Reviews

Jenseits de Stille can be understood to belong to the genre of films known as social milieu films, or, in Germany, 'problem films'. These films function as explorations of certain specific cultures or classes and the intricacies and contradictions therein. For example, a social milieu film might examine working class life as such, and in tandem with other films of the sort, could create an overall filmic representation of the strife of working class existence. In the case of Jenseits der Stille, the milieu that is examined is the Deaf world, specifically in Germany. By following the coming of age of Lara, a hearing child of Deaf parents, we are led through one woman's experiences with and in the Deaf world. That the film is also a touching story of family relations and can be seen as a drama, a family movie, etc. does not exclude it from also functioning in this realm of 'problem film.' Rather, it can be seen to convey information and insight into a broader concept or community through the experiences and insights of one individual. Lara is constructed as a conflicted character even before she receives the fateful clarinet. As the hearing daughter of Deaf parents, she is often placed in interpreting situations, and expected to relay messages that surpass her scope as child. Instances such as her father's colleague's implication that she tell him of the non-existent Christmas bonus or her role as interpreter at the bank quickly convey the ways in which she is forced to grow old before her time. She must live in an adult's world and negotiate that world despite her age. Her parents are characterized as somewhat aloof of the demands that they make on her, and her own isolation is foregrounded. It is only when her aunt fosters her musical interest that Lara begins to find a sense of herself. These feelings of isolation, difficult communication and difference are expressed mainly through Lara, although her parents and extended family exhibit them as well.

This film presents a great deal of verifiable information about the Deaf community through Lara and her family. Many Deaf couples give birth to hearing children, and conversely, the majority of Deaf people are born to hearing parents. The Christmas dinner and Martin's painful memories emphasize this occurrence. In this way, without the film being didactic or expository in its conveyance of Deafness, hearing viewers are still educated as viewers about the very real situations that many Deaf families must negotiate. Obviously the lexical difference of spoken and signed languages plays a large role in the film as well. This difference becomes important within the film as hearing viewers are attuned to different ways of seeing. Within the medium of film this is often the goal of filmmakers, to create new ways of viewing, of reading images. When this already visual medium is then used to explore yet another visual medium, the Deaf world, many doors are opened. An example of this is the intimacy between Kai and Martin, evident when they lie in bed together and Martin uses Kai's chest for his signing. A similar scene occurs in Children of a Lesser God as well, and both work to convey the shared space. A different level of intimacy is expressed, because the viewer then considers the act of communication through the body rather than just the mouth. Once this is understood, all movement on the screen has the potential to create atmosphere and convey information that far surpasses what a hearing viewer might normally require of a film.

Ultimately this film engages with the social milieu of Deaf communities through both presentation and representation. That is, Deafness is represented and explored diegetically, while the medium of the film itself also serves to further explore that realm. Thus, Jenseits der Stille also functions to instrumentalize Deafness for the means of understanding image. This is perhaps a pairing of subject and medium that simply cannot be overlooked.

Pierre Sanousi-Bliss, the actor who plays Orfeo in Keiner Liebt Mich, said of his role that he thought it was symbolic of pre-Wende years, when "East Germans lived alone in a world they had created." Orfeo, enigmatic psychic and gay Black tenant, is five months behind on his rent, and facing eviction. He spends his days telling fortunes on the street, or alternately, asking for money to get "back to Africa" and his nights as a drag queen in a bar, where his white businessman boyfriend smugly watches him. It is not difficult to make a convincing case in Sanousi-Bliss' favor, as Orfeo definitely exists in his own world, steadfastly creating a space in which he alone can exist, both by nurturing himself and pushing others away. When his apartment is repossessed and he begins to cohabit with Fanny, his mysteries unearth themselves and the two learn to share and depend on one another, approaching deeper issues of bonding and appreciating the present time. Dorris Dorrie, the writer and director of the film, said that it addresses the way "Germans seem unable to be happy with what they have." When Orfeo compares his state of living to Fanny's it is painfully evident how much she has that he does not, including job, house, and the "right skin color." Within this visual difference of race however, is a more probing study of German sentiment. Indeed, Orfeo is discriminated against in Germany: his fellow tenants don't want him living there, and passersby are more likely to give him money to leave the country than to read their palm. But Dorrie is not simply addressing racial tensions through the character of Orfeo, but as noted above, he is symbolic of a greater struggle in the German people. This struggle is the same one that Fanny faces in a more direct way, to rectify her existence with her imaginary ideal life, and to learn to appreciate what is real and surrounds her. In their final moments together before Orfeo 'dies,' he shares with her the secret of never wearing a watch, because it is always the same time, Now. Interesting then, that several years later Maria Schrader, who plays Fanny, is playing a lesbian woman in the midst of WWII in Aimee & Jaguar. And her final words in that film? That she wants plenty of Now's. Not memories, not futures, but now, and now, and now. It seems there is some form of spiritual integrity emerging through the minds of German directors. For in the final cathartic moments of German films, the feel-good lines are telling us what Eastern religions of meditation and mindfulness have preached for thousands of years. I recently attended a lecture by Professor Muhammad Bamyeh about post-nationalism, which interestingly enough, made some similar conjectures about the emerging solidarities throughout the world. One of the four noted was the spiritual, in which seemingly disparate peoples are actually approaching similar coping mechanisms, reaction and movements to the trends of post-national identities and globalization. It is possible that in this small word, "now," is the seed of cross-cultural understanding. An American may see Fanny Fink's plight and view it only in terms of the desires and unrequited loves, a German may see the representation of her culture. But both can comprehend the immediacy of understanding the moment, regardless if the moment is one person's or one people's. In the ongoing spiritual dialogue of the film we are given two disparate approaches: Fanny practices 'conscious dying' while Orfeo is arguably more busy with consciously living, at least in the time he's got. But when these two meet, their common points are made stronger, drawing from the other and reaffirming the other as well.

Lola Rennt is a film that revolves around the haphazard art of finding balance in life. In a given twenty-minute time span, years of choices and temptations condense themselves to form a plot-line of action and non-action, the beginning and the end as one. But this broad-sounding statement of holistic film spectating is not as idealistic as it may seem. The triptych that comprises the film is an anthem to the existence of non-linear time and the interconnectedness of events. Seemingly unrelated events intertwine to the ruin or success of Lola and Manni, and mere seconds spell death or life. In the first episode and the second, Manni's role in the telephone booth is minimal, as he embodies a trapped life, a passive player in the game. The game, although at the beginning of the credits might be understood as football, can also be seen as life. Substitute a clock-face for the football, the city streets for the turf, and we have a film that runs just under 90 minutes, the length of a football match. And the film, like the game, leaves us where we began, but with new eyes. In the third episode, the positive turn of events is in part the result of a changing approach on Lola and Manni's part. However, the original instigator for the changes is Lola, or, to be more specific, her shift in mental resolve. When she is unable to reach her father at the bank, she must face her situation without the aid of a big business or corporation. Without a handout, but also without the emotional turmoil of encountering her father on that particular day in the office, Lola calls upon deeper powers to come to her aid. Hence, the afore-mentioned emerging balance. In a sense, the main theme of this film then tends more towards a synchronistic portrayal of time and the possibilities of both life and filmic characterization. Various simultaneous events all conjoin to find a universally peaceable solution. Of course, this is a reading biased by the points of view of Manni and Lola. But to portray this convoluted reading on another level, the passivity of Manni during the first episodes, which leads to purely reactionary behaviors and emotions, is in contrast to the canon of films which cast the female in the passive role. It is the third episode in which both Manni and Lola are actively problem solving, and neither is confined to a phone booth, a house, etc., that finds an elusive common thread. This un-named synchronization of destiny is evidenced when the security guard inexplicably says, `you finally came, dear.'

With the density of action that Lola Rennt gives, it is difficult to step back and extrapolate a relationship to other films and character legacies. But the episodic nature of the film undoubtedly creates room for the filmmakers to test boundaries of characters and their agency, simultaneously creating in the viewer obscure spaces for contemplation and action.

Through the eyes of a French man who never grew up, The Ogre depicts wartime life in Hitler's Germany. At the same time that the film takes up loaded questions of power and subjugation, recreating the process of recruitment and training for the Aryan army, it further challenges the viewer by presenting the growing Nazi regime in a very human way. A great deal of the variety in characterization and the breadth of reach can be attributed to the fairy-tale nature of this film. By introducing the character Abel as a troubled and weak youth, the film is able to trace his life's events under the spell of `Fate.' And indeed, Abel is sheltered and provided for throughout the course of events, even when faced with the most irrational of men. In film, characters are arguably always proponents of a few key traits, around which a believable person is constructed. In a fairy-tale, this is true to a greater extent. So of course, a combination of the two leads to a meeting of quite extreme characters. In The Ogre we are presented with a man who cares so much for children and animals that he is unable to see any evil in their presence. This oversight, or, in the heavy-handed symbolism of the film, blindness, is the basic motivation behind all events.

A great deal of the film is artfully done, with many subtle displacements to stimulate emotions in the viewer. Although the oft-mentioned 'front line' is never seen, instead we are faced with the massacre of hundreds of wild animals. The childhood friend of Abel returns to him in the form of the military official in the forest, and yet, Abel does not make a connection beyond a vague similarity. He is oblivious to the extravagant decadence of dipping one's hands in jewels, or keeping a wild cat for pleasure. In his simpleton's way he meanders through a landscape of potential knowledge, yet learns nothing. It is the viewer who is given the chance to learn what he can't. Unfortunately, this schema reminded me a bit too much of Forrest Gump. However, the film speaks a great deal to the fairy-tale effects of idealism and propaganda on young children, as finally Abel is cut off by the very boys he loved, their allegiance to a greater unseen force much stronger than their understanding of fellow man.