ARTS: Unexpected Bear Greets Chinese

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Clive Freeman

BERLIN, Feb 18 2007 (IPS) - Noted for its surprises, the Berlin International Film Festival sprang another at the weekend when it announced that Chinese director Wang Quan’an’s movie ‘Tuya’s Marriage’ (Tu Ya De Hun Shi) scooped the top Golden Bear prize at the end of the 11-day movie jamboree.

It was the third time a Chinese film had won the coveted Berlin award since 1988.

At the ‘Berlin Palast’ end-of-Festival gala, a roar of approval greeted the decision of the seven-member-strong international jury – headed by renowned U.S. director Paul Schrader – to award the Golden Bear to ‘Tuya’s Marriage’.

Starring talented Chinese actress Yu Nan in the role of a woman forced to find a new husband who can take care of both her family and her partially disabled ex-husband, the 96-minute-long movie had won praise earlier from critics covering the festival, but had not been tipped to hoist the Festival’s ultimate accolade.

Delighted, 42-year-old director Wang Quan’an told a crowded press conference afterwards that he had been taken “completely by surprise.” Asked what impact the award would have on his career, he said: “I hope it will give me more freedom in making films, and perhaps bring about a blossoming of films in China.”

Quan’an said he had learnt when he was studying that he should use his skills to show dreams and “now today a dream comes true.”

‘Tuya’s Marriage’ tells of deteriorating living conditions for those who lead a rural existence in northwestern Mongolia, and of a government pressuring Mongolian shepherds to give up their nomadic way of life and move to nearby towns.

“My mother was born in inner Mongolia, not far from the film’s location,” said Wang Quan’an.

“When I learned about the extent to which massive industrial expansion was turning the steppe into a desert, and how local administrators were forcing the shepherds to leave their homelands, I decided to make a film that would record their lifestyle before it all disappears forever.”

A second Chinese movie, director Li Yu’s ‘Lost in Beijing’, which is set against the background of lightning-pace change in the Chinese capital, was also entered in the Berlin main competition.

Controversy surrounded the movie after its producers screened the uncut version of the film before it had been approved by China’s Film Bureau. There were fears its steamy sex scenes might give a bad impression of Beijing in Berlin.

Not so, in fact the movie was something of a flop here, winning only faint praise from critics.

However, Asian films in general did well at the Festival. Korean director Park Chan-Wook’s cooky off-the-wall comedy ‘I’m a Cyborg, but that’s OK’ (Sai bo gu ji man gwen chan a) won the Alfred Bauer Prize awarded in memory of the Festival founder for “a work of particular innovation”.

Park had journalists chuckling at the award ceremony when he said he was dedicating the prize to his wife who sometimes was “less happy with his life as a film director. I hope she will now say: ‘My husband is a film director, but he is OK’.”

The director’s latest science fiction work has as its main character a girl in a sanatorium who thinks she is a robot. Park Chan was a guest at the Berlinale competition six years ago when he presented his political thriller ‘J.S.A.” which was an unparalleled box office hit in his home country.

Indian director Rajnesh Domalpalli won the best first feature award endowed with 50,000 Euros for his movie ‘Vanaja’ focusing on an Indian caste system story.

The movie stars Mamatha Bhuka as a 14-year-old fisherman’s daughter who develops into a talented dancer until she becomes pregnant, facing the full force of rejection from a family belonging to a higher caste.

Domalpalli, from Chennai in southern India, moved to the United States several years ago, becoming a computer technician in California’s Silicon Valley before taking up film studies at Columbia University and graduating in 2006 with a treatise on ‘Vanaja’.

The Festival’s silver bear award for best director was picked up by Israeli director Joseph Cedar for his anti-war drama ‘Beaufort’ depicting his nation’s withdrawal from southern Lebanon in 2000.

A story about a 22-year-old commander of Beaufort, a military base, and his troops in the final months prior to their withdrawal, Cedar said in Berlin it was a story “about war’s end, and the complicated feelings about lowering the flag…and returning home, and about fear.”

Cedar said he hoped that “our leaders will be fearful of war and have the courage to end them.” Another Israeli film, ‘Sweet Mud’ (Adama Meshuga’a T) from director Dror Shau, won the Berlinale’s Crystal Bear for best youth cinema.

Hollywood director-actor Robert de Niro’s film ‘The Good Shephard’ which had been tipped by critics to win the Golden Bear had to settle for a Silver Bear, awarded to the movie’s “whole cast”.

The film, dealing with the creation of the U.S. secret service, the CIA, and starring Matt Damon and Angelina Jolie, relates the story of a young agent (Damon) who dedicates his life to CIA work, forsaking his family.

German-born actress Martina Gedeck, who plays a role in the film, accepted the Silver Bear on de Niro’s behalf.

Germany’s Nino Hoss scooped the Silver Bear best actress award for her role in director Christian Petzold’s drama ‘Yella’, and Julio Chacez, the best actor equivalent award for his part in Argentine director Ariel Rotter’s film ‘The Other’ (El Otro), whose main character Juan is plagued by existential uncertainty.

Rotter’s film was also awarded the jury Grand Prix Silver Bear for ‘The Other’. Emotional, and clutching two Bear awards aloft – one on behalf of the absent Chacez – the director thanked the jury, saying that in making the film he had focused on “what cinema really meant rather than the commercial side of the industry.”