(RTR) Directed by Samira Gloor-Fadel. Switzerland/France. 1h46.
The last entry in the cinema's all gone to hell in a handbasket' sweepstakes, Berlin-Cinéma is an astonishingly gorgeous non-fiction film contrasting philosophical views on film with images of a once-divided city in the process of being rebuilt, in both black and white and in colour.
Wenders discusses his theories on Berlin, cinema and literature, documentary and fiction, colour and video, often with architect Nouvel while walking though a building under construction. Godard discusses what matters to him most in 1997, when his voice was recorded at a press conference - the war in Bosnia.
Wenders'terms shouldn't fly over anyone'head - Gloor-Fadel, quite cleverly, films a child reading Godard on Godard to highlight that it's not beyond us to understand what the directors are talking about: just think, and , more importantly , look. Wenders, too, refers to this theories as childish, and his desire for a cinema providing the spaces between the lines is what Gloor-Fadel amply provides with her meditative, alternately panning and static camerawork. There's a desire for both fiction and documentary in everything that one sees, and, in an always fascinating manner, Berlin-Cinéma provides it in spades.
Cinemascope, Toronto - Mark Peranson