60°International Berlin Film Festival. By Rita Di Santo. In Competition: Howl dir Rob Epstein, Jeffrey Friedman & The Ghost Writer Dir Roman Polansky

“Howl” dir Rob Epstein, Jeffrey Friedman

In competition, Howl is about Allen’ Ginsberg’s seminal work, and the
resulting obscenity trial involving the beat poet and his publishers. The
story is told primarily trough three interweaving threads: the trial; the poem
itself, animated by graphic novelist and Eric Drooker as a Beat Fantasia; and
re-enactments with the young Allen Ginsberg (James Franco). The conservatives
prosecuting Ralph McIntosh tries to prove that the work is obscene. Defence
witnesses are 50s intellectuals who speak to the poem’s cultural and artistic
merits. The conservative presiding judge is Clayton Horn, who delivers a
surprisingly impassioned decision. I’m an imagined interview with flashbacks,
the young Ginsberg muses on his own creative process and the personal struggle
and liberation he had to go through. It’s a fascinating journey inside the
mind of the artist. Colourful and vibrant, with a documentary integrity,
follow the path of the artist, and his struggle to find space in the
conservative climate of the time. James Franco gives a astonishing
performance, reviling the passionate artist mind. The directors Rob Epstein
and Jeffrey Friedman bring all their talented documentary experience into the
project. They create a great alchemy with black and with, colour and
animations. The cinema serves the poem in a perfect way.

The Ghost Writer Dir Roman Polansky
Tony Blair’s appearance at the Iraq inquiry has been one of the most eagerly-
awaited political events of the last 10 years, and never the less has been the
most awaited political film at the Berlin film Festival Roman Polanski’s The
Ghost Writer. The movie is based on the novel The ghost written by best-
selling author Robert Harris, tells the story of a former British Prime
Minister Adam Lang, who is holed up on an island off American’s Eastern
seaboard , writing his memories. When his long-standing aide drowns, a
professional ghost writer is sent out to help him finish the book. Hanging
over Lang is the threat of a war crimes trial and a mysterious secret from his
past that threatens to jeopardize international relations. The movie is
infusing with incredible suspense, close to the thrillers of Alfred Hitchcock,
a gay that gets plunged into a completely strange world, and every stepts
happens are completely logical. The film has fantastic energy and drive. At
time when the book was published many commenter interpret the novel as a
thinly veiled commentary on his former Prime Minister Tony Blair, the film
opens the universality of the themes. It’s about power, and the modern
politics. As Lang in the movie explain “ I went into politics not because I
loved an ideology but because I loved a woman. It a pignut analyses about
modern politic, the spettacolarzation of politics, the illusion of the media,
the lose of the ideology, the corruption system of an oligarchy sistem, an
élite which include: secret service and academics. Suspense in a perfect
structure, with irony and very good combination of cast.