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SCIENCE
FICTION
5/10
Germany
2003 : Franz MULLER : 112 mins
There are
many reasons to commend Science Fiction, Muller’s graduation project
from Cologne’s Media Arts Academy. Its central idea is wildly original,
enabling Muller to make the most of what must have been a virtually non-existent
budget. As the (otherwise unexplained) title indicates, this is a science-fiction
film, but one which deals in ideas rather than special-effects. Shot on
wobbly digital-video, it’s even more stripped-down in this regard than
Jean-Luc Godard’s Alphaville, an intergalactic tale filmed entirely
on real locations in mid-sixties Paris.
We begin in
the unremarkable surroundings of a Cologne seminar-room where slick, hyper-confident
Marius (Jan Hennik Stahlberg) is delivering an assertiveness-training
class. Among his ‘subjects’ is Jurgen (Arved Birnbaum) - a genial, overweight
former East German with severe self-esteem issues. During one particular
exercise, the pair step out of the room for a moment. When they re-enter,
both are amazed to find that the room now contains art-students painting
a life-model.
And that’s
just the start of the weirdness. A perplexed Jurgen heads home to his
wife and family – only to find complete strangers living in ‘his’ house.
Eventually Jurgen and Marius realise they have somehow slipped into an
alternative reality – one into which they don’t quite fit. Because whenever
a door closes between either one of them and a third party, the third
party instantly forgets them. It doesn’t take long for the breezily amoral
Marius to realise he’s been handed a license to shoplift – and to get
himself installed in the city’s fanciest hotel-suite. Jurgen, however,
struggles to adjust. Missing his wife and child, he tries to form a new
relationship with lonely receptionist Anja (Nicole Marischka) – not an
easy thing to do, given the ever-present danger of closing doors...
As student
films go (and many German examples are now shown at film festivals), Science
Fiction is an impressive, accomplished work. But taken on its own
terms as a feature-film, it falls some way short of full potential. In
more mature and assured hands, this could and perhaps should have been
a European arthouse equivalent to Groundhog Day. But Muller isn’t
able to develop his brilliant conceit, and the stop-start pacing makes
for a very long two hours indeed.
The results
will be familiar to those film-festival denizens who managed to catch
Jean-Charles Fitoussi’s Aura
Ete : Les jours ou je n’existe pas (The Days I Don’t Exist)
– in which the protagonist only exists every other day. Like Fitoussi,
Muller holds our interest for half an hour or so thanks to the barmy genius
of his starting idea – but then proceeds to fritter away the goodwill
by lapsing into torpid self-indulgence. It doesn’t help that the actors
are improvising all of their dialogue – Birnbaum, Stahlberg and (especially)
Marischka are clearly talented performers, but can’t be expected to come
up with a coherent story on their own – Muller doesn’t quite seem to have
worked out the exact ‘rules’ of this universe he’s created (cf Juan-Carlos
Fresnadillo’s Intacto).
Stahlberg, meanwhile, is all-too-convincing as the unbearably obnoxious
Marius – a little of whom goes a very long way indeed.
The ending
– in which Marius and Jurgen suddenly, imperceptibly (and, needless to
say, inexplicably) return to the ‘real’ world – is nicely done, hinging
on a trip to the toilet where Jurgen tries to get away without tipping
the elderly attendant. But it’s an awfully long time in coming, and many
viewers may have long since headed for the exits, hoping that closing
the cinema door may wipe the tedium instantaneously from their minds.
25th March,
2004
(seen 24th March : National Museum of Photography Film & Television,
Bradford – Bradford
Film Festival)
For more reviews
and features from the Bradford Film Festival click
here
by Neil
Young
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