I WAS AT HOME, BUT…/ ICH WAR ZUHAUS, ABER…

Germany, 2019, 105 minutes, Colour.
Maren Eggert, Jacob Lasalle, Clara Moller, Franz Rogowski.
Directed by Angela Schanelec.

The director won the Berlinale 2019 director award for this film. It is personal for her, a reflection of her own life and marriage, her husband having been a theatre director like the husband in this screenplay.

While there is an overall narrative to the film, the disappearance of the 13-year-old Philip and his mysterious return a week later and the mother having to cope with new situations in her life with her son and daughter, there is much more philosophical reflection in the screenplay.

In fact, this is an existential questioning of the meaning of life, of relationships, of trying to cope with life. Which means quite an amount of intellectual dialogue in the screenplay.

There are some other narrative elements, the young son developing an illness, poisoning, his time in hospital and recovery, the impact on the little girl and her place in the family, the mother and sibling an advertisement to buy a bike, testing it, but later finding it breaking down and taking it back to be fixed by the seller.

Interspersed throughout the film are rehearsals by the school students with quite a number of scenes from Hamlet.

Not a film for those who want a straightforward narrative – but rather for those who like story elements but also provocative questions, existential angst, reflections on the meaning of life.