Blood running over rivals at Berlin Film Festival
Giles Hewitt

BERLIN—An anaemic lineup at the Berlin Film Festival has left critics searching for a challenger to the runaway favourite for the coveted Golden Bear award, Paul Thomas Anderson’s “There Will be Blood”. Halfway through the 11-day festival, which started on a high note with the world premiere of “Shine a Light,” Martin Scorsese’s concert film of the Rolling Stones, the warmest praise has gone to individual performances rather than the movies themselves.
The main exception is Anderson’s sweeping epic about a tyrannical oil prospector that has dominated a running ratings poll of international critics by the trade magazine Screen International. “There Will Be Blood” came into the Berlinale with eight Oscar nominations under its belt and a clutch of top awards for British-born Daniel Day-Lewis, whose towering lead performance has made him a clear frontrunner for a best actor prize here.
“There Will Be Gold” predicted the German daily Der Tagesspiegel after the film screened on Friday. Anderson knows what it is to triumph in Berlin, having won the Golden Bear in 2000 for “Magnolia”. A total of 21 films are in the official competition for the top prize to be announced by an all-star jury led by Greek-French director Costa-Gavras at a gala ceremony February 16.
With 11 films screened so far, the most memorable reviews have been the harshest at the 58th Berlinale, which ranks among Europe’s top three festivals. “A B-movie for a C-list festival,” was Der Tagesspiegel film critic Jan Schulz-Ojala’s scathing verdict on “Black Ice,” a lukewarm Finnish thriller about a love triangle.
Scott Roxborough, covering his eighth Berlinale for the cinema industry magazine The Hollywood Reporter, acknowledged the prevalent mood that the films in competition had failed to deliver. “On paper it looked pretty good, with some old established directors and new ones, but so far there’s been nothing that has really set people alight,” Roxborough said.
“It seems they haven’t taken any big risks this year — no new, cutting-edge or really different films like in the past,” he added. “I’ll give the festival a C-plus at the moment, but it can still turn in some written work and up its grade before the end.” While the critical consensus has favoured “There Will Be Blood,” Berlinale veterans say the Oscar nominations and other plaudits already showered on the film elsewhere might tempt the jury to spotlight one of the smaller efforts that would benefit hugely from the exposure that comes with a Golden Bear.
Possible candidates include Mexican director Fernando Eimbcke’s “Lake Tahoe,” an understated, touching drama of a teenaged boy coming to terms with his father’s death. Chinese director Wang Xiaoshuai’s film, “In Love We Trust,” — a contemporary tale of love, responsibility and deceit among China’s new middle class, was also well received at press screenings.
Best actress speculation has focused on Britain’s Tilda Swinton and Spanish star Penelope Cruz. Swinton, who has developed a reputation as a risk-taker, won praise for her portrayal of an alcoholic who kidnaps a boy in French director Erick Zonca’s “Julia”. Cruz was picked out for her performance as a student who embarks on an affair with a much older professor, played by Ben Kingsley, in the otherwise unflavoured “Elegy”.
While Day-Lewis would seem a shoo-in for the men’s honours, German actor Elmar Wepper is a possible dark-horse challenger for his lead role in “Cherry Blossoms” as a man who begins to understand the passions of his late wife on a visit to Tokyo.