Film Review
Barbet Schroeder's first directorial offering in seven years (following
his ill-received thriller
Inju) is a nostalgia piece
which sees the director return to Ibiza, the location of his first film
More
(1969), for a thoughtful character study that probes the relationship
between Germany's affluent present and its far from honourable
past. The sobering dichotomy is reflected in the two main
characters - a reclusive old woman named Martha and a young musician
named Jo - who, implausible as it may seem, develop a close and tender
relationship in spite of their belonging to completely different
worlds. Jo is very much a product of the new Germany, but Martha
lives in the past, unable to forgive her country for the horrors it
unleashed on the world during the Second World War. Martha's
insistence that past atrocities should never pass from mankind's
collective consciousness has a resonance with Alain Resnais's
Hiroshima, mon amour (1959).
Amnesia, the film's title,
alludes to a state of forgetfulness about Germany's past that Martha
fanatically believes in but which turns out to be far from true.
Just because she bears the shame more than many of her compatriots
doesn't mean that Germany does not still carry the scars of its Nazi
past. A standout (albeit ludicrously overdone) scene in which
Jo's grandfather (Bruno Ganz) pummels Martha's naivety with some grim
home truths helps to set the record straight, whilst reminding us that
Germany's past is still very much a part of its present.
Schroeder was never the most subtle of filmmakers and sometimes his
over-egged didacticism gets in the way of what might otherwise have
been a powerful contemplative drama. Fortunately, an uneven and
occasionally complacent script is redeemed by strong performances from
the two lead actors, Marthe Keller and Max Riemelt, helped by some
alluring location photography from veteran cinematographer Luciano
Tovoli.
© James Travers 2015
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Next Barbet Schroeder film:
More (1969)
Film Synopsis
Ibiza, at the start of the 1990s. Jo is a twenty-year-old
musician from Berlin who is keen to get involved with the electronic
revolution that has only just got under way. To get himself
started, he intends to work as a disk jockey at the Amnesia
nightclub. One evening, Jo enters the life of Martha, a woman who
has lived alone, in her home that overlooks the sea, for forty
years. Jo becomes fascinated by Martha's solitude and the two
seemingly ill-matched people soon become friends. Yet Jo is
puzzled by the mysteries that surround Martha's solitary existence -
the cello that she no longer plays, her native language which she
refuses to speak... As Jo draws her into the new world of techno
music, Martha is about to shatter his
certainties...
© James Travers
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.