Valeska Grisebach / Germany 2006 / 86m / 15A
Cast: Andreas Müller, Ilka Welz, Anett Dornbusch, Erika Lemke, Markus Werner
This unvarnished German drama could probably qualify as a Dogme movie, but don’t be fooled. It may be shot like a documentary and set in an almost comically mundane small town, but it deals with elemental forces and grand, romantic themes.
Markus is a metal worker and part-time fireman whose wife is his childhood sweetheart. But changes are stirred in this unremarkable man following his arrival on the scene of a fatal car crash, and a firemen’s knees-up in a neighbouring town, at which he sleeps with the waitress. The subsequent love triangle is not the point, though, and many of the key scenes are not even shown – we go straight from Markus drunkenly dancing alone to Robbie Williams to him waking up in bed next to the smiling waitress. Instead, we’re trained on Markus’ internal angst – not an easy thing to depict, but this intelligent, studious, faultlessly acted drama achieves it admirably.
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