Pass that Deutsch

>> German Highlights presents a
cross-section of contemporary Euro cinema

by MARK SLUTSKY

This year marks the 15th edition of the Goethe-Institut’s annual German Highlights series. The Goethe’s screening series are always worth investigating, and this one in particular, as over the years the good people at the Institut have consistently brought over interesting work from contemporary German directors.

This year looks to be no different. Over the next couple months, the Goethe will host weekly (on Thursdays and Fridays) screenings of a total of eight recent films. The series kicks off with Requiem, an excellent psychological drama from director Hans-Christian Schmid. His 1998 film 23 was recently adapted by Joel Schumacher as the Jim Carrey vehicle Number 23, and, in fact, Requiem has a Hollywood cousin as well, as the events that inspired it were also the basis of the 2005 American film The Exorcism of Emily Rose.

Schmid’s film is haunting, if you’ll pardon the pun. Stage actress Sandra Hüller plays Michaela, a young, devout small-town Catholic in the provincial Germany of the ’70s. Plagued by fits that seem to defy a medical explanation (she’s diagnosed with epilepsy, although her symptoms seem to strongly suggest schizophrenia), her condition gets no better when she goes off to university, and eventually, out of desperation, her family turns to religious authorities for help.

Hüller is remarkable—fierce, radiant and fragile—and the film captures the frustration and helplessness of mental illness, especially as it affects one’s friends and family. Highly recommended.

Other films in the series include Andres Veiel’s Der Kick (The Kick), a recreation of the incidents surrounding the murder of a teenager, entirely performed by two actors (taking on about 20 roles). Violent crime is also the backdrop for Der Freie Wille (The Free Will), from director Matthias Glasner, about a rapist and an abuse victim who meet and fall in love. On a decidedly lighter note is Thomas Grube and Enrique Sanchez Lansch’s Rhythm Is It!, a doc about teens shaking a leg to hot Stravinsky jams.

Sehnsucht (Longing) tells the story of a man unexpectedly in love with two women. And Gordian Maugg’s intriguing Zeppelin! uses archival footage in a (fictional) look back at the 1937 Hindenburg air disaster.

Most of the films in the series are Canadian premieres, and some will surely never end up here on video or in theatres; it’s worth seizing this opportunity to take the pulse of the German film scene.

German Highlights runs April 5-May 25 at the
Goethe-Institut; for info and showtimes
see www.goethe.de/montreal

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