smoke and clocks

I still need something suitable for German films, but German craft beers are like Czech ones in that they do not travel.  There are German beers, mind you.  Just not a whole great many.  Schlenkerla is pretty much limited to the beer stores, and it's not a great wonder.  After the tastelessness of industrial Spanish beer, a rauch would really put you off.  But, there's also Schlenkerla Helles Lager, which is maybe another thing.  The label does warn that it's a little smoky, but that just makes it a unique specimen.  

It certainly looks like most typical lagers, with its light color and near transparency.  It's mostly fields of grain in the aroma, but yes, there is a touch of smoke there too.  At first the taste is like a watered down version of the rauchbier, not with less flavor, just with less robust substance, but a little sourness also seeps out at the end.  The smoke is upfront and tough, but that sort of bacony flavor that rauchbiers have makes you want to go back and make sure it's really what you were tasting.  It's a beer that definitely calls out for a little snack to go with it, preferably something a little salty, maybe greasy.  Actually, fried cheese sounds really good right now...

Supplier: La Birratorium
Price: €2.60
 
spoilers ahead!!

 
The second film for me this year was Cleo - If I Could Turn Back Time, which purported to be an exploration of urban legends in the city of Berlin while the characters looked for treasure with an old map.  Cleo is another woman with bright red hair who dresses in bright colors through most of the movie, and is also surrounded by blue in a number of scenes.  She is born in front of the Berlin Wall, about to come down, where the crowds prevent her parents from getting to a hospital and her mother dies during her birth.  Her father does his best to maintain a joyful life with her, taking her on magical adventures in the city, but when they are digging for a time machine they hit an old WWII bomb, which explodes, killing her father and leaving her alone in the world.  From then on she makes a rule for herself never to get close to anyone because it will kill them.  She ends up working as a tour guide, and when a man comes in asking for somebody to guide him through a treasure map, she can't help herself and dives back into the world of secrets and hidden fun that she had with her father.  Her elderly neighbor, who is always asking her to visit, authenticates the map, and Cleo promises to visit her.  She also starts to get closer to the man with the map and his exuberant spirit for adventure.  They pick up a couple of strange thieves/misfits he knows to break open an old safe, and later to break into an abandoned spy station that was built over the burial site of the treasure.  Before they know where exactly the treasure is, Cleo has a vision of the makers of the map, a pair of bank robbing brothers from the 1920s, and they give her the code to reading the map after she promises to make sure everyone remembers them.  When they finally read the map and finalize the plan to break into the mountain, Cleo goes home and finds her neighbor has died, and she realizes she never visited her, even though she meant to.  Her feelings have killed another person in her life, and she starts pushing the map man away.  In the depths of the mountain they separate and she finds the treasure, but the space it's buried in starts collapsing.  She manages to drag the trunk up the tunnels to the map man, but the tunnel collapses on him, killing him.  Cleo frantically goes back to save her mother even if it means she herself will die, which apparently happens because everything stops and disappears.  She is in a void, alone, except for a version of her younger self, which tells her if she isn't born nobody can find the time machine to save her mother, therefore nothing can happen.  If she chooses to save herself pain, nothing will ever happen, but if she chooses to feel, the world and all the joys and pains of everyone will exist.  She returns to the moment of finding the treasure, but when the collapse begins this time she leaves it behind.  Without the trunk, she and the map man get out alive, but he is so hurt by her past rejections that he disappears with plans to leave the city.  Cleo realizes she wants to risk pain in order to feel love and finds the map man at his houseboat, and projects a video onto the bridge to admit her feelings.  The end of the movie is a little too heartstring-tuggy for my taste, but I guess it's fine for people who really want that happy ending.  Cleo is giving tours still, but to children, who are doing treasure hunts all over the city, learning about the people who made each part famous or interesting, including the bank robbing brothers.  Then, the map man shows up with his daughter, and it's clear that he and Cleo are together.  The ghosts of past residents of the city look on approvingly, including her parents, together in the afterlife.

The main actress and the director were in town for the showing, but the actress had to leave before the film was over to catch a plane.  She told us before the showing that she was very proud of the film and it was a project that was close to her heart, and we all applauded and settled in to watch.  Then, as she left she waved and said, "Adios!" to the audience, and we automatically replied and waved too.  Some people next to me said she seemed so nice, what a shame she had to leave.  The director did have time to talk a little at the end, although he also had a plane to catch, and he even spoke Spanish.  Not perfectly, but quite well, although he said he had forgotten a lot of words.  Asked about the genre of the film, he proudly said it wasn't easy for anyone to classify, although he would settle for it being a romantic comedy.  German audiences found it a style suitable for children's film, which occurred to me as well at several points in the film.  I also thought there was a touch of Amelie, with the colors, the fantasies from Cleo, and some of the quick cuts.  It turns out the director's wife is French, so maybe that's where that came from.  Although I was hoping for an adventure or fantasy movie over a romance, it's an enjoyable film, with a sort of quirky indie feel to it.  And if there's anything to take away, it must be have no regrets.