think it would have been very different. Oppression is still there, but it’s played out in a different way. It depends on class, geography, a lot of things. I don’t think that a middle-class woman nowadays, if she had a boyfriend, left him and came back pregnant, would experience the same cruel behaviour from her father. But I’m not saying women are under less discrimination and pressure than back then. It’s just that the mechanisms are different.

When you look at Brazil, it’s the fourth of or fifth country in the world in terms of violence against women. I think that the toxicity of patriarchy is the same, or perhaps even worse. Men are desperate to cling to power, and this makes things worse. The tactics, the context and class have changed. But also there’s much more resistance, and this resistance is visible.

VF – Do you fear for the future of Brazilian women, given the current situation in the country?

KA – I fear for the future of the world. We are in a place I never thought we would be. I of course fear for the future of my country. We’re undergoing a tragic moment, to put it lightly. It’s pathetic. I fear for the new generation. I think we should fear but we should also have hope for the future. I prefer to think of Brazil as the country that has elected the greatest number of black women in congress and senate. I prefer to think of the Brazil as the country as Linn da Quebrada and Marielle. There’s a lot of fucking resistance! Those are the people who we need to celebrate![Linn da is pictured below, in Kiko Goifman’s documentary Bixa Travesty]

In other words, I fear for the future, but I’m also deeply in love with human beings. We are repeating the same mistakes as 50 years ago, but at the same time I prefer to look at people who are somehow making a difference. It might sound naive, but I do prefer to celebrate the people who have been raised and made conscious of who they are in the past 15 years. We must give credit to the resistance taking place.

VF – There are two types of female oppression. The father Antonio is the clear-cut type of oppressor, but there’s also Euridice’s husband Antenor, the subtle oppressor, who seems more kind and yet frowns upon his wife having a successful career. How to we extricate ourselves from such pervasive patriarchy?

KA – It’s very difficult no answer. This patriarchy is very deeply ingrained. The first thing is education, as obvious it may sound. But education in the sense of critical thinking. But also when you look at Antonio and Antenor, I don’t think that they are not absolute villains, they are just a byproduct of the time

VA – What about Bolsonaro, is he not a villain. Is he too just a byproduct of the time?

KA – No, Bolsonaro is a real villain! It’s more complicated than that. It’s a question of human ethics.

VA – Do you think that religion plays a role in the oppression of women? In Brazil we have a female minister called Damares, who also happens to be an evangelical priest. She argues that women should stay at home and not play a role in politics at all.

KA – That’s a very good question. There’s an issue with my film. I think that I could have paid closer attention to the role of religion in the life of the family. Religion plays an enormous role in control, in perpetuating power structures. I do have a hard time dealing with religion because I don’t believe in it. So in every film I make I feel that there could be more religion as an antagonist of what’s happening. I also think we shouldn’t just point fingers at the evangelicals, and at the bad qualities of religion. In stead we should be asking ourselves: “why are people turning to religion?”.

The population of Brazil feels completely abandoned, and it’s no coincidence that the evangelical Episcopalians are so successful right now. These are religions that are very much linked to success and achievement. The perfect religion to a moment when a lot of people felt betrayed. They feel liked they were promised something, I was reading an article, like they were going through a revolving door and then get suddenly thrown out. They are angry. Religion helps them to come to terms with that. In late capitalism people feel very alienated.

When people talk about global warming, it’s about industrialisation and capitalism. In 1983 there was a talk about the whole planet suddenly freezing. What I’m saying is we need to ask ourselves: “does the world need to be so industrialised? What’s the root of the problem?” Capitalism is always at the root of the problem.

VF – Is it correct to say that capitalism failed Brazil?

KA – It is correct to say that capitalism failed humanity. What’s happening in Brazil is really about that.

VF – Yet communism seems to be the real enemy. Brazilians who voted for Bolsonaro are not scared of capitalism, it’s the old ghosts of communism that they’re afraid of.

KA – I think we need to come up with something new. What’s happening in Brazil is a race for natural resources, that’s what at stake, it’s as simple as that. What’s really despairing (and also inspiring, at the same time) is that we don’t have a new model. What’s the new economic model? That’s very exciting for me, because I came from a place of privilege. But for people in despair this is not exciting.

VF – Immigration is a topic very close to you heart. More specifically, the desire to flee from Brazil to Europe. It’s a central pillar in Futuro Beach (2015, pictured below), and again in The Invisible Life. Can you please talk about your experience as an immigrant, and how that helped to shape your career?

KA – I feel like I was born in a strange place. I was born in Northeastern Brazil from a mother called Iracema and an Algerian father. Imagine the confusion. You feel like your [Arabic] name doesn’t belong to that place. This is something very close to my private life. I was closing up my mother’s house the other day and I found this writing exercise for school from when I was eight. I was already talking about travelling to Argentina, Netherlands, etc.

VF – Wanderlust?

KA – Totally. That has marked anything I do in life. This dream of fleeing, going somewhere I don’t know. It was also the dream of meeting my father, who was never there. He was living in France, then Algeria. This was very strong a feeling in my upbringing.

VF – Did you eventually fulfil the dream of meeting your father?

KA – I did! But I also realised that the places were I feel most at home are the places where I feel most foreign. The sense of home to me is connected to being uprooted and then rooted again. That’s something that was not easy for me to come to terms with, but it was also very liberating when finally happened. I get more pleasure from being in Greece than Italy because I have no fucking clue what they’re saying! I don’t understand a word, the alphabet. So there’s a sense of freedom in not belonging, and that’s also in my films.

VF – It’s a pleasure being an alien?

KA – Yes, that’s a huge pleasure! It’s a pleasure not belonging anywhere and at the same time belonging to a lot of places. Anywhere can become home to me.

VF – A few years ago, out then Prime Minister Theresa May shunned the idea that people could have multiple nationalities, and that multiculturalism could work. She infamously said “if you believe you’re a citizen of the world, you’re a citizen of nowhere“. Are you a citizen of nowhere?

KA – Absolutely. I love being a citizen of nowhere!!! I think she’s probably talking about legal rights, while I’m talking about sensations. Not being able to understand what’s happening around me is really inspiring! Not being able to decipher allows you to experience things in a different way.

In Invisible Life, what was very interesting to me was to look at Brazil as a place of immigration [the father Antonio is a Portuguese immigrant in Brazil], and the consequences for the first generation [Antonio’s daughters Euridice and Guida]. These girls needed to succeed, to be the perfect role model. This is much clearer in the book [the eponymous Marta Batalha romance upon which the film is based]. That’s a very important subject to me, but also to the world in general.

Brazil is one of those cultures where people are really happy with what they are. There’s a real love for the land, despite all the shit that’s been going on for 500 years. I wish I could see more stories about Brazil as a place that people go to! Once you get there, the identity from where you came from is erased and you instantly become Brazilian.

On the other hand, the desire to leave has to do with queerness. The queer diaspora. The feeling of going away is something that we as queer people have faced from day one. The smaller the place, the more control they exert over your body and your life. That’s also played a big role in the way I work and in the way I have travelled around the world.

VF – Let’s go back to the topic of resistance. Brazilian television is not doing a sterling job for historically marginalised groups. Black people are constantly criminalised, while LGBT and female representation isn’t very accurate. Will Brazilians have to turn to cinema instead as tool of resistence?

KA – I don’t know! On one hand, I feel like a dinosaur. Does cinema make sense? Does it make sense to make films? Who watches them? But then, that’s all I know how to do. I have to believe it makes a difference, otherwise, how will I wake up in the morning?

It is horrendous how in television – no matter what channel – we Brazilians present ourselves as a white nation. And we are not! That also has to do with who’s owning and running the media in Brazil. And it’s part of an elite who like to think of themselves as white and European. This has nothing to do with what the actual country is.

I don’t know where the frontline is. My frontline is making films. But maybe the frontline is neither in cinema nor television. Maybe the frontline is on the Internet. Maybe it’s on long narratives called series, or something else. When you look at Porta dos Fundos [a Brazilian comedy YouTube channel], it’s brilliant. Maybe that’s the frontline.

VF – Is it on Netflix? Did Petra Costa get it right launching her documentary The Edge of Democracy (2019) there?

KA – No, I don’t think it’s Netflix at all.

VF – But Netflix gave Petra’s film available in more than 200 countries, and people around the world the opportunity to understand the tragedy that’s befallen Brazil.

KA – I didn’t see the film. I think Netflix and Amazon are great, but I also think that we need to be more creative. I’m not entirely sure where the future is, but I’m not convinced it’s not in a big corporation. I hope there are other ways we can communicate with people. We need diversity. We need diverse platforms with diverse outreach that support diverse voices.

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Click here for our previous interview with Karim, back in 2016!

All images in this interview are from ‘The Invisible Life of Euridice Gusmao’, unless stated otherwise.

The Invisible Life of Euridice Gusmao (A Vida Invisivel de Euridice Gusmao)

Posted on by victorfraga

This is as close as you will ever get to a tropical Douglas Sirk. Karim Ainouz’s eighth feature film and the second one to premiere in Cannes (after Madame Sata in 2001) has all the ingredients of a melodrama. The 145-minute movie – based on the eponymous novel by Martha Batalha – is punctuated with tragic relationships, epic misfortunes, fortuitous separations and untimely deaths. All skilfully wrapped together by an entirely instrumental and magnificent music score.

The titular character (Carol Duarte) and her sister Guida Gusmao (Julia Stockler) live with their traditional parents. Their Portuguese father Antonio is rude and formidable, while their Brazilian mother Ana is quiet and passive. The action takes place in the charming and quaint Rio the Janeiro of the 1950s. One day Guida elopes with her Greek boyfriend Yorgos, leaving behind a letter explaining that she loves her family and intends to return a married woman. Instead, she returns single and pregnant, after Yorgos turned out to be “a scoundrel”. Her father does not accept her back into the house because he feels “ashamed”. The submissive mother simply abides by her husband’s decision. “My mother lives in the shadow of her husband”, Guida later clarifies.

The problem is that by the time Guida returns, Euridice has already married a man called Antenor (Gregorio Duvivier) and no longer lives with her parents. Antonio lies to Guida. He tells his daughter that her sister Euridice moved to Vienna in order to study in a conservatory and become a professional pianist. And he never tells Euricide that Guida returned from Greece. As a result, Euridice thinks that Guida is in Greece, while Guida thinks that Euridice is in Austria. In reality, both sisters still live in Rio not far from each other. This is not the first time that Karim Ainouz addresses the desire to traverse the Atlantic, moving from Brazil to Europe. The Brazilian director himself crossed the pond many years ago, having migrated from Brazil to Berlin (where he’s now based).

Guida constantly writes to her sister in Austria. Euridice never responds because she is neither in Austria nor aware of the existence of such letters. Guida continues to write anyway in order to keep the memory of her sister alive. These letters eventually become some sort of diary. Their content revs the engine of the narrative. The plot is multi-threaded and complex. It could’ve easily become jumbled up. But not in the skilled hands of Ainouz. The film never gets tedious. Every detail is gingerly handmade. This in an immaculate endeavour of love. A masterpiece.

Guida and Euridice get pregnant in the same year. Neither one wants to keep their baby. Guida regrets her pregnancy because of the disappointment with Yorgos. Euridice mulls an abortion because she wishes to travel to Vienna in order to fulfil her career dream. Both women give birth to a healthy child against their will. Guida finds solace and shelter amongst the black and impoverished communities of suburban Rio. This is a sobering reminder of the sharp racial divide that still defines Brazil. She moves into a shack with an older Black woman called Filomena, who becomes a maternal figure.

This is a film about women forced to make decisions against their will. About the subtle and also the not-so-subtle ways men oppress women. Antonio is a rabid misogynist. Antenor isn’t as overtly sexist, yet he cannot disguise his anger when Euridice wins a piano competition. Both men oppress Euridice in very different yet equally efficient ways.

The cinematography is spectacular. Rio de Janeiro is verdant and plush. The skies are lustrous. The interiors are vibrant, with radiant yellow, green and blue walls. The textures are rough and exquisite. Mirrors are used auspiciously and in abundance. The 1950s’ costumes and mise-en-scene are impeccable. The sexual frankness of the movie also deserves credit. Euridice’s awkward nuptial night (when she loses her virginity) is both funny and cringeworthy. The young female is entirely alien to sex. She has never seen a penis is her life. She bursts out laughing when Antenor pulls his pants down, revealing an enormous erect phallus. Her contorted facial expressions during coitus are unforgettable.

Eighty-nine-year-old Brazilian über-actress Fernanda Montenegro (the only person ever to receive an Oscar nomination for a Portuguese-speaking role) plays Euridice at old age, in the last 15 minutes of the film. She has two adult children and several grandchildren. But what happened to Guida? Did the two sisters ever meet again? What about the letters? Were they thrown away? Or did they eventually reach their intended consignee? I can’t answer these questions without spoiling the film for you. You will have to watch it and find out yourselves.

The Invisible Life of Euridice Gusmao showed in the 72nd Cannes International Film Festival, as part of the Certain Regard section, when this review was originally written. It won the Best Film award of said section, a brand new achievement for Brazilian cinema . It received a rapturous standing ovation, and teary faces could be seen everywhere. In a speech in French immediately prior to the screening, the Brazilian director dedicated his movie to Brazilian women, the face of resistance in a country increasingly intolerant (in a indirect reference to the country’s ultra-racist, homophobic and misogynistic president Jair Bolsonaro).

The film premiered in the UK in October 2019, as part of the BFI London and the Cambridge Film Festival.

In cinemas on Friday, October 15th (2021).

The Invisible Life of Euridice Gusmao is in our Top 10 dirty movies of 2021.

Central Airport THF (Zentralflughafen THF)

Posted on by victorfraga

For most people an airport is a transitory place. It is where they spend a few hours when they travel. Some might even stay overnight, if you miss your flight and are forced to sleep in the terminal (like it one happened to me once, and I wouldn’t recommend the experience to anyone). For refugees in Tempelhof Airport of Berlin, the transit is far more extensive. They can spend weeks, months or even years living in the hangars before their future is determined by German authorities. They come from places as varied as Syria, Afghanistan and the Donetsk region of the Ukraine.

Tempeholf is a magnificently ugly, oppressively calm and yet strangely liberating place. Central Airport THF quickly delves into the building history in the beginning of the film. Some sort of tour guide shows the gigantic building to attentive visitors. We learn that the Airport was originally built in the 1920s, and it was intended to become the world’s biggest and most impressive, had Hitler won the War. We are then abruptly brought back into the present, where the building is used as shelter for refugees.

The Brazilian-Algerian filmmaker Karim Ainouz knows what it means to be a foreigner in Berlin. He’s an immigrant himself, and his previous film Futuro Beach (2015) also deals with an exile living in Berlin. Three years ago, the Brazilian fictional character Donato migrated by choice. The people in this documentary, on the other hand, are not fictional and they did not leave their countries by choice. They fled a deadly conflict. But the two films also have elements in common: the rupture for the immigrant/refugees equally traumatic and likely irreversible, plus the destination (Berlin) is a cold and barren place, and yet unexpectedly welcoming.

This isn’t just a film about people. This is also a movie about an incredible building, which is now home to refugees and also also a leisure ground for German families at the weekends. People cycle, have barbecues and children fly kites right next to the hangars inhabited by an undisclosed number of refugees (the same portrayed in Ai Weiwei’s Human Flow, from last year). Everything is awkwardly harmonic. The Germans are extremely efficient, and it’s clear that these people receive good medical and psychological treatment. Some bemoan their situation, which is quite understandable: while comfortable and safe, this is hardly a private and homely place. Others express contentedness and gratitude. An older Syrian man says Tempelholf is like a retirement in heaven.

There’s even an apiary in the airport, for some unexplained reason (in fact, most of the film except for the short history lesson in the beginning isn’t contextualised, leaving viewers to join the puzzle pieces). The wooden slate for the hives are similar to the refugee hangars and also representative of German efficiency: they are very densely populated and yet feasible.

The camerawork in Central Airport THF is almost entirely static. The helmer remains behind the camera. There is no voice-over. The concourse, the hangars and the runway of the airport are vast, dark and intriguing. Some aerial shots are splendid. All in all, the images are gripping and soothing. This is the temple of gloom that miraculously harbours life and hope of a new start. It also is the perfect paradox: the airport that once epitomised Hitler’s global ambitions has now become a symbol of Angela Merkel’s “Refugees Welcome” policy.

Central Airport THF showed at the 68th Berlin Film Festival in February, when this piece was originally written. It is available on ArteKino for free during the entire month of December, 2020 – just click here.