Berlinale 2012 - Jury/ International Competition

British film maker Mike Leigh will be head of the international jury of the upcoming Berlin Film Festival. He is joined by French actress Charlotte Gainsbourg, Iranian film maker Asghar Farhadi, French film maker Francois Ozon, Algerian writer Boualem Sansal, German actress Barbara Sukowa, Dutch photographer and film maker Anton Corbijn, and American actor Jake Gyllanhaal.


Mike Leigh


Barbara Sukowa


Boualem Sansal


Charlotte Gainsbourg


Francois Ozon


Jake Gyllenhaal


Anton Corbijn


Asghar Farhadi

It is, in my opinion, the hottest jury in years with big names throughout - big in the sense of both each jury member's fame and popularity as well as their achievements and the quality of their work.

The first-rate jury is matched by a Competition programme which, though not yet complete, sounds very promising consisting as it does almost solely of world premières, thus giving Cannes a run for its money.

It'll be posted here as soon as it's been announced.

Abigail's Party, Mike Leigh 1977

Having watched Career Girls again a few days ago, prompted me to revisit some other, earlier, Mike Leigh gems, among them Abigail's Party, Leigh's made-for-television movie from 1977.

What really struck me about Abigail's Party this time is how Leigh was quite obviously inspired by Nichols'/ Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf. Although Woolf is less a statement about class than an observation of marriage - although one could argue that the two are related - the parallels between the two films struck me as quite interesting. For starters, there is the obvious parallel of two couples being at the centre of the narrative. Never mind that Abigail's Party has one additional character, Sue, one whose functions it is to provide the narrative with its elephant in the room - the party of her daughter Abigail. Both Abigail and her party are frequently referred to by Sue and the other characters, however, we neither actually get to see Abigail nor the party. This has its parallel in Woolf in the non-existing son, invented by George and Martha to fill the void between them and to make up for the son they never had. In fact, all couples in Woolf and Abigail are childless.

Another fascinating parallel between the two films concerns some of the characters. While Beverly, who is at the centre of Abigail's Party has her equivalent in Martha, Angela, the simpleton, is akin to Honey in Woolf. On the same token, the shift in the dynamics between the two couples in Abigail's Party is also not dissimilar to Woolf as both Albee/ Nichols and Leigh allow their characters to develop and reveal unexpected strengths and weaknesses. In other words, both films avoid easy categorisation of their protagonists, and as their attitudes shift, so do our sympathies towards them. For instance when Beverly, who, through most of the film comes across as obnoxious and pretentious, reveals an unexpected sympathy and vulnerability at the end when faced with the sudden death of her husband whom only minutes ago she had nothing but contempt for.

However, although Leigh may have used Woolf as a blueprint and inspiration for his own film, there is no denying that at their heart, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf and Abigail's Party have been made for different reasons with both films having a rather different premise. That said, Leigh's mockery of the middle-class and those who aspire to be part of it may be at the core of his own film, Nichols', too, also is not entirely without its own statement on class as Martha's contempt for George is based on his lack of ambition which prevents him of becoming head of the faculty which would have resulted in a step up the social ladder, not to mention in a rise in salary.

Career Girls, Mike Leigh, UK/ France 1997

Ever since it was made, Career Girls, Mike Leigh's follow-up after his triumph at the Cannes Film Festival with Secrets and Lies the year before, has somehow always been eclipsed by his more high-profile offerings - Vera Drake, Topsy-Turvy, etc. - yet to me, Career Girls is one of the best, most human, films of his career.

Career Girls tells the story of a friendship - some might argue love - between two girls who met as room-mates, but whose relationship gradually turns into a deep and lasting friendship. Although how deep, Hannah and Annie only realise once they meet again after a 6-year break. To show the various stages in the development not just of their relationship but also in Hannah's and Annie's character and persona, Leigh uses a lot of flashback, like he had already done in his previous film. Although flashback may be a rather conventional device, Leigh uses it to great effect.

Career Girls starts in the present, when we see Annie travelling on a train in what appears to be the first class compartment. In the flashback that follows we become aware of the changes Annie has gone through, for not only does she now seem more confident and more settled than she did in the past, she also suffered from a skin disease which resulted in ugly scabs on her face. Apart from causing her to constantly lower her head, her skin disease occasionally also made her the brunt of Hannah's jokes. But if Annie was visually scarred, Hannah's scars are internal, having suffered under a domineering mother who always preferred her other daughter over her. Annie is met on the platform by Hannah. While it takes the two women a while to break the ice, to overcome the initial awkwardness, their relationship intensifies over the course of the weekend. Both have moved on from the struggling, penniless, students they were when they first met. Hannah is now a successful executive while Annie is working as a psychologist.

It is one of Leigh's trademarks to caricature the middle class, and surely Career Girls would have lent itself to do just that for this is precisely where both Hannah and Annie are eventually comfortably placed. However, while there are still some traces left of Leigh's contempt for the middle class - notably at the film's beginning - these are not so much expressed as caricature, but more so in observations of the conventionality both women, particularly Hannah, have succumbed to. That said, it is Hannah who has one of the best of the many witty lines in Career Girls. Looking down from the balcony of a posh apartment she and Annie are viewing, she says to the property owner, "I suppose on a clear day you can see the class struggle from here".

While Leigh has rightly gained a reputation for his clever scripts full of sharp observations and witty one-liners, the dialogues in Career Girls are without a doubt among the best of his career. And although Career Girls revolves around both Hannah and Annie, it is Hannah who is at the centre of the film. That Career Girls turned into the timeless gem it has become is due to a considerable degree to the outstanding talent of the late Katrin Cartlidge who plays Hannah. This is not meant to diminish the achievement of the other actors - far from it. But Cartlidge breathed life into a character - Hannah - that is as complex and negative as she is hilarious and ultimately likeable. In Hannah Cartlidge created one of Leigh's most remarkable, most memorable, characters and no doubt gave one of that year's best performances.

Career Girls is out on DVD.