Day 6 of Berlinale - a real challenge for me - and a tango for you..

And again: Welcome to a new post about the films of Berlinale which would interest me..

~ Berlinale 2012 ~

There are some things with which I really have troubles to watch them - do you have such things, too?

Things that can make you shy at watching a film which would interest you? 

The film I'll talk about today is such a film. I noticed that I didn't post about a German film at this years Berlinale yet. There is one Austrian/German film which is based on a very successful novel from 1963. I am yet to read the novel - but like in the film there are some points - well.. no: one grave point! - which makes me hesitate to do so.. But first - the film:

DIE WAND (THE WALL) (2012)

A woman (Martina Gedeck) whose name we won't learn and her cousin Luise with her husband Hugo make a trip to a hunting lodge in the mountains. That evening the married couple goes to an inn - the next morning our nameless heroine notices that they're missing - and goes with her dog to look for them. But she and the dog abut against an invisible wall. They can spot a man outside - he seems to be petrified - like he was "dead in the movement".
The woman and her dog can't leave the (really big) area inside the wall - they are as much trapped as apparently saved - because it seems like outside the wall everything is dead. So she has to learn to live on her own - together with some animals who start living with her: of course her dog and beneath others some cats and a pregnant cow. But one day a man appears - and for apparently no reason slays her young bull and her dog..

~ The dog's name in the book and in the film and in "real " is Luchs - which means  "lynx". ~

By now you might know why I can't watch this film. I can't stand animals being misused and not at all I can see how an animal is killed. Something like that really hits me for six. Usually I cry like I was mad.. So I guess I will watch it some day at home - in a secure place so to speak - with my cats being on alert because I am sobbing and trying to hold them.. 

~ you saw this one coming, didn't you? Well - if there are cats in a film.. ~

I think the story is quite interesting - and it is for sure quite a job for an actress to do most of the film appearing as the only human being on screen. The book by Marlen Haushofer (1920-1970) was a great success and was translated into several languages.

~ Marlen Haushofer with her tomcat Iwan, ca. 1955.  source: Kater Paul~

 I like Martina Gedeck very much - she has quite a fascinating voice and appears to be always trying to "push the envelope". Still her acting is in the main kind of low-key - maybe one could call it almost minimalistic but at the same time very dynamic.. 

~ I love this picture.. It looks a lot like summer to me.. ~

So - when I talk of an Austrian/German film I simply have to post some pictures of Austrian/German stars on bygone Berlinale days, haven't I?

Well.. at least one - so here we have the darling of Germany Sonja Ziemann in 1955 - and a very gallant fan kissing her hand - while Argentine actress Ana Maria Lynch is standing next to her. 

~ this picture makes me humming the tango ICH KÜSSE IHRE HAND, MADAME (I am kissing your hand , madame) ~ 

This is instrumental - the text to it contains a refrain that goes like "I am kissing your hand, madame - and I am dreaming it was your mouth.."

Thank you very much for listening!

Yours (very) well and truly

Irene