Berlinale Dispatch. Wolfsbergen.

Dutch director Nanook Leopold's Wolfsbergen is one of those movies that show you characters silently reading letters for ages. There is no score and people's breathing, chewing, coughing and swallowing is uncomfortably loud, on screen and off. It's a movie for which you have to be in the right frame of mind. And sure enough, though masses of journalists were pushing and stepping on one another's feet to get in this afternoon, only five minutes into the movie, the theater started getting exponentially more roomy.

I can understand; I considered walking out, too. For 93 minutes, we observe a Dutch family unraveling, beginning with great-grandfather Konraad's (Piet Kamerman) letter, which announces the suicide he plans to commit in the near future. I consciously chose the word "observe," because the assortment of scenes seem to unreel all but randomly. This style does not do the first half hour any favors.

Konraad's daughter (Catherine ten Bruggencate) and granddaughter Sabine (Tamar van den Dop) seem oblivious to his planned suicide and merely declare the letter ridiculous. Both their husbands urge them to show some sort of reaction, and so do we. The women trudge through their everyday lives shrugging off their husbands' attempts to communicate by simply going to bed.

The scenes we are shown don't serve to construct a plot; they seem to roll along all on their own, and we're left peeking in every now and then to see how things are going. Whatever crucial moments come along seem to come along per chance. How much time passes between these little observations fluctuates; it's hard to tell.

I'm glad I decided to stick around, though, since this deliberate technique begins to show its effectiveness when the family relationships start crumbling. It gives the action - or lack of action - a very real heft.

Leopold tells her story not from his point of view and not from any of the characters' points of view. He tells it from our point of view. He shows a little bit here and a little bit there, refraining from manipulative tools such as music or a subjective choice of scenes.

We observe. We are free to sympathise with whichever characters we chose. And as in real life, this is not as easy as we are directed to feel when we usually watch movies. There is no such thing as an antagonist; every person has reasons for their actions. Completely objectively, we are shown these reasons or are given to understand that they exist.

Not knowing why the grandmother turns away from her husband paradoxically makes her silence much more understandable. You look at her tight-lipped face and you can tell there is a reason - maybe it's because she feels unattractive, maybe it has nothing to do with that. She is the one creating the distance between them, but you hurt for her husband and for her.

Strangely enough, I found myself lacking sympathy for the only character that does always show her emotions freely and explains where they come from, Eva (Karina Smulders), the other granddaughter.

Walking to the train afterwards, I felt almost violently calm, definitely affected by the movie but uncertain in what way and for or against whom. It's one of those things that put me in a very contemplative mood, though something hinders me from coming to a relieving conclusion.

But since Nanook Leopold gives us freedoms other directors don't, you'll have to see for yourself what the film does for you. It might simply bore the hell out of you and that's okay. Part of our freedom is choosing to walk out of the theater.

Posted by dwhudson at February 12, 2007 1:24 PM