Reviews

Paul, the latest documentary feature from prolific Quebecois director Denis Côté (Curling, Vic + Flo Saw a Bear) takes a detached and sympathetic look at one man’s idiosyncratic corner of BDSM culture. Featuring a variety of whips, ropes … and donuts (don’t ask) wielded by a panoply of friendly neighbourhood dominatrixes, it would be difficult to imagine a more fitting venue for its world premiere than the venerated Berlinale.

 Visually striking from the first frame, Côté’s film takes a deep dive into the life and mind of the titular Paul, or as he’s known on Instagram: Cleaning Simp Paul. At first quite unassuming, we observe as he makes his way through his seemingly mundane routine. Trudging around the snowy streets of Montreal. Editing photos and videos on his computer. Tidying up around the house. Nothing much to see here. Or so it would seem.

Our first clue as to why Côté has chosen this rather ordinary man as his subject arrives with a glimpse into his online persona. In an effort to heal himself from a long depression and free himself from the shackles of social anxiety, Paul has taken to documenting his self-help journey online. Taking a rather unconventional approach (alongside more expected wellness content), he channels his energy into cleaning the houses of dominant women (largely pro bono) as a kind of therapeutic release.

Following along as he makes his rounds, we learn that despite having been banned by many dating apps mistaking him for a professional cleaning service, Paul has managed to accumulate a roster of about fifteen “bossy ladies” he serves on a rotating basis. Despite his drive to serve these women, Paul does not consider himself a full-fledged member of the BDSM community – a claim that feels increasingly odd as we watch one woman after another whip, ride, or debase him in exchange for his services.

Maintaining a curious but objective gaze, Côté offers up a fascinating window into his interactions with these women, as often caring and familiar as coldly transactional. While the relationships are certainly unorthodox, they clearly add something to Paul’s life, pulling him from the depths of depression and solitude that he experienced for so long. Many of the women he interacts with are clearly friends, and genuinely appear to care about Paul’s well-being. For each expected instance of debasement or punishment, there seems to be an equal moment of care: cutting his hair, teaching him a new yoga posture, or simply chatting with him amiably about his family life.

For Paul, perhaps the framework offered by his arrangements with these women simplifies the power exchanges hidden in more commonplace relationships, allowing him to feel more comfortable in his own skin. At one point, he mentions that his family has been trying for years to set him up with submissive Asian women in a wild misreading of what he actually seems to be looking for. Paul is clearly uninterested even in taking charge of himself, let alone anyone else. As one his ladies sits atop him, grilling him about his diet and exercise plans for the week like some sort of demented motivational coach, we start to understand how much Paul must need this. If serving himself will serve her, then perhaps that is all the motivation he needs. To be fair, it seems to have worked a charm. In his own way, Paul is actually kind of… thriving.

At the time of filming, Cleaning Simp Paul had amassed about 7500 social media followers (he now has nearly 10 000, putting him firmly in micro-influencer territory). Clearly connecting in some way with his growing audience, the introverted Paul finds he can no longer take refuge in complete anonymity, and the awareness that so many people are watching him begins to cause him some anxiety. Despite this, he obsesses over views, craving the validation that comes with the increased attention. When you get right down to it, in all of his (admittedly unusual endeavours), Paul simply seems to be seeking the same thing that most of us are: connection. And what could be more relatable than that?

 Paul premiered in the Panorama Dokumente programme of the 75^th Berlin International Film Festival.  

© 2020-2025. UniversalCinema Mag.

In the dawning hours of February 24, 2022, a shadow crept across the storied land of Ukraine as Russian forces cast their grasp upon the Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant. It was a place haunted by the echoes of history, now once more thrown into the unforgiving eye of conflict. As the invasion unfurled with relentless precision, these soldiers, bound by a mission to reach Kyiv a mere hundred miles distant, transformed the desolate site into a strategic military bastion.

The territory, fraught with spectres of past radiance and ruin, became a tableau of military machinations caught by the unblinking gaze of CCTV cameras. These mechanical sentinels documented the unfolding drama—a sombre chronicle of the occupation that stretched into weeks marred by the spectre of radioactivity.

In an evolving tapestry of video, Oleksiy Radynski, who feels documentary is in his blood, immerses his audience in a stark narrative—a horrifying symphony of silent military logic. In the heart of Chornobyl, history’s grave whispers reverberate, with each image serving as a stark testament to the perils wrought by human hands. Proof of the gravity of events captured during this tumultuous period lies in the vast trove of footage amassed by the director, culminating in nearly 1,000 hours of material. This expansive archive offered a comprehensive canvas from which the documentary was meticulously crafted, allowing the director to piece together a harrowing narrative thread and shed light upon the occupation at Chornobyl.

Each footage serves as both evidence and testament to the unfolding drama, preserving moments of tension and revelation in a haunting testament to the times. Radynski has finished two films on the Russians in Chornobyl. In his short Chornobyl 22 (2023), he used video from an unidentified source who had captured the Russians filming the nuclear plant.

As the film unfurls and the screens flicker to life, emerging from a shroud of stillness, a thought may whisper in the mind: “What rudimentary filmmaking this seems.” Yet, a second glance reveals the deeper story etched within each frame—a desolate, unyielding landscape brushed with the indifferent passage of Russian tanks and troops entering the realm of Chornobyl with unsettling nonchalance.

In this moment, something profound stirs within the heart: “Here lies the site of catastrophe past, and now, a new malevolence threatens to unfold.” You find yourself seated, transfixed before the surveillance screen, feeling the cold tendrils of empathy as they wrap around your soul. With each scene, you witness humanity’s repeated dance with oblivion, the persistent disregard for the unforgiving truths of existence. The austere footage transforms into a mirror, reflecting both the frailty and folly of mankind, as the echoes of history resonate anew within the silent confines of your observation.

At the film’s outset, a simple frame—a window—becomes the portal through which voices occasionally filter. Through this modest aperture, the world leans in to listen as a phone captures faint echoes of civilian life disrupted. These voices, tremulous and charged with urgency, speak of the depths of the assault, of structures crumbling under the weight of conflict, and of the countless refugees leaving to seek solace beyond the city’s perimeter. From this unique perspective, the window provides a profound insight into the human cost of war, as it unfolds in whispered fragments of desperation and hope. We can profoundly perceive the passage of time as it snows, turns dark, or transforms into light. Here we are in the eyes of God, observing his children through the lenses of CCTV.

The filmmakers aimed to give the collected historical events an audio life even while the raw CCTV material lay silently. Oleksiy Radynski worked with famed Lithuanian-based sound artist Vladimir Golovnitski for this challenging project, known for his emotive work. Golovnitski created a spooky soundtrack that gave the visuals an unsettling resonance, thereby accentuating the weight of the moments with layers of sound reflecting the uneasiness of the developing story.

At the 20th anniversary of Forum Expanded, which is part of the Berlin International Film Festival, the premiere of the Ukrainian film “Special Operation” by director Oleksiy Radynski would take place. “For me, it’s important that the premiere takes place in the Forum Expanded section, which combines experimental and political cinema,” says Radynski.

Mehmet Akif Büyükatalay returns to Berlinale with the World Premiere of Hysteria, he previously attended the festival with Oray, which won the Best First Feature Award in 2019. In both films, Büyükatalay explores themes of Muslim culture in Germany. Hysteria centers on the making of a film about an arson attack on German migrant residents in the 90s, however, during the production, the film-within-the-film’s director, Yigit (played by Serkan Kaya), uses migrants from a local refugee center as extras for a scene who discover that he burned a Quran for the film, leading to fiery tensions and conflict.

The opening scene does a lot of work as Büyükatalay does a good job showing the disconnect between the experience happening on set and that behind the monitors. Some lines in Act One elucidate the film’s theme, particularly when one of the extras, Mustafa, explains why he doesn’t like Yigit or filmmakers like him. He’s talking to Elif (played by Devrim Lingnau), and he says directors like Yigit “make films so they can have a clean conscience,” that people that look like him and Said (played by Mehdi Meskar) can only “play a victim or a terrorist.” He gets to the meat of the burning of the Quran; Mustafa himself isn’t religious but he recognizes that burning the Quran was meant to illicit a reaction. If you go back to that opening scene, when Yigit is speaking to these extras, who are refugees, he tells them not to act but react as if it was the real house after the incident and not a set, illustrating this is how he operates. Mustafa posits that filmmakers make a choice, “do [they] want to share something, or sell something?”

This is a film about who has the power to control narratives, and it plays that out repeatedly as the tensions boil in the aftermath of the filming when the tapes disappear. But the film also asks you to look into who gets to tell stories and what stories they choose to tell. Yigit, and most of the crew, like Elif, believe he’s making an important film. However, it looks at a specific act of violence that most Western audiences could watch and feel bad/sad about, but brush off as a thing of the past and not reflect on what is currently happening. Büyükatalay’s film is much more interesting than the film that Yigit was trying to make because within it we get a hint of perspective from all these characters as the conspiracy behind the missing tapes unfolds and blame is shifted.

Ignorance and a lack of curiosity in the subjects some filmmakers center their films on is also something the film touches upon. Yigit seems to have genuinely not realized burning the Quran was going to be problematic. So, you have to look back at his initial choice as being one done in pure ignorance, he was thinking of the characters and what they would have in their house when it got burned, and did his set accordingly, not considering what it would mean. Now, my read on Yigit as a filmmaker is that if he had known, he would have still done it because he wanted a reaction, it was why he hired extras that he believed could relate to the experience. This is tied to him being a filmmaker who wants to sell rather than share something. Someone truly connected to wanting to share the story and push for change would not just try to recreate the events to create an emotional reaction, they would try to get the audience to engage to make a change today. He would not need tricks like seeking people he believed could give a “real” reaction due to his belief of their shared trauma/experiences with the victims, but found a way to tie the themes of the film with current events in Germany (like Büyükatalay does in Hysteria). And he wouldn’t have needed to burn a Quran, and if he felt that it was important enough to see in the scene, he would have done a fake prop one.

Hysteria had its World Premiere at the 75th annual Berlin International Film Festival in the Panorama section.

Does unconditional love have limits? Does forgiveness? As women navigating a predatory world where should our loyalties lie? At what cost to our own personal sense of right and wrong? Director Sarah Miro Fischer grapples with all of these questions and more in her intimate and compelling debut feature, The Good Sister.

At first glance, Rose (Marie Bloching) appears every inch the flakey but lovable younger sibling.

Thrown out by her girlfriend in the middle of the night, she shows up at her brother Sam’s door in what is clearly a familiar ritual. The pair share an easy and intimate bond, hewn over a lifetime of shared experiences. As they move about the world, interacting with family and friends, their well-established dynamic is on clear display. Sam (Anton Weil) comfortably inhabits his role as gentle but protective older brother, the golden child always looking out for his beloved but fragile little sister.

Late one night, as Rose struggles to sleep on his sofa, she hears him stumble through the door and into the bedroom. He’s not alone, and good sister that she is, Rose does her best to ignore the sounds drifting through the thin walls of the apartment. When she gets up for a drink of water, she makes eye contact with her brother’s companion as she exits. The woman is not Sam’s girlfriend, but Rose – loyal to the core – would never betray his secret.

When Sam is accused of rape, however, that simple gesture of familial loyalty threatens to drag Rose down a far darker path than she ever could have imagined. Called upon to testify against him, Rose instinctively goes into protection mode, buying into any and all of Sam’s rationalizations, refusing to believe that her brother could be anything but the sweet and stalwart protector she has always known him to be.

Ignoring the nagging tug of her conscience and determined to protect her family, Rose lies to the police about what she witnessed that night. But when she’s confronted with the details of his accuser’s testimony, she can no longer ignore the truth. Bloching’s performance in these moments is heartbreaking, and the scene as a whole is meticulously realized, with every subtle element – the relentless ticking of the clock, the aggressive clicking of the stenographer’s keyboard – ramping up the tension and drawing the viewer deeper into Rose’s internal world.

As the details stack up, and Sam himself begins to unravel, it becomes clear that the question at the centre of this tale is not whether or not he did what he stands accused of (he very clearly did), but what Rose is going to do about it. Bloching’s performance is beautifully vulnerable and complex as Rose flutters between light and darkness, begging the people she loves most to do the right thing so she isn’t forced to betray them. Watching her navigate this impossible situation, the viewer can’t help but wonder what they might do in the same position.

Thanks to Fischer’s extended rehearsal process, and impressively realized performances from every actor who appears in the film, the comfort and intimacy between the characters feels lived in and entirely genuine. We can almost understand why Sam’s mother refuses to doubt him, why his girlfriend chooses to forgive him, even how Rose continues to love him so deeply, despite what she knows him to have done. As we recognize flashes of ourselves in these characters, in their devotion to each other, it becomes much more difficult to simply dismiss or vilify them.

In discussing her motivations for making this film, Fischer has pointed to the fact that while most everyone seems to know at least one victim of sexual violence, few would admit to knowing a perpetrator. Confronting this impossibility, she compels us to reexamine our own deep-seated perceptions and self-deceptions. Powerfully, by choosing to focus on the perspective of neither victim nor perpetrator, Fischer Illuminates the far-reaching complexity of such matters for each and every one of us, daring us to interrogate ourselves as to what choices we would make if put into the same situation.

 The Good Sister premiered in the Panorama programme of the 75^th Berlin International Film Festival.  

© 2020-2025. UniversalCinema Mag.