At the Berlinale, Alex Heeney reviews two films tackling systems of (in)justice: Faraz Shariat’s Prosecution and Mees Peijnenburg’s A Family
Discover one film you didn’t know you needed:
Not in the zeitgeist. Not pushed by streamers.
But still easy to find — and worth sitting with.
And a guide to help you do just that.
“We have to stay out of politics,” Berlinale Jury President Wim Wenders declared at the press conference last week.
“Because if we make movies that are dedicatedly political, we enter the field of politics. But we are the counterweight of politics; we are the opposite of politics. We have to do the work of people, not the work of politicians.”
It was the most publicized of a series of thoughtless comments about films being apolitical, including one from Neil Patrick Harris, at this year’s festival.
The comments feel especially ironic given that the festival has long championed political cinema — from spotlighting Indigenous filmmakers from around the world to programming boundary-pushing films about late-term abortion and four-hour epics about life during the rise of Nazism.
I began my Berlinale with two queer-themed films about the (in)justice systems, where justice isn’t blind. In Prosecution, the German state’s prosecution office, supposedly a beacon of neutrality, proves to be anything but. In A Family, divorce proceedings seep into domestic life, turning parent-child relationships into collateral damage of the family court.
Faraz Shariat’s Prosecution
In Teddy Award Winner Faraz Shariat’s (the excellent No Hard Feelings) Prosecution, justice is something manipulated by those in power. Seyo Kim (Chen Emilie Yan) is a fledgling state prosecutor who is the target of a hate crime by far-right extremists. Traumatized by the events and seeking justice, when she gets a tip that her office might be burying cases against far-right extremists, she abuses her own limited power to investigate.
Seyo Kim is a difficult character: arrogant, self-absorbed, and willing to sacrifice anyone who might stand in the way of her pursuit of justice, even if that means abusing her privileges and letting others take the fall. She has a point, of course, but her morality is more tied to the personal injustice she faces than those of the people she uses in her search for justice. It’s also complicated by the fact that she’s queer woman of colour in an office full of straight white men — some of whom are far-right sympathizers — who is trying to use what little power she has for long-awaited justice (or perhaps just to serve herself). Seyo Kim’s extreme actions strain believability, but serve the film’s purpose well, exposing the way justice was not served amidst big stacks of indistinguishable pink files.
From No Hard Feelings to Prosecution
In No Hard Feelings, Shariat tackled the terrifying and frustrating. limbo of life in a refugee detention centre; in Prosecution, he comes for the system of justice with a fury of righteous anger. At two hours, Prosecution feels like it may have worked better as a miniseries where the supporting characters could be better developed, and more structure could be imposed on what is already quite an episodic story. Still, there are many lovely touches, including the way Shariat makes the brutalist architecture of the prosecution office seem sinister and gothic: the walls and ceilings are always closing in on the frame. It’s also à propos that the cases in which marginalized people failed to get justice are buried in the locked basement.
Mees Peijnenburg’s A Family
In A Family, justice is imposed on children who have no power. The personal is political in Mees Peijnenburg’s heartwrenching third feature, A Family, opens with the legal proceedings for a divorce, in which the two children — 14-year-old Eli and 16-year-old Nina — are asked which parent they prefer to live with. Eli wants to be with both of them; Nina wants only one home, but isn’t ready to choose which. We don’t return to the courtroom, but the ongoing proceedings hang over the film and infect every interaction between Eli, Nina, and their parents.
The film begins with Nina’s perspective, as we watch her go to dance class, hang out with her girlfriend, and deal with her mother, who passive-aggressively tries to persuade her to live with her. Old enough to get out of the house when she feels suffocated, but young enough to not be sure which parent will turn on her if she doesn’t choose them, it’s a fraught couple of weeks — but it’s nothing compared to what her younger brother endures.
When we switch to Eli’s perspective, we see how much his parents are using him as a pawn to get back at each other and to get the upper hand in the court proceedings. He’s barely keeping it together, choosing not to respond to any questions they ask him so they can interpret his silence as it suits them. Eventually, overwhelmed by the constant maneuvering, he turns to the family court to make the decision he cannot bear to make himself — relinquishing the choice he is exhausted from being weaponized for in his parents’ war.
Children of divorce on screen
We’ve come a long way since Kramer vs Kramer, and the Berlinale has been at the forefront of programming stories of children of divorce from the children’s perspective. In 2017, the festival screened Mascha Schilinski’s (Sound of Falling) debut feature, Dark Blue Girl, about a seven-year-old girl and only child whose parents capriciously decide to maybe get back together, but put her in the middle of their selfish pursuits. With A Family, Pejinenburg shows that two siblings with the same parents can experience divorce very differently, finding that the only people they can trust are each other.
A Family screens in Berlinale’s Generation section, which is a rarity among festivals: a sidebar that spotlights films about young adults that are actually for young adults. In past years, the sidebar has screened Seventh Row favourites Who By Fire, Ninjababy, and Young Hearts. I’m glad a film like A Family exists, especially for children of divorce who will likely see themselves in Eli and Nina, who are forced to be the adults in the room when their parents refuse to act like them.le for Tom Blyth in queer cinema.
Discover one film you didn’t know you needed
Not in the zeitgeist. Not pushed by streamers.
But still easy to find — and worth sitting with.
And a guide to help you do just that.
