Sunday, February 17, 2008

The Elite

By Mike Collett-White and Kerstin Gehmlich


BERLIN (Reuters) -
Ultra-violent Brazilian film "The Elite
Squad" ("Tropa De Elite") won the top prize at the Berlin Film
Festival on Saturday in what is likely to be a controversial
decision by the jury.

The movie, already a hit in Brazil, portrays corruption,
violence and murder within a crack squad of Rio policemen
battling armed drug dealers in the city slums.

The ceremony brings to a close 11 days of screenings, red
carpet premieres, parties and deal making at Europe's first
major film festival of the year.

The drama, awarded the coveted Golden Bear for best film,
divided the critics, and at home a group of officers sought to
have it blocked for denigrating the police force.

Some reviews praised it as a powerful portrayal of the
moral compromises police accept in order to survive and do
their job, but others said it glorified their often brutal
methods. One called it a "recruitment film for fascist thugs."

At the festival director Jose Padilha said he approached
the cycle of violence neither from the political left nor
right, and added that legalizing drugs was the only way to
break it.

In the film, police and drug warlords commit torture and
executions, including burning a teenager alive in a ring of
tires, while the rich are lambasted for financing narcotics
crime and even NGOs working in the slums are criticized.

"Many journalists didn't seem to have understood the film.
I was very concerned about that," Padilha told a news
conference after winning the award.

"But the bulk of the audience who saw it and the critics
who talked to me directly seemed to have grasped the film.

"(The film) shows how the state turns the police into
either corrupt police or police who don't want to do anything,
or violent police," he added.

The main competition line-up included 21 entries, but
nearly 400 movies were showcased in all sections of the
festival.

The runner up award went to "Standard Operating Procedure,"
a documentary by director Errol Morris exploring the abuse of
Iraqi prisoners by U.S. soldiers at the Abu Ghraib prison.

IRANIAN, BRITON BEST PERFORMANCES

Morris wanted his picture to show that the abuse was not
the work of a few errant individuals.

"As the movie points out ... the people who are actually
convicted and in prison over Abu Ghraib are not the only people
involved in this."

The best actor award went to Iran's Reza Naji in "The Song
of Sparrows," a film about how a man's rural idyll is
threatened by material temptations thrown in his path in the
big city.

Britain's Sally Hawkins was named best actress, as the
critics had predicted, for her portrayal of the infectiously
optimistic school teacher Poppy in "Happy-Go-Lucky."

"My legs have gone, I'm on the edge of tears as you can
hear," Hawkins told a packed Berlinale Palast. "Ultimately, I
want to thank an exceptional human being who is (director) Mike
Leigh. This is for Mike."

Paul Thomas Anderson of the United States won the best
director Silver Bear for "There Will Be Blood," the pre-awards
favorite to take the golden bear.


The movie, starring Daniel Day-Lewis as a greedy and
determined oil prospector in early 20th century America, has
won many prizes already and has been nominated for eight
Oscars.


As always, several out-of-competition films made the
biggest headlines, including a world premiere for Martin
Scorsese's "Shine a Light," a concert film of the Rolling
Stones.

Madonna also presented her directorial debut "Filth &
Wisdom," which several critics said was as poor as her worst
performances in front of the camera.

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