Berlin Dispatch – Peter von Kant

You haven’t forgot about the Berlinale, have you?

Compared to its counterparts in Cannes and Venice, Berlin has been having trouble booking prestige US productions and A-list international auteurs. The reason is that these films are increasingly reliant on the Oscars for their marketing and need to build momentum with an Oscar-friendly festival launch. Obviously Berlin’s February dates – still at the end of the previous awards season – can’t help with that. It’s also in the dead of winter, where the pandemic numbers ride high and studio release schedules are in a constant flux. But even when hot titles with marquee stars are hard to find in Berlin, I’ve come to really enjoy starting the year with a festival that has the space for riskier, less familiar films, some of which invariably make my best-of-year list. Also it’s just refreshing to turn one’s attention temporaraily away from the ten films people talk obsessively about for months after Venice.

In any case, the 72^nd edition of the Berlinale kicked off today with prolific French director François Ozon’s PETER VON KANT, a gender-reversed adaptation of legendary German filmmaker Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s THE BITTER TEARS OF PETRA VON KANT. To touch the 1972 classic is a risky proposition to say the least, so I’m relieved to report that Ozon did good. The film manages to stay spiritually faithful to the original while being a very different treat. It also serves as a loving tribute to Fassbinder the man. RWF fans are going to have a field day with this one.

Set in Cologne 1972, the film is about Peter von Kant (Denis Ménochet), a successful movie director who lives with his silent assistant/servant Karl (Stefan Crepon). Peter bosses the submissive Karl around to take care of his professional and personal business, while the young man takes all the abuse from his master without complaint. One day, washed-up actress Sidonie (Isabelle Adjani) pays her friend Peter a visit. After exchanging views on love and life, she introduces him to aspiring actor Amir (Khalil Ben Gharbia), who Peter is instantly obsessed with. The disintegration of the unhealthy relationship between Peter and Amir follows in act two where Amir, now a star as Peter promised him, decides to leave the older man. In the iconic all-star third act, Peter must face the consequences of his actions towards those around him on his 40^th birthday.Like anyone familiar with the original film, I was apprehensive of the idea to make the lead a man. Why would you do that with a film that famously has an all-female cast and is expressly about women? Ozon’s decision pays off for me when I realize the update is not about men or any man, but about Fassbinder himself. It’s widely known that the gay filmmaker conceived Petra as a stand-in for his possessive, abusive self. 40 years after his death, Ozon is letting us see him as his own fictional alter ego.

The homage is unambiguous, with clues dropped everywhere. The casting of Ménochet, who looks uncannily like RWF in his wasted later years, is a giveaway. Ditto the portrayal of his heavy drinking and drug use (never with any judgment but rather a knowing nod). The reveal of Amir’s family name as “ben Salem” cheekily refers to Fassbinder’s real-life flame El Hedi ben Salem, who also rose to fame through his films. And a musical motif of the film, Jeder tötet was er liebt (“Each man kills the thing he loves”), sung with much melancholy by Adjani’s character, is lifted from Fassbinder’s other classic QUERELLE. By reviving the man that inspired Petra, the film offers an unusually intimate look at all the things Fassbinder wanted to say – or even confess – with his work.

In other respects, PETER looks and feels quite different from PETRA. Ozon didn’t try to copy the single-room setting, deliberate camera movement or ultra-long, unedited takes of the original, which I think is the right decision because why attempt something that’s already been done to perfection? This film has a much livelier beat, which might negate some of the beautiful malaise people associate with PETRA, but it looks fabulous and, at 90 min (more than 30 minutes shorter than PETRA), moves along at its own confident pace. The costume and styling, another signature of PETRA, might prove a little disappointing, even if you consider Adjani’s impossibly large coif.

Ultimately the film stands or falls on Ménochet’s performance, and he delivers. While having many of the same lines, he wisely chose not to imitate Margit Carstensen’s star turn as Petra. His Peter is more violently emotional and he often sucks up the air in a scene with a force that borders on aggressiveness. Some might consider this overkill, but I think it carries the right weight to channel the demons of cinema’s true enfant terrible. There’s a musical number towards the end where he dances alone in a room drenched in blue that’s so deeply, wordlessly expressive it entrances you. Shout-out’s also to Adjani and Crepon, both of whom shine whenever they appear. And how wonderful it is to see legend Hanna Schygulla (who played the object of desire in PETRA) here again. Like I said, a FIELD DAY.

Last year the Berlinale could only take place in a compromised hybrid format. This year, as infections in Germany are at an all-time high, the organizers bit the bullet and decided to go ahead with an in-person Omikron edition. They’re also going Squid Game on us press, with everyone having to test daily in order to access screenings. So hopefully I can make it through the festival without catching the bug (when you’re spending hours in screenign rooms with people from all over, you never know). Altogether 18 films will be competing for the Golden Bear, with the winner to be announced next Wednesday (February 16) by the jury headed by M. Night Shyamalan.