This is very much the sort of film that I look for in the Festival - whether it succeeds or not, it’s trying something a little bit different.
Undine
Dir. Christian Petzold / Dur. 90 mins
Strand:- Love
In A Nutshell:- The story of Undine, a historian who starts a romance with an industrial diver. But is there something different about Undine?
The Good:- It’s a film that skirts around the potential of their being something supernatural going on without being too explicit for quite some time and that works to its favour. Is Undine just a bit strange or is there something more to her? The two main leads have good chemistry which is unsurprising given that they’ve worked together before with Petzold (in the acclaimed Transit which is one of the many, many films on my always far too long “To Watch” list). There are some effective stylistic touches, notably the explosive event that brings Undine and Christoph together and it unfolds in a way that I wasn’t expecting narratively which is always a bonus given the number of films I watch!
The Bad:- Not necessarily bad per se but there are large chunks of dialogue given over to Undine’s talks that she gives as part of her museum job on the architectural history of Berlin. After a while, interesting though it was to learn something about Berlin, I was getting a bit tired of the history lesson and would have been happier for maybe less of those speeches to just give us a flavour.
The Verdict:- This is definitely the sort of film I enjoy finding at the festival. It’s tricky to pin down to any one particular genre and is definitely trying something different, both in terms of content and narrative. It’s not necessarily one that will top my recommendation lists for the fest but I’m glad I gave a film like this a try - it’s the sort of thing I’d overlook normally.
No comments:
Post a Comment