IFFR 2 (Feature Films)

Since there are lots of descriptions of the movies on the Internet, I decided to only rank the movies I have seen from excellent to bad and maybe say a few words about it if necessary.

Excellent:
Eyes Wide Open about homosexuality between orthodox jews (a very controversial subject made credible)
J'ai tué ma mère don't worry the mother was only killed imaginary. The fights between mother and son are great (how wonderful when everything is screamed in French)
Tales from the Golden Age absurdity in the Romania of Ceausescu but not in a Kafkaesque style, but pure hilarious.

Good:
Zero
Skeletons
Slice surprising movie, certainly at the end
Twisted Roots
My Queen Karo
Bonded Parallels all about heritage

Average:
Zarte Parasiten
Piggies
Los Condenados
Mother
Rapt
Vaho
Down Terrace
Women Without Men
Shirley Adams
Les signes vitaux

Boring:
El pasante
Sailor of Hearts I fell asleep in the middle of the movie.

Bad:
The Ape I hate movies where nothing happens...

IFFR 1 (Documentaries)

During the last International Film Festifal Rotterdam (IFFR) I choose for seeing basically two kinds of movies: documentaries and long feature films. Shorts usually don't do so much for me, so I did not opt for them. This post is about the documentaries. I saw three of them and in their own way they were all ecellent and certainly are worth seeing.

Mi vida con Carlos is the documentary portrait that Germán Berger made of his father Carlos Berger, who was arrested and murdered by the regime right after Pinochet came into power in Chili. German Berger of course is personally involved with the subject, and he is one of the main characters in the documentary. He brought together his mother and his two uncles and made a reconstruction what happened tot the family during the Pinochet regime and the effects on their present lives. The film is a strong and pretty impressive document.

Russian Lessons is about the recent war between Georgia and Russia in august 2008. A Russian couple, both journalist, travel to the war area, but both report from the other side of the frontline. The shocking truth reveals: Russia had planned and orchestrated the war on the Caucasus. And guess what it wasn't even for the first time. While the world believed that it was Georgia who started the aggression, the makers of this movie make it plausible that it could be the other way around. Russia has no interest in strong neighboring states (Ukraine, Georgia) to the South, that are even flirting with the West.

Die Frau mit den fünf Elefanten is the story of Svetlana Geier, who fled from Stalin to Germany and who thought she would give something back to the Germans for their hospitality. So she translates Dostojevsky from Russian to German. The impressive part is the difference between mental strength and the fragile physical appearance of the old lady.