60th Locarno Film Festival
Film: Nichts Als Gespenster
Director: Martin Gypkens
Country: Germany
Running Time: 119 mins
Cast: Maria Simon, August Diehl, Brigitte Hobmeier, Jessica Schwarz, Janek Rieke, Fritzi Haberlandt, Christine Schorn, Walter Kreye
During the film festival an awesome 1,000 reporters were in attendance from all over the world; there were heaving crowds of cinema-philes everywhere and due to the spread out locations of the theaters, every viewing hour was precious and free time between screenings minimal. I’d just about had my fill of international film fare for the week and just when I thought I couldn’t muster my critical powers to ponder the aesthetic relevance of any more, I picked up a real interesting article about a German film everyone was going crazy about – Nichts Als Gespenster. It’s one of those multi-strand, ensemble movies that draw together folk, though apparently unconnected, who are moving towards a similar point in their lives. With geographic locations promising tantalizing landscapes as wide apart (widely dispersed) as Iceland and Jamaica, I admit my resolve weakened, I half reluctantly dumped my espresso and was just in time for the complimentary shuttle bus……………… take me there, I said!
Well, guys, here’s the fruits of my labor, hopefully, well spent.
Nichts Als Gespenster or Nothing But Ghosts is as its title suggests about confronting ourselves; reassessing the old, bringing in the new – in short starting life over. Only his second feature film, it’s not for the first time that director Martin Gypkens has examined the nature of generation X: his first feature Wir (2003) followed the lives and loves of a group of high school students after graduation. When he first started out German born Gypkens moved to New York to study the craft in some depth and this film certainly has touches of Hollywood style brilliance; the story and characters neatly fleshed out, the dialogue raw and edgy.
Adapted from Judith Herman’s novel Nichts Als Gespenster, Gypkens has skilfully interlaced its five self-contained but thematically linked narratives into one wholly satisfying picture that takes an intelligent look at the stresses and strains of modern day life while persistently gnawing away at the all too inevitable truth.
Eeva Fleig’s sumptuous cinematography juxtaposes vivid and deeply contrasting landscapes from Icelandic glaziers to vast rugged mountains and valleys across Nevada’s Grand Canyon. Other scenes are urban bound and generally offer more intimate portraits: an affair between a woman and her best friend’s boyfriend in the old world of romantic, opera loving Prague, the indecision and sexual advancement of a more conventional girl celebrating her 30th birthday with her art loving parents in the city of waterways and baroque splendour – Venice, Italy.
It’s interesting that the young couple travelling across South-East America actually bump into a real-life ghost buster while lodging at a hotel in canyon country who introduces them to interesting, new lives outside their own confrontational, claustrophobic relationship. Like the others depicted, they are forced to re-evaluate themselves and where they are heading; whether under the unrelenting glare of the hot desert sun, against the heady aroma of spices and warm, scented skin on a tropical isle or the harsh, mute panorama of one of Europe’s most isolated regions where the breathtaking yet secluded terrain mirrors the awkwardness and bursting intensity of an affair that becomes difficult to hide.
Read the rest of our coverage from the 60th Annual Locarno Film Festival here.
