Highlights from the Berlin film festival: Dahomey treasures, hippos, cathedral spaceships, Henry Fonda, resistance
Plus new writing on an Oscar nominee and a veritable feast of streaming picks
Dear Last Thing I Sawfolk,
Last week I went to Berlin to cover the film festival and as the days went by, I realized the ol’ substack was becoming like a suitcase on a return trip: filling up with more and more stuff so that it hardly fits the same way. So here are my podcasts from a festival that Jordan Cronk aptly described as having a depth that’ll keep on giving, beyond headliners like Dahomey, the outstanding winner of the Golden Bear.
In terms of writing, I link to an interview about the Palestinian-Israeli film No Other Land (more on which below), but there will be more to come, hold your horses now. I’m just this one guy here.
I conclude as always with a thank-you to all the mighty supporters of The Last Thing I Saw!
Nic
THE PODCAST
Berlin 2024 #1 with Jordan Cronk: Bruno Dumont’s Empire, A 14-Hour Movie, Henry Fonda for President
Berlin 2024 #2 with Jonathan Romney: Victor Kossakovsky’s Architecton, Cuckoo, La Cocina, No Other Land
Berlin 2024 #3 with Guy Lodge: Hong Sangsoo’s A Traveler’s Needs, Matt and Mara, Suspended Time
Berlin 2024 #4 with Jessica Kiang: Mati Diop’s Dahomey, Pepe, Through the Graves, Devil’s Bath
Berlin 2024 #5 with Keva York: Christine Angot’s Une Famille, Spaceman, Berlin Critics’ Week
Berlin 2024 #6 with Jordan Cronk: Philippe Lesage’s Who by Fire, Tu Me Abrasas, new Tsai Mingliang, new Kiyoshi Kurosawa, Direct Action
Big thanks to my brilliant guests above, returning to the podcast (Jordan Cronk, Jessica Kiang, Guy Lodge, Jonathan Romney) and making a warmly welcome debut (Keva York, who was filing for Reverse Shot and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation).
Episodes of The Last Thing I Saw are also available at other podcast places such as Spotify.
THIS CRITIC’S PICKS
Streaming selections
God Save Texas: Hometown Prison (HBO MAX) Richard Linklater’s feature-length documentary about Huntsville, where he grew up
When Strangers Marry (Criterion) yes, there’s Robert Mitchum, but that ain’t the half of it. Watch that camera, and watch Dean Jagger and Kim Hunter
Force Majeure (MUBI) Ruben Östlund before so many people did a 180 on him
Priscilla (HBO MAX) Sofia Coppola on growing up (married to) Presley
Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy (Criterion) Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s other film the year he won the Oscar for Drive My Car. Three in one!
Martin Scorsese by Joanna Hogg (YT) I don’t usually post onstage conversations but Scorsese is truly delightful as ever and does an incredible riff on his shoes. This was for his Honorary Golden Bear at the Berlin film festival
Kenneth Copeland Interview (YT) While I’m posting stuff besides movies: this is one hell of an interview with a megamillionaire preacher (from 2019 but evergreen, otherworldly, funny, shocking-not-shcoking)
RECENT WORK
Things I wrote.
One of my absolute highlights from the Berlinale lineup was No Other Land, a (doubly) award-winning documentary about Palestinian villagers fighting forced removal in the West Bank. It was directed by an Israeli-Palestinian collective, and before it won awards, I spoke to two co-directors who are central on screen: Basel Adra and Yuval Abraham (later targeted for criticism and death threats).
For my latest at W Magazine, I interviewed the director of Academy Award nominee Four Daughters, Kaouther Ben Hania. Her hybrid documentary about a mother and her daughters—two of them ISIS recruits who left home—won an award at Cannes last year, a Cesar last week, and more. I’d been wanting to write about her film since Cannes.
For The New York Times, I reviewed a documentary about a remarkable U2 concert in Sarajevo after the end of the Bosnian Serb siege. Intriguingly, I see that OVID is now streaming Marcel Ophuls’ Sarajevo siege documentary The Troubles We’ve Seen.
THE END
Here I may end with a song.
ABOUT ME
Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw! I’m your host, Nicolas Rapold. Feel free to get in touch re: writing, editing, moderating, programming, podcasting, etc. by writing me at nicolas.rapold[at]gmail.com
Besides hosting the podcast, I’m a writer and an editor. My features, interviews, festival reports, and reviews are published in The New York Times, Screen Slate, Sight & Sound, Filmmaker, Air Mail, The Los Angeles Times, and W Magazine. (Plus dearly departed publications such as The Village Voice, Stop Smiling, The New York Sun, and The L Magazine.) For notes on my superfun programming experience, drop me a line.
On the editorial side, I worked as editor-in-chief of Film Comment magazine, where I was for 15 years in all. I assigned and edited both web and print, hosted The Film Comment Podcast and Talks, curated and hosted Film Comment Selects screenings, learned from brilliant writers, and wrote a lot, including interviews with Spike Lee, Robert Pattinson, Juliette Binoche, Pedro Costa, and Frederick Wiseman. Film Comment received the Film Heritage Award from the National Society of Film Critics.