| MUSIC TO WATCH GIRLS BY : Isabella Stever's 'Gisela' [7/10] |
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| Friday, 25 November 2005 | |
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An unremarkable German city, the present day - perhaps Bonn, perhaps Cologne. In a leafy riverside suburb of unpreposessing sixties apartment blocks, Paul (Carlo Ljubek) and Georg (Stefan Rudolf) are best friends in the mid-20s. Sleepy-eyed, tousle-haired Paul is the more sensible and sensitive of the two; Georg is a priapic, volatile cock-of-the-walk, a borderline sociopath who aggressively refuses to conform to society's demands. With no visible means of support, the pair spend most of their days hanging out on park benches: drinking, fighting, annoying the neighbours, ogling the passing frauleins. Plus one particular hausfrau: supermarket-cashier Gisela (Anne Weinknecht), who is of similar age to our jack-the-lad protagonists, but is married with a child (looks about six or seven.) Though apparently 'knockout' in her teenage years, domesticity has left Gisela "old, fat and ugly" - at least according to Georg. Paul sees Gisela in a very different light, however - and the pair embark on an intense physical relationship which leaves Georg a bemused, increasingly conflicted bystander. Essentially a taut, almost claustrophobic three-hander, the small-scale but beautifully-handed Gisela is based on a novel by Anke Stelling and Roby Dannenberg that relies heavily on interior-monologue. Adapting it for the screen, Stelling and Stever avoid the temptation of voice-over and instead explore character by means of action and sparse dialogue. Gisela herself says the least: "It's great that you're silent," says Georg, "it makes you good." The success of the film lies in the dramatisation of the unusual dynamic between the three main characters - Jules und Jim it ain't. We're never really sure who wants what, or indeed who wants whom, though Georg's increasingly OTT criticisms of Gisela's appearance and personality fool absolutely nobody, least of all himself. Performances are more than solid across the board: pretty-boy Ljubek copes well despite having the least to 'do'; Rudolf's dead-man-walking gaze is chillingly convincing; Weinknecht - though hardly "fat, ugly or old" is arguably the best of the lot as a young-ish woman who hasn't yet fully completed the transition to settled-down adulthood, her eyes showing how alert she remains to all to life's casual possibilities. In her second feature, Stever deploys mobile, if fairly conventional camerawork (cinematographers: James Carman and Amilcar Rodrigues) and cutting (editor: Christian Kramer), but her use of music is much more notable. There's hardly any score (Jochen Arbeit and Yoyo Rohm are credited as composers), but Stever very skilfully deploys a series of 'found' pop and rock tracks. These include a particularly evocative karaoke version of "I Can't Help Falling in Love" at one of the film's numerous dingy-flat parties - Georg showing off his dangerous charisma by uncorking a series of beer bottles with his teeth and downing the contents: beneath these calm, ironic surfaces, passions are fully aswirl. Neil Young 25th November, 2005 GISELA : [7/10] : Germany 2005 : Isabelle STEVER : 87 mins (timed) seen on VHS at home in Sunderland (UK), 24th November 2005 |
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