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Film: Agnosia
Year of production: 2010
UK Release date: 30th May 2011
Distributor: Momentum
Certificate: 15
Running time: 106 mins
Director: Eugenio Mira
Starring: Martina Gedeck, Eduardo Noriega, Bárbara Goenaga, Félix Gómez, Jack Taylor
Genre: Crime/Drama/Thriller
Format: DVD
Country of Production: Spain
Language: Spanish
Review by: Daryl Wing
From the producers of two of the greatest scare-fests of recent years, Pan’s Labyrinth (2006) and The Orphanage (2007), written by Antonio Trashorras, who also co-penned Guillermo del Toro’s spectacularly spooky The Devil’s Backbone (2001), and directed by Eugenio Mira, who brought us darkly comic The Birthday (2004), comes Agnosia, a Spanish period drama about love and, er, deceit? There must be some mistake, surely?
Joana (Bárbara Goenaga), a young woman suffering from the rare neuropsychological condition agnosia, which affects her sensual awareness, is preparing for her wedding to her father’s business associate, Carles (Eduardo Noriega).
Although Joana's eyes and ears function perfectly, her brain cannot interpret the stimuli she receives through them. When her father dies leaving behind a secret that only Joana knows, the formula to a telescopic lens hidden in her subconscious, she falls victim to a sinister plan to take advantage of her condition.
While her enemies try to extract the secret against her will, a handsome young man called Vincent (Felix Gomez), who previously worked for her father and shares an uncanny resemblance to Carles, is blackmailed into helping them, but his feelings toward Joana prove that perception isn’t always reality…
Eugenio Mira’s movie is wrought with persuasive period detail, lush landscapes, strong performances from an outstanding cast, but most surprising of all, razor-edged savagery and bursts of brutal imagery that make Agnosia almost as chilling as any of the movies already mentioned. It’s a genuinely refreshing surprise, even after the opening stampede when a horse is executed because they ran out of balloons. The plot veers into fantastical territory throughout, but Mira keeps it in check by allowing the characters to be as real as possible.
The opening act is quite bizarre, but all the better for it. Beginning many years earlier, when Joana is a child, the audience is able to revel in the film’s opulent surroundings reminiscent to countless fairytales as a group of wealthy gentlemen test out a new telescopic lens, shooting at balloons released by the whippersnapper. But then the horse gets one in the neck, a child collapses, the beginning of her suffering, and we are catapulted into a bleak, shadowy world controlled by villains and thugs. In turn, we are introduced to Vincent, ambushed and outnumbered, innocent yet insurgent, and the one man who can make Joana’s universe worth seeing again.
At its best, Agnosia is cruel and hard-hearted, with only Joana and her father decent enough to route for. The rest of the cast provide constant wickedness, whether it be Noriega’s reasonable turn as Carles, with his countless trips to the whorehouse because his future spouse isn’t giving him any (and he’s too polite to ask), or the mad doctor using his respectability to make lots of money, down to the evil business partner that never leaves loose ends, and even Vincent, a nice guy who doesn’t care if the girl he wants to ‘smash’ is getting married.
Because of this, there is bloodshed throughout. Not of the Sunday afternoon, Sikes murders Nancy variety, kindly gruesome even if it’s one of the most graphic, frightening scenes Dickens ever wrote, but seriously violent, and truly unexpected, whether it’s the death of a stallion, a servant - many servants - or the shy, unassuming Joana herself. A neat twist may propel us into act two, but the thrills witnessed here are not from the love triangle that slowly develops (although Joana’s conversation with Carles after spending a thunderous night with Vincent is comically tragic), but from the more believable world of corruption it’s set in.
Sadly, although it makes for convenient plot lubricant, the biggest stumbling block is the notion that Joana is unable to distinguish Carles from Vincent. And let’s face it, without this believability, the film is going to fail, no matter what else happens. It’s certainly difficult trying to suspend disbelief. With her impaired vision, his looks (although more youthful) are convincing, yet his voice, and the hope we can believe in a relationship that suggests they have barely touched each other since childhood, doesn’t quite wash. It’s a shame, because although both Vincent and Carles are likeable, there really should only be one winner.
Let’s face it, though, shoving a girl in a cocoon for three days and kidnapping her to retrieve the secret formula is a hard sell by anyone’s standards, as is the revelation during a pleasant period drama that it’s actually hidden in Joana’s subconscious, while the love story, despite its over-egged conclusion, is well executed and refreshingly realistic. Having witnessed the beauty that is Bárbara Goenaga, you would be lying if you didn’t understand either man’s plight. And so, with a barely noticeable soundtrack, which isn’t a bad thing, other than its clumsy hindrance to Vincent’s escape attempt, Agnosia fails to catch fire. To paraphrase Joana’s disappointment, “Last night, Agnosia, you seemed like someone else.”
As impressive as it looks, along with its surprising acts of brutality, Agnosia fails to convince because it can’t combine fairytale sweetness and quirky invention with realism where it really counts – a flawed but promising addition to Spanish cinema. DW
Film: Mostly Martha
Release date: 29th September 2003
Certificate: PG
Running time: 105 mins
Director: Sandra Nettelbeck
Starring: Martina Gedeck, Maxime Foerste, Sergio Castellitto, August Zirner, Sibylle Canonica
Genre: Comedy/Romance/Drama
Studio: Optimum
Format: DVD
Country: Germany/Italy/Austria/Switzerland
Food, love and family are the big trio of themes in this German romantic comedy of 2001, and they’re dealt with in a respectable and gratifyingly adept manner. The US remake (there had to be one), No Reservations, was released in 2007 with Catherine Zeta-Jones and Aaron Eckhart, so someone in Hollywood must have seen the potential to make some dosh at the box office.
At first contact, Martha (Martina Gedeck) is shown to be an uptight loner whose life is cooking, and cooking alone. She is head chef at the fashionable and upmarket Lido restaurant in Hamburg and leads an austere lifestyle, devoid of love, passion and excitement when out of the kitchen.
Few film characters are ever as simple as they initially seem of course, and before too long Martha’s familiar routine is disturbed by the death of her sister and the sudden, inconvenient responsibility for her 8-year-old niece, Lina. Martha’s emotional currency is food, but all around her, including her new neighbour Sam (Urlich Thomsen), her therapist and Lina, she meets with negative reactions to her culinary offerings.
Martha’s self-inflicted isolation is shattered firstly at home and shortly after in her beloved kitchen. It comes as no surprise that Martha is a bit of a control freak - most serious cooks seem to be - and she is less than pleased when a new sous-chef is recruited to ‘help’ during her periods of enforced absence from the restaurant. The polar personality of Italian chef Mario (Sergio Castellitto), who romps onto the scene complete with Dean Martin soundtrack, grates (excuse the food pun) against the cool, disciplined character of Martha, and the two get off to a shaky beginning, which, as you might expect, leads to a re-education in relationship management for Martha.
The remainder of the film revolves around the gradual softening of Martha to those around her. Lina is understandably confused and angry at being left by her mother, and is keen to track down her Italian father who she only knows by the name of Giuseppe, whilst Mario endeavours to break through Martha’s frosty exterior using various food-related devices, and in the process bringing niece and aunt closer together…
The backdrop of the professional kitchen makes for an ocular banquet – for ‘ocular banquet’ read the overused and unavoidable ‘visual feast’ – as Martha and her team create spectacular dishes such as pigeon with truffles, foie gras and ravioli with boletus. Contrasted with the complexity and delicacy of Martha’s dishes, are the more rustic and breezy creations of Mario, who attempts to charm everybody he comes into contact with by force-feeding them pasta. It seems to work.
The opposites attract scenario is pushed almost a little too far at various points in the film, with constant reference to Martha’s cool, intense persona, using such devices as her escape to the coolroom whenever things get too metaphorically hot in the kitchen, or her boss Frida’s intention to put more fish on the menu because “nowadays people want light meals.”
Martha is naturally drawn to all things heavy and fervent in life. Mario’s warm, stereotypically Italian character is clearly what is needed to defrost poor Martha. Martha is sometimes difficult to like during the film as her chilly nature leads her to display less-than-appealing traits, such as parental uselessness, stubborness and mild OCD – the scene where she hyperventilates after Mario cooks a meal in her kitchen leaving a hideous mess, portrays her as a bit of a crackpot. Mario is able to feed and entertain Lina, where Martha cannot, and it seems he has been sent to torment Martha into pacification.
Of course, food is omnipresent, and if you believe the consumption of such is not just about fuelling your physical existence, it will make it easier to enjoy the film from the very beginning. The scene where Mario pops over to cook dinner for Martha and Lina is intrinsic to the plot, as Mario begins to chisel away at Martha’s defensives with the aid of roasted aubergine, zucchini and red peppers, spaghetti, ciabatta and red wine. Martha doesn’t stand a chance.
There are moments of cheesiness that upset the generally smooth flow of the film, and of these, the 9 ½ Weeks style blindfolding of Martha in the kitchen was outstanding. Sometimes Martina Gedeck’s emotionless representation of the inhibited Martha is a little over-egged - she is occasionally unnecessarily frenzied in her portrayal - but not so that you lose interest in her.
Lina, as Martha’s orphaned niece is understandably sullen and awkward, and young actress Maxime Foerste does a fine job in the role. Before you finally give up on Lina’s equally cool demeanour – it is acknowledged that she is very like her aunt – Mario, the tenderiser of the story, coaxes her back into your affections. Lina’s culinary education begins in the kitchen at Lido with some comical consequences, such as the disposing of expensive black truffles with an expression of disdain. Food fans fear not – the truffles are retrieved. Equally, Sergio Castellitto, as Mario, is highly watchable, although the love scenes, of which there are few thank goodness, were uncomfortable not for their explicitness, but more for their awkwardness. Even the main supporting characters, Sam her neighbour, Frida (Sibylle Canonica) her boss, her therapist (August Zirner) and Lea (Katja Studt) are robust enough to care about, despite their relatively brief time on screen.
By no means a cult food classic in the vein of Babette’s Feast or Delicatessen, Mostly Martha still manages to hold your focus from start to finish with only a handful of shaky, sentimental moments. When a film starts with a decent sensual trigger, you can anticipate a degree of enjoyment, and the opening scenes of Martha describing her ideal menu, set the appropriate tone. The sooner you are comfortable with the premise of food as uinversal panacea, the sooner you can sit back and enjoy the delights of Mostly Martha. NT
Film: The Baader-Meinhof Complex
Release date: 20th April 2009
Certificate: 18
Running time: 145 mins
Director: Uli Edel
Starring: Martina Gedeck, Moritz Bleibtreu, Johanna Wokalek, Nadja Uhl, Bruno Ganz
Genre: Action/Crime/Drama/History
Studio: Momentum
Format: DVD
Country: Germany/France/Czech Republic
Terrorism is, understandably, tricky terrain for filmmakers, and like many films made before and after it, The Baader Meinhof Complex has been criticised for the way it handles this inevitably contentious subject. For the most part, however, director Uli Edel’s 2008 factual drama earned widespread applause for its meticulously researched and balanced approach to the story of the titular German terrorist group that sprung up in the late-60s.
Based on a 1985 non-fiction best-seller by German journalist Stefan Aust, The Baader Meinhof Complex focuses on the first decade of the Red Army Faction (RAF), a volatile left-wing terrorist group whose members saw themselves as anti-imperialist urban guerrillas fighting against what they saw as a fascist West German state with links to Germany’s Nazi past.
The story begins innocently enough, with future RAF lynchpin Ulrike Meinhof (Martina Gedeck) relaxing on a sunny German beach in June 1967 with her husband and two young daughters, but the use of Janis Joplin’s iconic anti-materialist song Mercedes Benz in the soundtrack suggests that Meinhof is not your average German housewife.
It quickly becomes apparent that left-wing journalist Meinhof is at odds with Germany’s conservative mainstream media, and her opposition to the social injustices of the regime of the Shah of Iran is contextualised against a harrowing recreation of demonstrations opposing a visit to Germany by the Shah and his wife, when German police attacked demonstrators, ending in the killing of a fleeing student.
Soon after, Meinhof leaves her philandering husband and sets out on a path that will lead her to join up with fiery activists Andreas Baader (Moritz Bleibtreu) and his lover Gudrun Ensslin (Johanna Wokalek). The cool and rational Meinhof has an uneasy relationship with Baader and Ensslin, but she is inexorably drawn into their increasingly violent schemes to undermine the West German state. Against a background of the Vietnam War and left-wing demonstrations against authoritarian governments in various parts of the world, Meinhof’s stance shifts from one of protest to resistance.
When Meinhof helps Baader to escape from police custody following his arrest, there is no way back for her, and the media casts her as a central figure in the group, dubbing the RAF The Baader-Meinhof Group. With the German police, headed by the unflappable Horst Herold (Bruno Ganz, perhaps best known for his memorable performance as Hitler in Downfall), now stepping up efforts to stem the tide of homegrown terrorism, members of the group leave the country for training in Jordan. Upon their return, they embark on a series of bank robberies, bombings and assassinations that rocks the West German state to the core...
It is to director Edel’s credit that the various RAF members are portrayed as flawed, complex characters: driven by ideological fervour and a deep commitment to their cause but also rife with contradictions and, in the case of Baader, prone to outbursts of casual racism and fits of pique. In conventional dramatic terms, there may be an apparent lack of character development, but this is perfectly understandable given the nature of the people involved and the lengths they went to in devoting themselves to a cause that demanded selflessness and a rigid adherence to strict rules.
The director also does an excellent job of establishing the context in which the RAF operated, and makes effective use of a wide range of archival media footage. While most West Germans were horrified by the brutality of the RAF, increasing numbers of young people identified with their cause, and following the arrests of Baader, Ensslin, Meinhof and other original RAF members in 1972, a second and then third generation of recruits continued their work well into the 1990s.
Edel does not shy away from the violence and brutality that was integral to the RAF’s modus operandi, but rather than sensationalising it, as some critics have claimed, he treats it in a relatively detached, clinical fashion. Much of the latter part of the film focuses on the experiences of Baader, Ensslin, Meinhof and fellow RAF member Jan-Carl Raspe in Stammheim Prison, where they were held in solitary confinement prior to and during their trial.
The deteriorating relationship between an increasingly fragile Meinhof and the rest of the group makes for fascinating viewing, and Edel presents an unflinching glimpse of the slow, tortuous disintegration of the first wave of the RAF. From the initial adrenaline rush of explosive action to the torment and frustration of confinement and judgement by a state they despise, Edel handles the narrative arc with great skill, and offers compelling insights into the lives of terrorists who were willing to sacrifice their lives for what they believed in.
That Edel has done such a good job with The Baader Meinhof Complex may be something of a surprise given that he sank into relative obscurity after following such critically acclaimed films as Christiane F. (1981) and Last Exit To Brooklyn (1989) with the execrable Body Of Evidence (1993), but based on the evidence here, he is far from a spent force.
With eye-catching cinematography, an intelligent screenplay and an exceptionally well cast group of actors, The Baader Meinhof Complex makes for a gripping, thought provoking viewing experience. JG
Film: The Lives Of Others
Release date: 17th September 2007
Certificate: 15
Running time: 137 mins
Director: Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck
Starring: Martina Gedeck, Sebastian Koch, Ulrich Tukur, Hans Bauer, Ulrich Mühe
Genre: Thriller/Drama
Studio: Lionsgate
Format: DVD
Country: Germany
A lengthy political thriller that doesn’t have you snoozing by midway. Not a Matt Damon vehicle then!
Gerd Weisler is a leading Stasi officer dedicated to the socialist cause; assigned to oversee the surveillance of playwright George Dreyman, whose loyalty to the SED (Social Unit Party) has been called into question.
As a matter of DDR security, Weisler goes about his work with his usual discipline and efficiency (setting up surveillance HQ in the suspect’s apartment’s attic, and bugging the premises), but he soon has his staunch beliefs called into question, as he discovers there are ulterior motives behind his assignment – and realises that his own life is particularly unfulfilled…
The film is quick to paint Weisler as a remorseless and an unflinching character – opening with footage of an interrogation he undertook with a person suspected of helping a friend flee to the West, a recording of which is being used at a Stasi college, we are left in no doubt that Weisler always gets ‘his man’ – when he marks a cross against the name of a student who dares to question the morality of the methods he adopts here, you sense he’s capable of a lot more.
His life in East Germany, like him, is painted as cold and uninviting. Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck is perhaps a little heavy handed with the stereotype here, but it’s effective for the character’s and the story’s quick development – when we visit his flat, in an almost desolate area, it’s minimal, almost bare, and when Weisler wants affection he’s forced to pay for an overweight, unattractive prostitute who literally ups and leaves for her next client as soon as he’s finished.
Given the darkness that pervades his own existence, its little surprise when Weisler begins to warm to his subject, who lives a more comfortable and joyous lifestyle –he steals an illegal western book from his apartment, with the unsubtle bright yellow cover contrasting with the otherwise washed out, grey visuals. The film lights here also, to show how his bleak life is instantly enriched.
The bald Ulrich Mühe is well cast as Weisler, ably conveying his character’s intense nature aesthetically alone, and very subtle in his development of a new found awareness and conscious – the scene in a lift where a child reveals his father’s dissident views is particularly important, offering a clear indication of Weisler’s inner struggles.
Another significant development is when Weisler realises the real motives for his friend, Minister Bruno Hempf, having him undertake this operation. As with Weisler, the audience is made aware of the Culture Minister’s nature straight away – when he takes a fancy to the playwright’s actress girlfriend (played by the darkly beautiful Martina Gedeck) he crudely grabs her rear in public.
Thomas Thieme is suitably seedy in the role of the corrupt minister, systematically raping the playwright’s girlfriend (who fears the damning of her career if she doesn’t accept these events), and showing there is no loyalty to Weisler when the results he expects do not materialise. This is all about personal gain and not about the greater cause, which is what Weisler has always believed in.
As Weisler begins to assist the increasingly downtrodden playwright (removing/withholding evidence), director von Donnersmarck heightens the tension, and does a great job of illustrating the confused and depraved nature of the time, where an actress fearing the end of her fairly insignificant career would be willing to see a man she loves dealt a harsh and likely fatal punishment.
A humourless, dark and regimentally delivered thriller, perfectly representative of the time and the story, whose grip tightens to the very end. DH
