I am not sure if I saw a German film or a British film tonight: Irina Palm has a German writer and director, is set and filmed in London, and stars British (and Serbian and Hungarian) actors. Co-productions are the norm in European cinema today, mostly because of the way EU funding is distributed. But Irina Palm feels distinctly English, in the tradition of recent successes like the Full Monty and Billy Elliott, as well as lesser known films like Calendar Girls.
Regardless of which nation deserves the credit for it, Irina Palm is an excellent film. For lack of a better descriptor it is a social comedy, though it’s humor is more discomforting than entertaining. It is the story of a British widow, played in understated magnificence by Marianne Faithful, who becomes a professional handjob booth operator in order to raise the funds for her grandson’s treatment for some mysterious, unnamed disease, which can only be treated in Australia! Essentially the film is about the way she manages to maintain her dignity through an experience that would seem degrading or humiliating. Her “coming out” scene where she describes her new position to her card-playing neighbors is priceless!
I should mention that I saw this at the Freiluftkino in Kreuzberg. A Freiluftkino is an open air cinema, not a drive-in, thank god, but an open space with either fixed or mobile seating used only in the summer. It’s really like a beer garden with a screen and a projector – one of my favorite things about Berlin. There are atleast two that I know of, one in Friedrichshain and one in Kreuzberg, though they show films at the amphitheatre in Gruenwald sometimes. They have a pretty eclectic schedule, and the one in Kreuzberg subtitles German films in English – though Irina Palm, is a German film subtitled in German. Go figure!
Do bring a blanket with you, however.
