Berlin Stories [Irene von Alberti / Miriam Dehne / Esther
Gronenborn, 2005]

Apparently, this consists of three `challenging tales' where `Berlin…
is the main character'. For `challenging' read unimaginative and
falsely profound. For `Berlin' read any number of western cities.

No, that's a little harsh: the first story (of an acting student
coming to terms with a new role – in a somewhat pretentious sounding
play – and becoming lost in the city) has some interest, and has the
advantage of featuring a character that has at least some depth.

The other two stories just try too hard to make an impression –
looking for meaning in histrionics and cliché.

[IMDB link: http://uk.imdb.com/title/tt0448130/ ]

Humphrey Jennings: Listening To Britain (Spare Time – 1939 / London
We can Take It – 1940 / Words For Battle – 1941 / Listen To Britain –
1942 / A Diary For Timothy - 1945)

The camera observes two women talking together in an empty street.
A woman plays a piano and a group of men gather round to sing.
Armoured vehicles move in convoy through Parliament Square. All
these beautifully photographed scenes are examples of Jennings' keen
eye for the symbolic, which make these `poetic documentaries' such
fascinating and resonating films. Many of the scenes are clearly
staged, and frequently designed to showcase a simplistic – but
during those terrible war years, forgivably necessary – patriotism.
But there is also a desire to show the dignity of ordinary people,
and a genuine wish to celebrate the resilience of a nation stoically
enduring the hardships and horrors of war.

It is hard to watch these films without constantly making
comparisons with contemporary life. In the last film shown – `A
Diary For Timothy' – we follow the first year of Timothy's life,
which crosses the divide between a wartime and peacetime Britain.
The film questions how Timothy's generation will deal with the many
social problems that existed at the end of the war. Little Timothy
represents all the post war generations, and asks us to question how
our society looks in comparison with the one captured by Jennings.

Eros [Wong Kar-Wai, Steven Soderburgh, Michaelangelo Antonioni, 2004]

Three films by some A-list directors, all dealing with the erotic.
Eroticism as a theme is one thing, but a film being erotic is
another entirely. All of these three films are to some extent the
former, but only one of them comes anywhere close to the latter.

And that's Wong Kar-Wai's `The Hand', where there are moments of
muted eroticism. However, even in this film the more appropriate
description is probably sensuousness; it's a mesmerising,
beautifully meditation on longing and thwarted desire. Just magical.

The Soderbergh film is very different – clever and witty, with
Robert Downey Jr and Alan Arkin on top form.

The last of the trilogy – Antonioni's effort – can only be described
as drivel. It is of embarrassingly poor quality. It chooses to use
the most nudity of the three, and is completely without any
eroticism whatsoever.

[IMDB link: http://uk.imdb.com/title/tt0343663/ ]