‘Das Wachsfigurenkabinett’ (‘Waxworks’, GER, 1924, directed by Paul Leni)
Source: Deutsche Kinemathek

Festival

Berlinale Classics 2020

20.2. – 1.3.20

The Berlinale Classics bring digitally restored film classics and rediscoveries back to the big screen.

A Fish Called Wanda

GB/USA, 1988, directed by Charles Crichton

After a spectacular jewellery heist, infighting breaks out among the thieves. When the gang rats out its leader to police, London barrister Archie Leach signs on to defend him. But before his arrest, the kingpin has hidden away the loot from the robbery. Accomplice Wanda sets out to beguile Archie in the hopes of finding out where the jewels are stashed. And the uptight British lawyer is no match for the fine art of seduction as practiced by the energetic American. His peace and quiet is at an end and, once he falls for Wanda, so is his physical safety. Because it turns out Wanda has a lover who is pathologically jealous – and nowhere near as dumb as he seems … Anarchic humor and British comedy traditions met in happy harmony in this film starring Monty Python’s John Cleese and headed up by veteran director Charles Crichton. American stars Jamie Lee Curtis and Kevin Kline brought speed and toughness to their roles, alongside a cosmopolitan spirit that helped make ‘A Fish Called Wanda’ an international hit – not to mention a running patter of Anglophobe quips that their British counterparts countered with aplomb.

World premiere of the digitally restored version.

Bushido zankoku monogatari

(‘Cruel Tale of Bushido’), JPN, 1963, directed by Tadashi Imai

The attempted suicide of his fiancée prompts a Japanese salary-man to read his family chronicles and look back at the life of his ancestors. They were samurai, the military nobility caste who carried out acts of violence at the behest of feudal lords, but suffered even more so under their cruelty, often forced into ritual suicide (seppuku). The women were under constant threat of kidnapping and rape, and the men subjected to arbitrary disfigurement and homosexual slavery … In a radical departure from the usual romanticisation of the samurai, director Tadashi Imai – using period sets and sometimes graphic images – made a film fundamentally critical of medieval Japan’s feudal system and the inhumane samurai code called bushido. In addition, the final two of the eight episodes in the film draw parallels between that and kamikaze pilots of World War II, as well as Japan’s modern achievement-oriented society. ‘Cruel Tale of Bushido’ was awarded the Golden Bear at the 1963 Berlin International Film Festival.

World premiere of the digitally restored version.

Daleká cesta

(‘Distant Journey’), CSK, 1949, directed by Alfréd Radok

The film traces the path of Czech Jews to Germany’s extermination camps, using the fictional narrative of the Kaufmann family from Prague. The daughter, Hana, is a doctor. After the Nazis occupy Czechoslovakia, she marries her gentile colleague Dr. Antonín Bureš. But the marriage does not save Hana’s parents from being deported to Theresienstadt. When Antonín secretly infiltrates the camp, he is forced to confront not only the degrading conditions there, but also that his in-laws have already been “sent east”, meaning to Auschwitz, Majdanek, or Sobibor … Director Alfréd Radok was himself interned in a work camp and lost close relatives to the concentration camps. With ‘Daleká cesta’, he created an artistically effectual portrayal of the horrors of the Holocaust. The narrative is continually interrupted by documentary footage, linking the fate of the individuals to contemporary history, and concentrating the narrative segments into a nightmarish, expressionist danse macabre. ‘Daleká cesta’ disappeared from Czech cinemas shortly after its release in 1949 and was not shown again until 1991.

World premiere of the digitally restored version.

Das Wachsfigurenkabinett

(‘Waxworks’), GER, 1924, directed by Paul Leni

The owner of a wax museum hires a young poet to write backstories for three of his wax figures – Caliph Harun al-Rashid, Ivan the Terrible, and Jack the Ripper. In each of the film’s three episodes, the love of a young couple (always recognizable as the writer and the daughter of the waxworks owner) is threatened by one of the fiends. Caliph Harun al-Rashid lusts after the wife of a baker, Czar Ivan carries a bride and groom off to his torture chamber, and Jack the Ripper lies in wait to ambush the daughter of the waxworks owner … This was the last film that graphic artist, set designer and director Paul Leni (1885-1929) made before moving to Hollywood in 1926. He was strongly influenced by expressionist filmmaking, and created a consummate example of it here. Abstract sets, fantastical costumes, cinematographic extravagance, and consciously outré performances by the three leads – Emil Jannings, Conrad Veidt, and Werner Krauss. Altogether they made Waxworks a magic moment in Weimar era silent filmmaking, somewhere between art adventure and fun fair.

World premiere of the digitally restored version 2015–2019.

Il bidone

IT/FR, 1955, directed by Federico Fellini

A trio of con-men from Rome, headed by aging leader Augusto swindle the poorest of the poor out of their savings. Dressed up as clergymen, they sell worthless trinkets, allegedly made of valuable gold, to unsuspecting farmers. Or they pretend to be civil servants and sell subsidized housing certificates to the homeless. At a New Year’s Eve party thrown by a hustler who has made it big, Augusto realizes that he has made a mess of his life. He decides to at least do something good for his own daughter, who dreams of attending university, and who has no idea how wretched her father’s life is … Shot almost entirely on location, ‘Il Bidone’ is considered Federico Fellini’s last neo-realistic film. The festival is screening the world premiere of the digitally restored version in honor of the director, who would have celebrated his 100th birthday on January 20, 2020. The Film Foundation was founded by Martin Scorsese in 1990, and is one of the leading institution world-wide for the preservation and restoration of motion picture history. By working in partnership with archives and studios, the foundation has helped to make more than 850 films over the last 30 years accessible to the public.

World premiere of the digitally restored version.

Ostatni etap

(‘The Last Stage’), PL, 1948, directed by Wanda Jakubowska

The female prisoners at Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp come from many countries. Wanda Jakubowska drew from numerous individual testimonies for her realistic picture of everyday life there, a balancing act between forced labor and the infirmary, between death threats and the will to live. The cruelty of the guards and the SS mass murders are on full display. But amid the constant pall of smoke from the crematoria chimneys, there are also acts of opposition and solidarity as the women prepare for their liberation by Russia’s Red Army … Shot on location, using non-professional actors from the area around Oświęcim, as it is called in Polish, ‘Ostatni Etap’ has a strong documentary feel. This is buttressed by each of the protagonists speaking her own native language. The original negative of the film has not survived. The restoration used a duplicate negative that, due to an error in the lab, had severe exposure fluctuations. Those were corrected, along with the frame stability, mechanical damage, and problems with the audio. Missing frames were replaced. World premiere of the version digitally restored by Poland’s National Film Archive in cooperation with Tor Film Studio.

World premiere of the digitally restored version.