Berlin Film Festival Movies

Cowboys live again in this 20th century Western about two World War II veterans living on the lush, open New Mexico countryside. Based on the classic American novel by Max Evans about those struggling to continue living the Old West lifestyle in the early Cold War days, the film stars Woody Harrelson and Billy Crudup as two lifelong friends who fall for the same woman. Returning from war is Peter (Crudup), a cattleman who just wants a simple life on the farm, and Big Boy Matson (Harrelson), a big-drinking hellraiser always looking for a fight. Enter married Mona (Patricia Arquette), who turns both their heads and forces these two cowboys to put their friendship to the ultimate test. The film, like Sam Peckinpah's The Wild Bunch, is about freedom in wide-open spaces, so British director Stephen Frears is really out of his element in tackling this type of material. But he focuses the film on the relationships rather than the action, asking questions like "Is the girl more important than their friendship?" In the end, this film is more love story than Western. ~ Arthur Borman, Rovi

The fact that there isn't a single likeable character in Cul de Sac does not diminish its artistic value in the least. Ageing, furtively kinky Donald Pleasence is married to sexy young Francoise Dorleac. The couple's hermitlike tranquility is shattered when wounded gangsters Jack MacGowan and Lionel Stander invade their home and hold them hostage. As Dorleac urges her tremulous husband to do something, the two criminals begin behaving in a fashion that can only inadequately be described as eccentric. Drawing upon two of Polanski's favorite themes-isolation and latent insanity--Cul de Sac actually improves upon each viewing, assuming that the viewer has the intestinal fortitude to sit through it once. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

"If the First Amendment will protect a scumbag like me, then it'll protect all of you -- 'cause I'm the worst," declares Hustler Magazine publisher Larry Flynt (as played by Woody Harrelson) in the midst of one of his many court cases. Milos Forman's film follows Flynt from his childhood in Kentucky, where he made extra money for his dirt-poor family by selling the moonshine his father brewed, into adulthood as he manages a strip club in Cincinnati. While the club does middling business, the experience changes Flynt's life in two ways: he meets Althea (Courtney Love), an exotic dancer who becomes the love of his life, and he gets the bright idea of starting a magazine to promote the club. Marketed as a crasser, less pretentious alternative to Playboy or Penthouse, Hustler becomes a huge success after Flynt runs a photo series of Jacqueline Onassis sunbathing nude. However, while plenty of people are buying Hustler, there are also plenty of people who don't care for it, including Charles Keating (James Cromwell), leader of a watchdog group called Citizens For Decent Literature. Keating spearheads the first of many legal attacks on the magazine, one of which reaches the Supreme Court as Alan Isaacman (Edward Norton), Flynt's lawyer, debates the finer legal points of bad taste with the justices of the highest court in the land. Meanwhile, Flynt makes a fortune, loses the use of his legs after an attack by a sniper, embraces and than abandons Christianity, and eventually loses Althea, who succumbs to AIDS after a long addiction to drugs. Woody Harrelson's brother Brett Harrelson is well cast as Larry Flynt's brother Jimmy; Larry Flynt appears briefly as a judge who hands down a judgment against Larry Flynt. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

An adolescent boy from a most idiosyncratic family attempts to adjust to his new neighborhood as his 16th birthday looms on the horizon in this family drama from director Elissa Down. Thomas is about to turn 16, and as if adjusting to a new neighborhood, a new school, and new friends isn't enough for a teenage boy to contend with, his family is about as unpredictable as they come. His autistic older brother, Charlie, suffers from ADD, and attends a special school on the days that he actually chooses to go. His father, Simon, is an enormous cricket fan who is prone to holding intense discussions with his teddy bear, and his mother, Maggie, is a free spirit who sleeps with pretty much whomever she pleases. Recently, Thomas' mother revealed that she is pregnant. As a result, Thomas finds himself looking after Charlie much more frequently than usual. When Charlie strips half-naked and dashes into the neighbor's house in search of a bathroom, Thomas storms in after him and encounters pretty classmate Jackie -- who is currently attempting to take a shower. Mortified, Thomas begins to realize that he might not be capable of caring for Charlie. Later at school, Thomas realizes that he'll have to learn to swim before he earns his lifesaving badge. Of course, every student in class needs to have a partner, and it just so happens that Thomas' partner is a pretty fellow pupil named Jackie. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

The winner of the Golden Bear Award at the 1963 Berlin Film Festival, director Tadashi Imai's stark samurai drama tells the story of a 20th Century Japanese professional who ponders the prospect of abandoning the tradition that has been in his family for the past 350 years. The Iikura family has lived by the Bushido code for seven generations. Now, it's up to Susumu to determine if the tradition will continue. Recalling the exploits of his forefathers throughout the centuries, Susumu prepares to make the decision that could forever alter the history of his bloodline. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

Director Antonio Banderas's reflective sophomore drama follows nascent poet Miguelito (Alberto Amarilla) and his best friends, Paco (Félix Gómez) and Babirusa (Raúl Arévalo), as they confront their pasts and ponder their futures while coming of age in 1970s-era southern Spain. Based on the novel by author Antonio Soler, the story centers largely on Miguelito's relationship with the beautiful Luli (María Ruiz) and his struggle to move beyond his youthful indiscretions. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

The first English-language film of director Roman Polanski is a psychological thriller in the vein of Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho (1960) and his own later film Rosemary's Baby (1968). Catherine Deneuve stars as Carol Ledoux, a Belgian manicurist living with her sister, Helen (Yvonne Furneaux), in a London flat. Simultaneously attracted and repulsed by sex, Carol is a virgin who finds her sister's relationship with a married man, Michael (Ian Hendry), extremely disturbing. When her sister and Michael go on holiday, Carol begins to disintegrate mentally, hallucinating bizarre encounters, being forced into taking a sabbatical from her job and ultimately committing a pair of murders in her deranged state. ~ Karl Williams, Rovi

In this homage to acclaimed TV scripter Dennis Potter (1935-1994), famed 75-year-old French director Alain Resnais (Hiroshima, Mon Amour, Last Year at Marienbad) has actors lip-synch in a manner instantly recalling Potter's Pennies from Heaven (1978 TV serial, 1981 movie) and The Singing Detective (1986), regarded by some as the best original work ever created for television. Completing her history dissertation, Camille (Agnes Jaoui) is a Paris tour guide, and Simon (Andre Dussolier) is a regular on her tours because he's attracted to Camille -- although he claims to be researching his historical radio dramas. Camille's sister, business-executive Odile (Sabine Azema), is married to weak, furtive Claude (Pierre Arditi). In the past Odile was close to successful businessman Nicolas (Jean-Pierre Bacri), now married with kids and returning to Paris after an eight-year absence. Odile seeks an apartment from real estate agent Marc (Lambert Wilson). Camille and Marc begin an affair. Nicolas is also looking for an apartment, since he hopes to eventually have his family join him in Paris. These characters make easy transitions back and forth from the dialogue to 36 song fragments. The film's debt to Dennis Potter is acknowledged with a dedication in the opening credits. ~ Bhob Stewart, Rovi

A "Hobson's Choice," as any slang expert will tell you, is no choice at all. In this 1953 filmization of Harold Brighouse's 1915 play Hobson's Choice, hero John Mills finds after several reels of evidence to the contrary that he does have a choice over how he'll conduct his life after all. Mills is the assistant to domineering boot-shop owner Charles Laughton, who lords it over his employees and three daughters by day, then tumbles through the streets on many a drunken evening. Laughton's "old-maid" daughter Brenda DeBanzie breaks free of her father's tyranny, marries Mills, and together with her new husband sets up a rival boot shop when Laughton refuses her a dowry. Father rants and raves, but finally agrees to a merger with his daughter that will assure Mills a large measure of freedom over managing things. The winner of the British Film Institute "Best Film" award of 1954, Hobson's Choice chalked up another international success for director David Lean. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Erik Weihenmayer is an athlete and climbing enthusiast who, in the spring of 2001, scaled the summit of Mount Everest. This would be a notable accomplishment for anyone, but Weihenmayer was different from those who had reached Everest's peak before him -- he's been blind since the age of thirteen. Weihenmayer's remarkable story came to the attention of Sabriye Tenberken, an educator who teaches blind teenagers in Lhasa, Tibet. In Tibetan culture, blindness is considered by many to be a curse, and it's not unknown for families to abandon children who are blind to the streets. Hoping to show others what her students could do, Tenberken invited Weihenmayer to Tibet to lead six teenagers on a climb of Lhakpa Ri, a peak on the northern face of Mount Everest. Weihenmayer eagerly accepted the invitation and in 2004 he joined Tenberken and her students on the adventure of a lifetime as six sightless novice climbers attempted to conquer one of the world's tallest and most challenging mountains. Documentary filmmaker Lucy Walker joined Weihenmayer for his adventure with the Tibetan students, and Blindsight is a record of what he and his charges accomplished together. Blindsight received its North American premiere at the 2006 Toronto Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

Klezmer music is a fusion of gypsy music, Jewish liturgical music, and the typical musical forms of Eastern Europe, including the polka. It is most familiarly performed at Jewish weddings, and had nearly died out by the mid-1990s, when a modest revival of interest began to hold some promise that it might survive. This documentary closely interviews the lively and charming Leopold Kozlowski, a klezmer musician and composer who survived the Nazi's concentration camps and managed to get on with his life and his vocation. Among his many vivid recollections is his tale about playing Lili Marlene over and over again for a group of guards at the camp. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi

A reserved Mongolian bride diagnosed with a debilitating back injury enters into an unusual agreement with her disabled husband in Lunar Eclipse director Wang Quan'an's Golden Berlin Bear-winning entry into the 2006 Berlin International Film Festival. Peasant Tuya (Yu Nan) is a happily married mother of two whose husband Bater is permanently disabled. One day, after hard-working Tuya collapses in the fields while straining to perform her rigorous duties, the local doctor diagnoses her with a lumbar dislocation. Subsequently unable to care for her invalid husband, Tuya and Bater agree to divorce so that the ailing woman can wed a husband capable of caring for both of them. Though several suitors throw their hat into the ring upon hearing that Tuya is available, each is immediately put off upon learning that Bater is part of the deal as well. The only man who seems willing to consider caring for both is divorced oil tycoon Baolier, who, as a smitten young schoolboy, was once good friends with the kindly Tuya. When a sudden tragedy strikes, threatening Bater's life, however, Baolier's true intentions open the door for Tuya's cuckolded neighbor Sen'ge to step in and save the day. At first simply thankful for the benevolent intervention of the shy but likable Sen'ge, Tuya slowly begins to realize just how deep the lovelorn Sen'ge's feelings for her truly run. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

Emma has moved to Budapest from the countryside with her good friend Böbe, and both of them have taken jobs as schoolteachers. However, their wages are pitifully small, and all they can afford in the way of housing is a shared room in a boarding house near the airport. The two women have settled into their lives, but it isn't easy: Emma's sexual affair with the school's married principal is not emotionally satisfying, and Böbe's penchant for picking up foreigners and bringing them back to their room for sex creates unpleasant situations, to say the least. At school, it used to be clear what the quickest route to success was, but now that the communists are no longer in power, a lot of the senior people are floundering in uncertainty. Eventually, Emma gains the courage to strike out on her own. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi