Courting Controvery at Berlin

By Alison Willmore José Padilha's "Tropa de Elite" ("Elite Squad") was awarded the Golden Bear,...

By Alison Willmore

José Padilha’s “Tropa de Elite” (“Elite Squad”) was awarded the Golden Bear, the top prize of the Berlin Film Festival, this past Saturday. The film, which looks at how the BOPE special police unit in Rio de Janeiro uses exceptionally violent tactics to subdue crime in the favelas, was a controversial pick. A box office hit in its native Brazil, “Tropa de Elite” drew a mixed reaction from critics at the festival, some of whom felt that it glorified the brute force used by its characters — Variety‘s Jay Weissberg wrote that it elevated the BOPE to “Rambo-style heroes,” and called the film “a one-note celebration of violence-for-good that plays like a recruitment film for fascist thugs.”

Padilha, who last directed the acclaimed documentary “Bus 174,” told the AP that this was a misread, and that the film actually “aims to explain how the state turns … people who join the police either into corrupted people, or people that don’t really want to do anything with their jobs — or, worst of all, violent people.” “Trope de Elite” will be released in the U.S. by the Weinstein Company.

Other winners:

Jury Grand Prize – Silver Bear:
“Standard Operating Procedure,” dir. Errol Morris

Silver Bear for Best Director
Paul Thomas Anderson — “There Will Be Blood”

Silver Bear for Best Actress
Sally Hawkins — “Happy-Go-Lucky,” dir: Mike Leigh

Silver Bear for Best Actress
Reza Najie — “Avaze Gonjeshk-ha” (“The Song of the Sparrows”), dir: Majid Majidi

Silver Bear for an Outstanding Artistic Contribution (Music)
Jonny Greenwood — “There Will Be Blood,” dir. Paul Thomas Anderson

Silver Bear for Best Script
Wang Xiaoshuai — “Zuo You” (“In Love We Trust”)

Alfred Bauer Prize for innovation
“Lake Tahoe,” dir. Fernando Eimbcke

Best First Feature
“Asyl – Park and Love Hotel,” dir. Kumasak Izuru

[Photo: "Trope de Elite" ("Elite Squad"), ©Weinstein Co, 2007]