From time to time, as if limbering up for a sports competition, one or another would get up, stretch, then casually hurl a paving stone through a nearby shop window. This was the signal for the cops, like birds ruffled by a sudden noise, to put away their newspapers and strap on their helmets. By noon, stones would be raining down like hail as several hundred anarchists-for-the-day ran through the streets bellowing, “Pigs.” Afternoon would progress to Molotov cocktails, water cannon and tear gas. A few cars would burn, and spectators such as myself thought it all great fun. The action would end promptly in the early evening, suspiciously close to the cocktail hour, when men with brooms emerged to clean up the mess.
I remembered all this, fondly, at the recent Berlin Film Festival. Europe’s answer to the Oscars is anything but Hollywood. For one thing, an unspoken rule is that glossy American features seldom win prizes. Another is that anything goes, so long as it’s within the rules. As various stars dismounted from their limos to walk the red carpet into the closing night’s gala awards ceremony, a group of streakers leaped out to dance naked before the TV cameras. An anarchist outburst? Not exactly. Painted on their bodies were such slogans as no cuts for the arts! It seems the mayor, strapped for cash, was slashing Berlin’s culture budget–and this newer generation of skinheads would not have it.
The festival’s bespectacled impresario, Dieter Kosslich, anticipated the scene. For several days the protesters had camped out near city hall in the snow. To warm them up and buoy their spirits, Kosslich sent over a case of red wine, along with a note: “Just don’t throw anything. Our international visitors will not understand.” Nor was he perturbed when, amid the drumrolls preceding this or that award, a phalanx of protesters loudly began shouting from the balcony. “I didn’t recognize you with your clothes on,” he said, then patiently gave them their say.
Choreographed anarchy is so Berlin. My favorite contretemps involved the top prize, the coveted Golden Bear for best picture. For the first time since 1986, it was awarded this year to a German film, “Gegen die Wand,” or “Head On”–as in collision with a wall. It features a violent love affair between two Germans of Turkish descent. She seeks a marriage of convenience to escape the hold of her conservative Muslim parents; he’s a dissolute rocker, the perfect embodiment of the Western vice her family fears. The movie has wowed the critics and made Germans proud, all the more so because its star, a young actress whose beauty is surpassed only by her seeming innocence, told interviewers that this was her first film.
Ah, Berlin, innocence is so fleeting. Hardly a day passed before the tabloid Bild splashed her across its front page: film diva is porn star. And it had pix from the likes of “Mega-Cool Chicken Farm” to prove it. Kosslich knew this was coming, too. “Dieter, we’ve got a problem,” a member of the movie’s production crew told him the night before. He blinked at the news, thought a moment and replied, “No problem.” Scandalized? Berliners loved it.
