Tales of a pandemic at the Berlin Film Festival: there are several films presented on the bill that, fortunately, think with great attention on the years in which we are living, often through symbolic and courageous forms.
Among these, a special mention goes to “Coma”, a new feature film by Bertrand Bonello, a French director who has previously signed important films such as “Le pornographe”, “Saint Laurent” and “Nocturama”.
Presented in the Encounters section, “Coma” is a feature film that opens with a real letter written by the director to his daughter: the latter, while preparing to come of age, saw the world stop due to of the health crisis. After this particularly intimate opening, the film shows us a girl forced to stay in the limbo of her bedroom during the lockdown, between terrifying nightmares, group calls with her friends and a curious influencer, named Patricia Coma, who follows every new one. video with great attention. It is undoubtedly an anomalous feature film «Coma», a theoretical film that combines existential reflections, narrative experiments and connections between the individual trauma of a teenager and the collective trauma of the entire planet.
A touching and surprising film
Mixing animation and live action, dream and reality, videos on youtube and archive materials, Bonello directs a disturbing audiovisual symphony on the pandemic, at times too convoluted, but still surprising and capable of leaving more than one food for thought. What emerges, however, is above all a touching product of a father (the director) who seeks a connection with his daughter in such a complicated moment, trying to make his protagonist a sort of synecdoche of the adolescent universe at the time of the lockdown. Even the dangers of the virtual world, as well as those related to global warming, are at the center of a feature film about contemporary fears, but also about the ever more urgent desire to try to reconnect with the people we love most. Louise Labeque (who had already worked with Bonello in the previous “Zombi Child”) and Julia Faure, an important mention also goes to a group of famous actors who have lent their voices by participating in this film: from Laetitia Casta to Louis Garrel, from Vincent Lacoste to Anaïs Demoustier, up to the late Gaspard Ulliel, an actor who tragically died on January 19th following a skiing accident.
Return to Dust
Another tough family drama is the Chinese film “Return to Dust” by Li Ruijun, presented in competition. Starring Ma and Guying, who are forced into an arranged marriage: despite everything, the two will learn to love each other, to help each other and to resist in in the midst of so many difficulties. Sixth feature film by Li Ruijun, “Return to Dust” is a simple and intense film at the same time, able to excite by telling a sentimental relationship that is decidedly different from the ones we are used to seeing on the big screen. and the staging is reminiscent of that of many other Chinese films of recent years, the film is followed willingly and what comes to light is a drama full of humanity, which has dilated rhythms but a gaze that is always empathetic with the characters on stage. great attention that festivals and juries pay to contemporary Chinese cinema could find a place in the final palmarès.
