Berlin Alexanderplatz – Alfred Döblin’s 1928 epic modernist novel about a working class man named Franz Biberkopf in Weimar Germany. At the start of the book, Franz emerges from prison, serving time for accidentally beating his ex-wife to death during a dispute. Franz is a brute and may not be all there in the head. Our narrator explains early on that he will be tested three times on his spiritual journey to make a life for himself in Berlin, each test a blow, harder and more severe than the last, after which he will not be the same man. Döblin’s novel, like several modernist epics, is long and tedious, at times more about evoking a stream of consciousness or abstractly detailing a space, in the mode of a newspaper per se, than it is a linear story one can follow. One sequence systematically details the lives of all of the inhabitants of each floor of a new apartment building, starting from the bottom up. Though it takes hundreds of pages to adapt to this book’s rhythms, I eventually found it nourishing. Franz is one of the more beguiling characters I’ve read, and Döblin’s approach, both sadistic and humanistic, will surprise you throughout. It’s also a remarkable portrait of a city that would be destroyed in less than twenty years. Döblin couldn’t have known exactly what he was capturing, but nonetheless, the dark tides of history are clearly shifting in this text.

In the Shadow of Women – The middle installment in Philippe Garrel’s love trilogy, and the first to have Jean-Claude Carrière on board as co-writer. The film follows a disaffected middle-age couple, who work together as documentarians, as they simultaneously cheat on each other and subsequently both discover this about one another. This film is simply funnier, sexier and more interesting than Jealousy, and I’m tempted to give nearly all the credit to Carrière. Which is all to say that this is a pretty good film, and still not a great film. Throughout this trilogy, Garrel explores how human insecurities dictate the curious architecture of relationships; unfortunately, these varied insights never seem to congeal into anything substantive or unique in the vast face of French film history. Though, the black & white photography and economic storytelling may be enough for some to enjoy.

After the Rehearsal & Persona – Belgian theater director Ivo van Hove brought his Toneelgroep Amsterdam troupe to the Kennedy Center for two performances of Ingmar Bergman plays. I was unfamiliar with After the Rehearsal, but Persona happens to be one of my favorite films. Bergman directed it with a cerebral multi-dimensionality, notable in most of his more severe projects, and I was eager to see how it would translate to a stage. I was not disappointed. The first play takes place in a theater director’s office after a rehearsal of a play he’s about to launch. As he digests the afternoon’s events, he’s visited by two of the actors, both women, a mother and a daughter, a family that has a long history with the director. Slowly, it dawns on the viewer that one may actually be watching the interior of the director’s mind, wrangling with the meta-actors, and their respective characters past and present, attempting to get a grip on his play. After intermission, the diorama set has been skinned of its theater detritus. Now resembling a barren, cold hospital cell, Persona begins similarly to the film. During the transition to the island though, the walls of the cell collapse outward into a simulated ocean (a couple of inches of water surrounding the inner stage) which contains the rest of the action. A storm then drenches the two women, utilizing a giant fan and hose to literally spray rain across the stage. The two women, mother and daughter in the previous production, are now mostly disrobed as their identities begin to merge over a shimmering, dreamy floor of water. It’s hard to understate just how dazzling the production design was here, and how effective it was at nesting, echoing and amplifying these two works. If you happen to see an Ivo van Hove production in your town, this should be a must see.

Lover for a Day – The final installment in Garrel’s love trilogy. Carrière is on board again, bringing a needed vigorousness, and it mostly pays off again. The plot revolves around a heartbroken daughter moving in with her father, who happens to be dating and living with a young woman the same age as her. Garrel demonstrates cleverly how relationships can generate and propagate problems into other relationships. Philippes’s real-life daughter Esther Garrel stars as the daughter, making the already unsettling age dynamic a meta-issue. As stated above, these films were all competently made and entertaining but ultimately disappointing in their slightness.

Fortune Teller – Xu Tong’s unsanctioned documentary about a poor fortune-teller, Li Baicheng, in a suburb of modern Beijing. Li is in his mid-50’s with several health conditions and needs two make-shift crutches to move. Deaf, blind and suffering from several undiagnosed mental and physical disabilities, Li’s wife is even worse off. To make a living, Li illegally practices fortune-telling through various arcane methods that he appears to truly believe in. Above all else, this film is a harrowing display of poverty, and like the documentary Three Sisters, an implicit criticism of the Chinese state. The prosperity from China’s record growth is concentrated, leaving hundreds of millions behind without any social healthcare or unemployment benefits.

NOTE: After a month of personal travel, family requirements and multiple weddings, Partial Review will now be returning to its normal schedule. Expect a frantic cataloguing of the last month and a half’s events until things return to normal. Thank you.

-Management