THR Festivals | Berlin 2009

Film Review: Little Joe

He became famous in the 1960s as Andy Warhol's naked muse in several Paul Morrissey movies and he was immortalized in song by Lou Reed but, as the new documentary "Little Joe" shows, the life of Joe Dallesandro was more than a walk on the wild side.

Film Review: Eden Is West

An illegal immigrant comes to Europe to find a better life in "Eden Is West," a familiar story distinguished by its healthy $9 million budget and the Italian star-power of Riccardo Scamarcio as a noble, handsome young immigrant from an unnamed country.

Film Review: Katalin Varga

Pretentious at first, this expressionistic, elemental story of revenge gathers power and moral complexity as it proceeds.

Film Review: Beeswax

The third time isn't much of a charm for over-hyped writer-director Andrew Bujalski with "Beeswax."

Film Review: Home From Home

Kimchi and bratwurst prove an unlikely but irresistible combination in "Home From Home," a terrific portrait of three senior couples -- the women Korean, the men German -- living in a "German village" at the southern tip of South Korea.

Film Review: Kill Daddy Good Night

Provocative, prolific Austrian director Michael Glawogger is known much better for his documentaries ("Megacities," "Working Man's Death") than his features ("Slumming"), and his sloppy drama "Kill Daddy Good Night" strongly suggests he should stick to reality.

Film Review: Members of the Funeral

The literary-flavored "Members of the Funeral" is yet another example of a first-time filmmaker's reach exceeding his grasp.

Film Review: Sweetgrass

There's plenty of time for rumination during "Sweetgrass," an intriguing but overly demanding portrait of rural Montana that concentrates on sheep and their herders.

Film Review: Enraged Sun, Enraged Sky

The film-festival circuit regularly plays host to many hundreds of creative misfires, but even by those standards, "Enraged Sun, Enraged Sky" is something special.

Film Review: Hilde

"Hilde" is a sumptuously mounted biopic about Hildegard Knef, the iconic German film and singing star who also became a best-selling author.

Film Review: Sweet Rush

After the considerable scope and solemn horror of his previous film, "Katyn" (2007), Poland's most celebrated filmmaker Andrzej Wajda produces in "Sweet Rush" ("Tatarak") a finely detailed, astutely crafted film in miniature, a small gemstone that glistens in the memory long after the lights come up.

Film Review: The Dust of Time

Like several of Theo Angelopoulos' more recent films, "The Dust of Time" is a curious mixture of the brilliant and the absurd.

Film Review: Letters to the President

The charisma of Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who draws huge adoring crowds wherever he goes, is the strongest image in "Letters to the President." The portrait that emerges is of a nice guy with a simple, direct approach to the people.

Film Review: Help Gone Mad

Russian director Boris Khlebnikov's enigmatic urban saga "Help Gone Mad" is very Russian indeed with long slow scenes and the driest comedy involving two lost men who take on some resemblance to Don Quixote and Sancho Panza.

Film Review: The Wondrous World of Laundry

The title of German director Hans-Christian Schmid's documentary "The Wondrous World of Laundry" sounds intriguing in an odd sort of way but there's really not a lot to laundry and nothing wondrous about it.

Film Review: The Korean Wedding Chest

Ulrike Ottinger, a 40-year veteran of the further reaches of German cinema, has given us in "The Korean Wedding Chest" a lovely documentary (though it's nowhere listed as such) about contemporary Korean culture and mores.

Film Review: The Milk of Sorrow

The decades of violence in Peru (1970-90's) form the background for this deliberately-paced but beautiful film by Claudia Llosa, whose first effort, "Madeinusa," was shown at both Sundance and Rotterdam.

Film Review: An Englishman in New York

Thirty-three years after portraying Quentin Crisp in the movie "The Naked Civil Servant," John Hurt returns to the character in "An Englishman in New York," which shows what happened when Crisp landed as a gay icon in Manhattan.

Film Review: My One and Only

Arriving not a moment too soon, the light, effervescent "My One and Only" has brightened up Berlinale Competition screenings that were threatening to drown in a sea of sorrow over war crimes, racism and dysfunctional families.

Film Review: Happy Tears

Mitchell Lichtenstein's first feature as a director, 2007's "Teeth," was a weird-funny film that spoofed horror film conventions while mixing in a bit of social satire in telling a wicked female revenge story. The actor-turned-director's follow-up movie, "Happy Tears," is simply weird.

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