Germany
3.5*
Director:
Dietrich Brüggemann
Screenwriters:
Anna Brüggemann
Dietrich Brüggemann
Director of Photography:
Alexander Sass
Running time: 110 minutes
Original title: Drei Zimmer/Küche/Bad
Almost as if he is baiting the critics and the nay-sayers to respond the way he expects them to, director Dietrich Brüggemann repeats one key phrase, or value assessment, or judgment, in the very last scene of his third feature film, Move: “It tries to overwhelm, but it doesn’t transcend.” It is almost too easy to apply this criticism to the 110 minutes that precede it, as a group of 20-something friends learn to deal with growing up, mostly without any abiding success. Their inability to look beyond their common bubble means that their interactions are solipsistic, a cesspool of relationships that develop out of convenience, and the only saving grace — the reason why this film is worth your time — is its comedy, which at times literally had me rolling around with laughter.
Despite the “three” in the original title, which refers to the layout of an apartment as one would find it in the classified section of the newspaper, the film is actually divided into four parts (and a loose fifth) that mirror the seasons and thus allow us a yearlong overview of the eight central characters’ actions and the reactions they produce.
Philipp and Dina have been best friends since forever. Philipp is dating the wildly moody Maria, who is moving to Berlin to be with him. Meanwhile, Philipp’s one sister, the timid Wiedke, is moving in with the popular Dina, while his other sister, Swantje, writes down every conversation at their parents’ home and is dating a Goth. Philipp is also good friends with the expressionless, emotionless Thomas, who has been dating Anna for a while, but the relationship is clearly going nowhere. And then, the handsome Michael arrives on the scene, and most of the girls fall for him, even though he is dealing with issues from childhood. Oh, and then Philipp’s parents non-chalantly break some shocking news over Christmas dinner.
This is just part of the round-robin of relationships and relationship issues that the film offers its viewers, but Brüggemann, who co-wrote the screenplay with his sister Anna (playing the role of Dina, arguably the main female character), is stunningly adept at steering our attention where he wants it to be, without ever seeming heavy-handed. He crams an enormous amount of plot into his film, perhaps too much, by cutting the material very tightly, and it is often at the end of his scenes that one recognises how other films would have lingered or over-explained. Brüggemann’s actors and his editor together create snappy moments whose meaning is immediately obvious, and yet they are as brief as they likely would have been in real life. His use of jump cuts is always well-timed and underscores the subtly comical nature of many of his more dramatic scenes.
Brüggemann’s sense of humour is equally refreshing, from hiding the identity of a peripheral character by only revealing one part of him (and then being open about the approach by having Philipp say he can never remember the guy’s face) to creating dramatically ironic comedy that only the viewers can appreciate because they see both sides of the moment to very judiciously having the same Christian missionaries knock on people’s doors at the worst possible times in their lives.
But despite the director’s masterful combination of sights and sounds (the indie band Guillemots and its frontman Fyfe Dangerfield provide the background music to the film’s most emotionally resonant sequences) and narrative sprints, as well as his playful approach to storytelling (he even goes “meta” by starring as a photographer named Alexander Sass, the name of the actual film’s director of photography), his film reaches a point where the norm is the unexpected, and there is no firm sense of where all of this is headed, or what would bring closure.
The final few seconds are a case in point, as Brüggemann suggests that, despite everything these characters have been through, they are likely to go through it all again, because you never stop growing up and you never stop learning. You keep on falling, like the pots and the pans in the very first scene, or Philipp, whose skills as a cyclist leave much to be desired, but you keep getting back up. Things may be precarious, but they are not entirely hopeless, and that is why we stay tuned.
It’s not easy growing up, but watching other people doing (or trying to do) it can be hilarious. The performances of the cast members all gel together very well, and the casting of Herbert Knaup (whose turn as Lola’s father in the cult film Run Lola Run is unforgettable) as Dina’s slightly hysterical father is a masterstroke. The only minor problem with casting was that Swantje (Philipp’s younger sister) and Maria (Philipp’s girlfriend) look so similar they are difficult to tell apart at first.
Move is a fast-paced look at the angst of becoming an adult and the mistakes that people make again and again as they try to find the balance between pleasure and stability. The Brüggemann brother-and-sister duo is very perceptive about the good and the bad of this period in people’s lives, and their depiction of the turmoil is genuinely engaging, even though they almost exclusively prefer to prioritise the funny sides of their episodes. The story does start to become slightly absurd towards the end, as coincidences seem to spawn more coincidences, but all in all, this is a creative, masterly controlled film about a key point in the characters’ lives and one that most audiences will be enthusiastic about.