jürgen fauth’s muckworld

Hard-working German actor Jürgen Vogel plays the serial rapist Theo in Matthias Glasner’s almost unbearably grim The Free Will (Der Freie Wille). When we meet Theo, he’s heavy-set and angry, working at the cafeteria of a seaside youth hostel. Within minutes of the film’s beginning, he spots a potential victim, knocks her off a bicycle and drags her into the dunes, where he ties her up, rips off her clothes, beats and rapes her in a brutal sequence that seems designed to weed out those audience members who won’t have the stomach for what’s to come.

When we see Theo again, nine years later, he seems profoundly changed: with a buff body but a docile and contrite manner, he tells his parole board just what they need to hear to release him. Told in handheld scenes with an authentic, documentary feel, Der Freie Wille unflinchingly observes Theo’s struggle to contain his own aggressive desires and insecurities.

Glasner’s script manages to steer clear of any move that could be construed as making excuses for Theo as we follow the tortured paths he takes through the provincial German town, including harrowing scenes in which he follows random women through subway tunnels and darkened streets. Der Freie Wille takes a surprising turn when we’re introduced to Nettie (the striking Sabine Timoteo), a young woman who is just leaving behind her overbearing father.

The brittle love that blossoms between Theo and Nettie is the film’s thorniest conceit. We’re trained to wish happiness on all screen couples, but the heavily fraught intimacy we become a party to here is exceedingly difficult to watch. In fact, without the eye-opening performances by Vogel and Timoteo, the film is impossible to imagine: they don’t seem to be afraid to lay bare their very souls.

Glasner softens the blows with moments of fragile joy, but this is not a film that harbors any illusions that love will conquer all. No doubt, Der Freie Wille goes places where not everybody will want to follow, but it stays emotionally true to its frightful subject and finds moments of startling honesty at the extremes of what audiences can endure.

Benten Films will release The Free Will on DVD in the U.S. later this year.

Der Freie Wille. Matthias Glasner, 2006. ****

• Review in Der Spiegel
• The trailer:

Poodle-in-law Bo needed my loving attention and finely honed dog-walking skills last week, so I only saw three new films along with the never-ending (and frequently repeating) slew of half-watched classics that drifted by on suburban cable TV. Expect this ratio to shift dramatically when I hit the Berlinale next week.

In Bruges. Martin McDonagh, 2008. Review forthcoming. They sent us In Bruges hats, so you know it’ll be a rave! Updated: My About.com review. ****

The Witnesses/Les Témoins. André Téchiné, 2007. Marcy reviewed. ***

London to Brighton. Paul Andrew Williams, 2006. Especially after the grace and humanity of 4 Months, I found this sordid tale of abused women difficult to stomach. *

Also:
The Empire Strikes Back. Irvin Kershner, 1980. *****
One, Two, Three. Billy Wilder, 1961. *****
The Dreamers. Bernardo Bertolucci, 2003. Marcy’s review. ****
Quadrophenia. Franc Roddam, 1979 ****
The Big Lebowski. Joel and Ethan Coen, 1998. *****
The Birds. Alfred Hitchcock, 1963. ****

Musical Bonus: As featured in The Witnesses, here’s Les Rita Mitsuko.

Sort of like Dead Calm, but with mimes. This twee Belgian comedy tells an absurd love story about a freezer-burnt hamburger cook who goes searching for the perfect floating piece of ice. The film’s conceived by circus performers who turn each scene into a tableau for slapsticky visual gags. Endearing and intermittently brilliant, but overlong even at 84 minutes. Not to be confused with S.O.S. Eisberg, for which Leni Riefenstahl climbed actual icebergs in 1933. L’Iceberg is currently playing at Cinema Village.

L’Iceberg. Dominique Abel, Fiona Gordon and Bruno Romy, 2005. ***

• L’Iceberg at Rotten Tomatoes
• First Run Features has the trailer

You never know what you’re going to find at Jim Hanley’s Universe, the comic book store on 33th street with one of the best selections of European graphic novels in the city. Yesterday, I picked up a book by a Belgian artist who simply goes by Jason. The Left Bank Gang reimagines Paris in the 20s as a haven for expat comic book writers in the shape of animals. Hemingway, Scott Fitzgerald, Getrude Stein, James Joyce, Ezra Pound et al. get drunk, make plans for Pamplona, struggle with poverty and obnoxious tourists and discuss the finer points of narrative captions and where do all the erasers go? It’s very funny and endearing, and then the story spins into a fragmented noir. I’ll be looking for more of Jason’s deceptively simple work the next time I’m midtown. You can browse a few pages here.

Jason. The Left Bank Gang. Fantagraphics, 2006. ****

• Jason at Fantagraphics
• Bookslut Review
• Believer Review
• ComicCritique

L’Enfant won the Palme d’Or at Cannes, but it’s going on our worst-of-year list. The set up is interesting enough: a homeless teenager leaves the hospital with a newborn, and her small-time crook boyfriend decides that it would be a good idea to sell the baby for a handful of cash. The technical term for this kind of a man is “raging asshole,” and instead of giving us the mother’s story, the film’s focuses on him as he tries to steal enough money to buy back the child, avoid the cops, and dig himself into an ever-deeper hole. It would have been a challenge to make this character even borderline likable, but the Dardennes don’t even try. The amount of callousness, stupidity, and ignorance on display is overwhelming, and in the unearned final scene, we’re suddenly asked to embrace the babymonger’s unlikely redemption. This is the kind of preposterous fake-gritty hokum that gives art house film a bad name–call it the Crash of Cannes.

L’Enfant. Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne, 2005. *

• L’Enfant at Rotten Tomatoes

[tags]film, dardenne brothers, belgium, cannes, palme d’or, baby, fathers, 1 star, crooks, suffering, asshole, gritty[/tags]