So far, the highlight of the competition has been "Dreams", the new film by Michel Franco. After "Memory" (2023), this is the second time the Mexican director worked with Jessica Chastain. She plays Jennifer, who has set up a cultural foundation with her father's money - a tax-deductible form of philanthropic cultural patronage. The foundation supports a ballet school in Mexico City, where Jennifer meets the exceptionally talented dancer Fernando (Isaac Hernández).
They start a passionate affair that continues with wild sex when Fernando turns up at Jennifer's luxurious house in San Francisco. Their liaison only works in secret, as the elegant society lady can't be seen in public with a Mexican dancer who is also 12 years her junior. Their relationship is characterised by dramatic break-ups and erotic reconciliations.
Jessica Chastain, who won an Oscar three years ago for her portrayal of the TV preacher Tammy Faye, switches from social etiquette to wild eroticism with breathtaking intensity. The revelation of the film is the renowned dancer Isaac Hernández, who has just become the first Mexican to be appointed to the American Ballet Theatre.
When Fernando has finally landed a place in the San Francisco ballet, he is arrested and deported as an illegal migrant. This sequence is staged so in a sober and documentary-like manner that it becomes clear that this is a well-established pattern. What until this point looked like a love story that transcends cultural and class boundaries suddenly takes on a harder edge. Director Michel Franco subtly demonstrates the paternalism of cultural charity work. In the light of Donald Trump's announced mass deportations of ‘illegal aliens’, ‘Dreams’ appears to be the film of the hour, although it is easy to forget that the same practice of raids and deportations also existed during the Biden administration, even if it was handled more discreetly. A practice that Jessica Chastain referred to in the press conference.
With her, one of the most versatile female stars of American cinema, the star rating at this year's Berlinale rose significantly. Timothée Chalamet had caused a stir beforehand with a completely overcrowded press conference and his appearance on the red carpet (wearing a delicate undergarment as an extravagant outfit). Chalamet had come to Berlin to present his film ‘A Complete Unknown’, in which he plays the young Bob Dylan, starting with his arrival in New York's Greenwich Village in the early 1960s and ending with his legendary performance at the Newport Folk Festival in 1965. James Mangold directed the biopic based on the book ‘Dylan Goes Electric!’ by Elijah Wald; it was shown in the ‘Berlinale Special’ section.
Portraying a music legend like Bob Dylan is quite a risk, which Timothée Chalamet masters brilliantly. He has made meticulous preparations, sings and plays the guitar. In the performance, he gets Dylan's intonation just right without sounding like a cover band. Something similar can be said about Monica Barbaro in the role of Joan Baez, who first falls in love with the young rascal, only to finally say in exasperation, "Bobby, you're quite an asshole" This Bob Dylan is anything but a nice guy, rather someone who gets up in the middle of the night leaving his girlfriend alone in bed and works on his songs. He has little regard for the women at his side. When he turns up at his ex-girlfriend Sylvie's house and drags her along to the Newport Folk Festival, the trip ends in disaster. After Dylan's performance with Joan Baez, Sylvie bursts into tears and leaves the grounds in a hurry. The final farewell at a wire fence is emotionally moving, but staged in a completely unsentimental way.
In Newport ends also the friendship with the folk music icon Pete Seeger, congenially embodied by Edward Norton, who until then had unselfishly supported the young nobody. Dylan's performance with electric guitar and rock band is blasphemy for the harsh folk purists. Pete Seeger's angry reaction when he is about to cut the amplifier cables with an axe is symbolically exaggerated and not historically documented. Seeger will continue to sing upright protest songs with his banjo, while Dylan creates his own electronically amplified musical cosmos with "Maggie's Farm" and "Like a Rolling Stone".
The real Bob Dylan is said to have been quite taken with the film as well as the interpretation by Timothée Chalamet. That's saying something. "A Complete Unknown§ was released in the USA in December and was promptly nominated for eight Oscars, including for best film and best male lead. It will be released in cinemas in Germany at the end of February.