Berlinale 2020: Notes on Malmkrog
In Malmkrog, Cristi Puiu's new film (selected at Berlinale in the Encounters section), the characters are the host, Nikolai (Frédéric Schulz-Richard); Olga (Marina Palii), a young Christian-Orthodox and maybe Nikolai's wife; Madeleine (Agathe Bosch), a pianist; Edouard (Ugo Broussot), perhaps a politician, and Ingrida (Diana Sakalauskaité), the wife of a Russian general. All of them meet at the old mansion to celebrate Christmas together, apparently; the connections between them are never truly revealed by Puiu, but rather left in the open. Although inside the house there is a paralyzed general, whose identity is unclear, the five aristocrats do not seem to have met to keep him company, but rather to celebrate some kind of ultra-intellectual, closed-door game where a certain topic is dissected as thoroughly as possible. Basically a sort of debating Olympiad for extremely wealthy intellectuals.
Journalist and film critic, with a master's degree in film critics. Collaborates with Scena9, Acoperișul de Sticlă, FILM and FILM Menu magazines. For Films in Frame, she brings the monthly top of films and writes the monthly editorial Panorama, published on a Thursday. In her spare time, she retires in the woods where she pictures other possible lives and flying foxes.
