FROM HILDE, WITH LOVE | LUBO | DARK SATELLITES | NOT A WORD | ONE FOR THE ROAD | FESTIVAL DATES
As well as the dramatic themes, there is also a retrospect of many of the films by celebrated director, Werner Herzog. Audiences will be moved by From Hilde with Love.
FROM HILDE, WITH LOVE/ IN LIEBE, EURE HILDE. Germany, 2023, 124 minutes, Colour. Liv Lisa Fries, Johannes Hegemann, Lisa Wagner. Directed by Andreas Dresen.
This is a different war film from Germany, although it can be linked with films about individuals and groups who resisted Hitler and the Nazi regime. And, it has a different tone, especially with the German authorities. Here the authorities have their convictions but many of them are shown to have some humanity. Which means that the response to the film is different from what is usual.
It is based on a true story, a group of young activists in Berlin. They are against the fascist attitudes of the Nazi regime and make contact with Moscow, experimenting with radio, getting information about German prisoners, to send letters to loved ones in Berlin reassuring them. This is treason.
The film focuses on Hilde, who is rather reserved, intelligent and well educated. She becomes more and more friendly with the group, and falls in love with their leader, Hans, (Hegemann). She is drawn into activities, collecting and delivering the radio, typing the messages, giving advice on radio use, pasting posters at night in the underpasses.
Hilde (Fries – Berlin Babylon, Freud’s Last Session), gives an intense performance. The drama has two lines of narrative. The film opens in the present with Hilde’s arrest and continues through her imprisonment to her execution. But, within this narrative are detailed and frequent flashbacks, building up her personal story, relationships, involvement with the group. So, there is emotionally interesting contrast between what is happening to her and the impact of her remembered past.
The cumulative effect of the film, comparatively low key with other Nazi imprisonment stories, is that the build-up with the birth of her baby and love for her child, having to give it up, preparing, with the help of a sympathetic pastor, for her execution – and the execution with its sudden jolt of the guillotine, is extraordinarily harrowing.
LUBO. Italy/Switzerland, 2023, 175 minutes, Colour. Franz Ragowski, Valentina Belle, Joel Basman, Noemi Besedes, Cecilia Steiner, Philippe Graber, Filippo Giulini, Christophe Sermet. Directed by Giorgio Diritti.
This is an ambitious film, running to almost three hours. It is a film in three acts, so to speak, the first act in 1939, German-speaking Switzerland, the second act in Italian-speaking Switzerland and Italy 1951, and the final act taking place in the same areas in the early 1960s.
The film opens arrestingly with a comic performance by a travelling Gypsy (Yenisch) family in the town square and a happily entertained village audience. The main actor, along with his wife and three children, is Lubo Moser, played by popular German actor, Franz Ragowski. But, it is 1939 and the Swiss are wondering about Hitler’s ambitions, their neutrality, so are calling up all men as reserves, including Lubo. Under Swiss legislation, his children are taken into the state system for education and adoption – a Gypsy Stolen Generation.
Numerous themes are touched on in the long movie – 1939 and the beginning of WWII, the role of Switzerland, the Nazis, military, a Stolen Generation, as well as murder, theft, trade exploitation, impersonation, seduction, and Lubo’s continued search for his children. And finally, especially in terms of family relationships, themes of crime and justice, and reconciliation.
Which means then there is a great deal to entertain as well as to challenge. With the sprawling nature of the story, it sometimes moves too quickly from one theme to another, at other times delaying, not always satisfying in execution even though the themes continue to be of great interest.
Given the complexities of Lubo’s life, his background as a Gypsy, his trying to re-create himself, and moral judgments about his behaviour, there is always the challenge of whether he’s a sympathetic character or not. The film ends with information about the exposure of the system for taking the Gypsy children, some with dreadful adoption situations, cruelty, deaths, immigration, and finally, legislation repealing the system.
DARK SATELLITES/ DIE STILLEN TRABENTEN, Germany, 2022 Starring Nastassja Kinski, Martina Gedeck, Albrecht Schuch, Irina Starshenbaum, Lilith Stangenberg, Charly Hubner, Adel Bencherif. Directed by Thomas Stuber. 122 minutes.
For some time, the audience, may puzzle over the title of the film. Half-way through, there is an explanation. In the tall high-rise apartment blocks of this city in the former East Germany we see the lights come on and go out, and the surrounding empty spaces suggest dark satellites.
Given that most of the action takes place in the city at night, it seems surprising the film opens in the German countryside, where some workers, many of them migrants, meet a stranded group where a little girl has eaten poisonous leaves and is dying. The workers’ boss calls on Hamid to speak with the group and translate.
Then begins Hamid’s story. A refugee, Muslim and devout, married, making friends with the owner of a diner, Jens, who works with his schoolfriend, Mario (who makes racist jokes at Hamid). But Hamid enjoys returning to chat with Jens, and finds they live on the same floor in the same apartment block. Later Hamid will invite Jens to visit the mosque.
Which leads the audience to Jens’ story. A genial man in his mid-30s, curious about Hamid and his beliefs and prayer, but each evening, after work, encountering hijab-wearing Aischa. Initially reticent, she responds to Jens’ friendship, talking together, sharing experiences, her always being cautious, but the friendship becoming more intimate.
There are also parallel stories which do not connect, but taking place in the same city, at the same time. The main story is that of Christa (Gedeck), a widow with children at any distance, who works as a railway cleaner in the night hours. At a bar one night she encounters a local hairdresser, Birgitt (Kinski). Each night they meet. They talk. They drink. They share stories. Christa becomes more and more infatuated with Birgitt and is quite upset when she has to leave, but happy on her return, getting her hair done . . . And then there is security guard Erik, who lives alone in a hut, going his rounds, intrigued by a young girl sitting on a playground swing. They eventually get to know each other and their stories.
Which means that this is a film about lonely people, possibilities for connection, possibilities for love, sometimes doomed, sometimes happy, in the spaces surrounded by the dark satellites.
NOT A WORD. Germany/Slovenia, 2023, 87 minutes, Colour. Maren Eggert, Jona Levin Nikolai. Directed by Hanna Slak.
Keeping silent. Secrets. Reticence. Inability to communicate. This is a comparatively brief film, essentially a film about a relationship between a mother and son. The son is a morose character – leading to a cinema experience that is morose.
The writer director is of Slovenian background, working in Germany. Dedicating this film to her mother and, in interviews, indicating that she is drawing on her own relationship with her mother as well as with her children. This certainly comes across in the intensity of the scenes between mother and son.
The mother, Nina, is an accomplished orchestra conductor, working throughout the film on Mahler’s 5th Symphony, with some scenes in rehearsal. She is separated from her husband who does come to spend time with his teenage son, Lars. The boy has had a difficult experience at school. A girl disappears and then her body is found. At school, he is sullen with students and teachers. We see Lars alone on an upper floor, where he opens a window . . . Next the news that he has fallen from the window but other than concussion, was not physically injured. His mother rushes from rehearsals to the hospital.
The scenes between mother and son are particularly awkward. Perhaps younger audiences will identify with Lars and be empathetic with his attitudes, while older audiences, especially parents, will identify with Nina and her attempts to communicate, as she is rebuffed by her moody son.
Then the film moves to the Atlantic coast, in France, a place where the family used to go in the past for holidays and Lars was happy, even wanting to go there this time instead of a lake proposed by his mother. The scenery is rather wild, overcast, there are storms, their old boat needs repairs, walks together, separately, little communication.
The writer-director, as will as the audience, would like some kind of breakthrough for mother and son – and, as we persevere with the difficulties, we discover some kinds of possibilities for the future.
ONE FOR THE ROAD. Germany, 2023, 115 minutes, Colour. Frederik Lau, Nora Tschirner, Burak Yigit, Godehard Giese. Directed by Markus Goller.
No mistaking the meaning of this title. Drinking. Alcohol. Excess. Audiences may not want to spend two hours with an alcoholic, especially if he is rather unsympathetic. However, over the decades, there have been a number of significant films about alcoholism, alerting audiences, sometimes holding up a cinematic mirror for those with alcohol problems. We can remember The Lost Weekend, I’ll Cry Tomorrow, Days of Wine and Roses . . .
We are immediately introduced to Mark, at a bar, hail fellow well met, known to the barman, raucous, singing, and deciding to drive home. The police, denials, beer cans in the car, Mark claiming just to be parking the car before he walks home. Not believed – losing his licence for three months and having to join a therapy group, called roadworthiness but about the drivers rather than their cars. So, the question, will he manage, will he give up the drink, will he get his licence back?
Mark is in his mid-30s with a good reputation as projects manager on building sites. He also has a close friend from school days, Nadim, who has settled down and tries to support Mark. Mark does endure some days off the drink, even taking up swimming as a means of self-affirmation, succeeding in laps. But, there is torment, there is temptation, there is a longing.
And this is compounded by his growing association with Helena, their sharing stories, making no attempt to give up the drink. As they bond, and as Mark fails, their lives become even more raucous, Helena making a mess of her career at school, he growing neglectful on the building site, his bosses realising that they have covered for him for too long, demanding that he get himself in order.
While all this is something of an ordeal for Mark, perhaps it will be for some audiences as well, those who will find the film something of a mirror, others who have had to work with alcoholics, audiences who have to spend time with the film reflecting on the realities of the issues. Frederick Lau gives a completely convincing performance as Mark, when sober, and, especially when drunk.
FESTIVAL DATES
Canberra: 7–29 May
Sydney: 8–29 May
Brisbane: 9–29 May
Melbourne: 10–29 May
Adelaide: 15 May–5 June
Perth/Byron Bay: 16 May–5 June