Berlinale Dispatch #2

From the disco to the manodrome

I don’t really like to think of myself as an Awards or Box Office prognosticator. You’re talking about a guy who once said Queen of the Desert (Werner Herzog, 2015) was going to be a big hit. Trying to see what’s going to be a success or not is something of a fools’s errand. Which is why I’m predicting big things for Manodrome (John Trengove, 2023) in the future. A blistering, funny take on the Joker-ified (Todd Phillips, 2019) nature of white male fragility, it stars Jesse Eisenberg as a complete and utter nutter who beats up a bunch of guys and lifts weights in the gym. I think it will be a success.

Surely?

Joining the ranks of the un-reviewed films are the wonderful Muriel’s Wedding (P.J. Hogan, 1994) and Little Fugitive (Ray Ashley, Morris Engel, and Ruth Orkin, 1953), both playing in the retrospective. Both share a certain mix of whimsy and raw youth, as well as fantastic, crowd-rousing moments. Moments and lines from Muriel’s Wedding like what a coincidence and you can’t stop progress and other moments perhaps unprintable in a newsletter you might read at work, are already imprinted on my mind; over in Little Fugitive (picked by Wes Anderson!) it’s obvious to see how it inspired the French New Wave. Truffaut certainly thought of it before making The 400 Blows (1959).

I won’t write much more as I have an interview to prep for (it starts in an hour :D) but here’s a list of great articles by me and my writers to check out:

• Fedor Tot’s excellent article on the shorts programme.

• My overview of women-focused Panorama films.

• My takedown of Disco Boy.