Finsterworld (2013):
Written by Frauke Finsterwalder and Christian Kracht, directed by Frauke
Finsterwalder. Starring: Ronald Zehrfeld, Sandra Hüller, Michael Maertens, Margit Carstensen, Corinna Harfouch, Bernhard Schütz, Johannes Krisch, Christoph Bach, Carla Juri, Leonard
Scheicher, Max Pellny, Jakub Gierszał,
Markus Hering, and Dieter Meier. Music by: Michaela Melian. Running
Time: 91 minutes. Based on the novel
by the same writers.
Rating: 3/4
If Finsterworld had a subtitle, I imagine it would be something along
the lines of; Finsterworld: Are You
Creeped Out Yet? No? Damn.
Well, How About Now? I’ve
always asserted that movies that resort to overt graphic representation of
violence or sex to make their viewers feel scared, or upset, or uncomfortable
are spinning their wheels in cinematic bush league. Real terror comes from suggestion- what you
anticipate is about to happen when a murderer lifts their ax, or what you
imagine is going on when one character pushes another behind a foggy pane of
glass. And even if you want to show
something on-screen, overt sadistry won’t get you nearly as far as showing
something so out-of-left-field bizarre, so impossible to anticipate, that you
immediately want to glance away out of sheer squeamishness, even if there’s no
blood. Ladies and gentlemen, this is Finsterworld.
By my count, the total number of “official”
characters in Finsterworld numbers an
even baker’s dozen, whose lives and actions during a single day are all
interconnected via a vast web of tangents and happenstance occurrences. A group of students are on a trip to
memorials of concentration camps within Germany. The parents of one of the children, rich and
blissfully pessimistic about humanity, are driving a rented car to...somewhere
not in Germany (which they hate, in case you miss that).
This pessimism extends to the man’s mother, unhappily confined to a
retirement home, her only confidant the masseur who comes a few times a week to
clean her feet. He, in turn, was stopped
that morning by a policeman, who moonlights as a Fury to vent his frustrations
over his aspiring artist of a girlfriend.
Unfortunately, his pelty secret has been discovered by a man living in
the forest who saw him change into his silky white counterpart.
The various episodes that follow are
not a cohesive narrative by any stretch of the imagination, more like vignettes
that, in different ways, try to delve into various aspects of the German psyche
and self-image, especially in regards to the admittedly heavy legacy of Nazism
and the Holocaust. I say try, because
while I certainly appreciate the film’s ambition, and even admire certain
aspects of it, I’m not convinced it accomplishes what it sets out to do.
I really can’t put my finger on why
I feel this way- I just know that, even a few days after seeing the movie, I
can’t seem to form an overall impression of it in my mind. The acting’s fine, as is the writing
(although it’s a bit preachy in spots), and the soundtrack is one of the best I’ve
heard this year, but other than that, the only thing about Finsterworld that’s really stuck is how damn creepy it gets at
times, occasionally in surprisingly philosophical ways.
For example (INCOMING SPOILERS),
there’s one scene where a girl is forcefully shoved into one of the ovens at
the concentration camp they are visiting (we’re never told which one). If just knowing that someone’s locked in a
Nazi oven isn’t enough for you, the level of unsettling goes up a more abstract
notch when she’s pulled out, and you realize that there’s probably more than a
few bits of decades-old human ash mixed into her hair and clothes. Creepy as hell, but darned if I know what I
should take away from it. The stand-out,
however, is the pedicurist who visits the old retired woman. This guy deserves a special award for creating
a veritable singularity of eeriness, where any other thought you might have in
your head is immediately driven out by some variation of, “Wait, what’s he….oh. Oh! OH
GOD NO! PLEASE NO!”
I don’t know who I could recommend Finsterworld to. Perhaps anyone who’s really desperate for an
above-average German flick, and also have a taste for more abstract, arthousey
style films. Even if you’re as
interested as I am in the continuing psychological exploration of post-WWII
Germany, I don’t know if there’s anything new you could take away from
this. But it is a unique and interesting
effort, even if it never really manages to go anywhere by the end. Tentatively recommended.
-Noah
Franc
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