“At 81, time is an issue.”

Special Envoy of the Berlinale“I am a mystery.” This was Martin Scorsese's answer, accompanied by a sarcastic smile, to the journalist who asked him how he would define himself with one word. Dionido had the audacity to ask the most talkative director on the planet to be brief. mysterious? No, Scorsese is not mysterious at all. He spends his whole life talking about his origins and his love for cinema, in interviews, talks and through his films. He did the same at the Berlinale, where on Tuesday he was awarded an honorary Golden Bear for his exceptional career and for the work to restore cinematic heritage carried out by the institution that bears his name.

“There were no books in my house – recalls the director -. My parents were able to read, but they did not have books, so I had to educate myself mainly through foreign films, especially Italian neo-realism. The first film I saw Kenji Mizoguchi was on TV , dubbed and with commercials, and yet it was amazing, and when I think about how watching those movies affected me so much, coming from the humble neighborhood I came from, with parents who weren't cultured…well, maybe one day, someone will see The films we are restoring will change his life, like mine. If he devotes himself to filmmaking, it doesn't matter.”

But Scorsese doesn't just live in the past. In fact, the Berlinale award comes in the midst of the Oscar campaign for his latest film, Moon killersWhich produced Apple TV. The director strongly defended the vitality of cinema and its right to development. “Cinema does not die, it transforms – he emphasized -. It was not always meant to remain the same. Previously, cinema was always a collective experience that you see in the room, well, but technology has changed so quickly that “the only thing that stays the same is the sounds.” Personal. Personal voice can be expressed on TikTok just as it can in a four-hour movie or a two-hour miniseries.”

Meditating with Pope Francis

The director also updated the status of his Jesus Project, which was announced after his meeting with Pope Francis. In fact, he explained that they met again after his film was shown in the Vatican Silence (2016), about the persecution of two Jesuit priests in seventeenth-century Japan. According to Scorsese, he and Francis discussed “new and innovative ways of thinking about fundamental issues of Christianity.” But a movie about Jesus is currently an embryonic project. “I still have to think about what it will be like,” he said. “I want it to be a unique and different film, one that makes you think and entertains you. Maybe when promoting Moon killers “And getting some sleep I'll have a new idea.”

When asked about the voices of new directors he admires, Scorsese mentioned recent films such as Past life De Celine song i Perfect days Written by Wim Wenders (who is not an entirely new voice), he admits that it is difficult for him to keep up with cinema today. He justified, saying: “At the age of 81, time is a problem, and I must choose well what to invest in it.” Regarding awards and honors, he explained that he tries not to think about them too much. “When you're young, you have a lot of ego and ambition. You never lose ambition. Neither does ego really, but you try, because it can be a problem. So you have to tell yourself a lot that inside you there's nothing real.” I don't know anything.” As a result, he remembered the time he was shot King of comedy (1982) and realized that he had “poured everything he knew” into his previous films: Wild bull, taxi driver, New York, New York I The last waltz. “I had nothing left, I used everything, so I had the freedom to rethink everything: where to put the camera, how to tell the story… This happened to me more than once, even in… Irish. If you don't stop to think about what each plan needs, the result will be mediocre. You have to free yourself from the idea that there is only one way to make good films.”

“I committed a crime”

Besides the tribute to Scorsese, the Berlinale competition showed its best side Devil's bathroom. At the beginning of this movie, A 17th-century Austrian peasant woman picks up a baby a few months old, climbs a high waterfall, and, without further ado, drops him on the rocks. “I committed a crime,” he later said when he surrendered to authorities. Veronica Franz and Severin Fiala are also the directors of the 2014 film Sitges Good night, momdiscover now the documented phenomenon in several European countries during the 17th and 18th centuries of suicides (mostly women) who, instead of killing themselves, killed a child in the hope of being put to death and avoiding the condemnation to hell for which the mortal sin entails suicide.

Devil's bathroom It follows one of these cases and accompanies Agnes on her descent into the abyss of depression. The frustration of not having children in a society that reserves no other role for women, the constant interferences of her mother-in-law, and the general disillusionment with married life, all give shape to the compassionate connection embodied by the extraordinary Anya Blashegh, and is certainly a candidate for the award for Best Interpretation of a Protagonist. , unless the jury reserves some more important prize for this powerful portrait of a society rigidly shaped by religion and patriarchy, with no room for dissent or fragility and where values ​​are transmitted in particularly harsh ways.