| Edinburgh Film Festival pt.X (Sat 27 Aug) : Christian Alvart's 'Antibodies' [6/10] |
|
|
| Sunday, 28 August 2005 | |
|
I changed my schedule to take in slick, twisty, two-hour-plus, dark-but-commercial-minded, German psychological thriller Antibodies on the recommendation of my friend and fellow-critic Nigel Floyd, who described it as one of his picks of Edinburgh '05. I can see why he liked it but am not really able to fully share his enthusiasm - especially because I much preferred the festival's slick, twisty two-hour-plus, dark-but-commercial-minded, Danish psychological thriller Murk, which I saw a few days before. Antibodies - and you have to think long and hard before the title makes much sense - is a cop-vs-serial-killer with a religious subtext which, while intriguing, does make it come across rather like a big-screen variant of the BBC's recurring Sunday-night serial Messiah. There's more than enough Antibodies, indeed, to suggest that a recut, extended version could find a cosy home on television - in the Q+A which followed the Edinburgh screening I attended, articulate writer-director Alvart said he might include a three-hour cut in any future DVD. On further reflection, Antibodies might actually work best in a non-visual medium - turning the material into a novel would allow Alvart to explore character details and backstories which the film itself, while lengthy, can only barely touch upon. Not so much "quart into pint-pot" as "gallon into quart-pot," perhaps... 'Novelising' Antibodies would have one major drawback: we'd lose what is perhaps the film's single most successful element, namely the performance by the marvellously-named Wotan Wilke Mohring as the main cop, Michael Martens. Martens is a devout Catholic, his 'patch' a devoutly Catholic village in rural Bavaria still traumatised by the recent death of a young girl. When Martens hears that Berlin police have arrested self-confessed serial-killer Engel (Something To Remind Me's Andre Hennicke) who may be responsible for the girl's death, he travels to the capital. Thus commences a katz-und-maus game in the finest Manhunter style - Alvart even deploys Michael Mann's famous "prison bars" visual trick. These borrowings are carried off in a very post-modern way, of course - Engel himself name-checks/lampoons Hannibal Lecter (or should that be 'Lecktor') at one point. So far, so so-so - but there are plenty of original touches and character details which accumulate to ensure Antibodies isn't just yet another Euro variation on tired Hollywood tropes. The guilt-tormented Martens' role within the community of Herzbach, not to mention within his own family (he has a teenage son and a younger sister, not to mention an overtly hostile village-elder father-in-law), are far from straightforward, and Mohring deserves praise for making a not entirely sympathetic character into such a compelling and morally complex creation. Mohring didn't write the script, of course, and Alvart, although establishing himself as a promising talent with only his second feature, can't quite match the very high standard set by his leading-man. The third act - in which various biblical references are laid on with a heavy hand (or rather voice, as they're conveyed by narration from Martens' local priest) and the keeps-you-guessing plot wends its way to a slightly unsastifactory conclusion - isn't quite up to the gangbusters opening or the enthrallingly slow-burning middle section. The overwrought, Se7en-ish denouement also features the unwelcome appearance of some CGI deer - seemingly kin to those eerily weightless, virtual forest-fauna in The Ring Two - whose relevance to the plot and themes doesn't manage to outweigh the jarring incongruity of their pixellated phoniness. That said, at least they are visibly unreal and so can't add to the catalogue of unsettling animal cruelties which punctuate the film - a couple of them so sickeningly convincing (that lamb!) that there was an audible sigh of relief at the Q+A when the genial Alvart reassured us we'd simply been suckered by "the magic of the movies." Neil Young 28th August, 2005 * ANTIBODIES : [6/10] : Germany 2004 : Christian ALVART : 127 mins : seen at Cameo cinema (public show) Edinburgh International Film Festival CLICK HERE TO GO BACK TO THE FIRST DAY'S FILMS, WED AUG 17TH or HERE for A-Z and rankings of all films seen at Edinburgh '05 |
| < Prev |
|---|
