ALLE ANDEREN (EVERYONE ELSE)
Germany, 2009, 119 minutes, Colour.
Birgit Minichmayr, Lars Eidinger.
Directed by Maren Ade.
Would you like to spend a holiday in the company of the central characters? No.
Would you like to spend 2 edited hours with them in close-up? Not particularly, although critics and the Berlinale jury, giving the Best Actress award to Birgit Minichmayr, thought yes.
Director, Maren Ade, offers a female and German perspective on two people like and unlike everyone else. He is an architect with high hopes and some disappointments in a competition. She works PR for bands. They are in Sardegna. They talk. He is serious and wants time with his friend and his friend's pregnant wife. She is flighty and quirky, a touch unconventional and wants him to change and be stronger. She is extraverted, he less so.
There are some dramatic conflicts but it might be better for them to go off in private to resolve these rather than our having to hang about, a touch voyeuristically, and more than a touch impatiently and irritated with them.
1.A film about young people, relationships, careers, values, commitment and love?
2.The German perspective? The director’s female perspective?
3.The title, individuals, like others, unlike others? Especially Gitti and her uniqueness, Chris and his gifts?
4.The Sardinia locations, the island and its beauty, the villas, the town?
5.The songs, as background to the plot and characters? Relationships?
6.Gitti, her interaction with Rebecca, the discussions about hatred, shooting, her falling into the pool as if dead? Chris and his fondness for the baby? Indications of what was to come, about relationships, family? Chris’s sister and her reaction?
7.The holiday villa, the background of the mother and the decorations, the pool, the beach, the town?
8.Gitti and Chris, age, being together, love, the critique? Gitti and her work, PR, flighty? Idiosyncratic? Games? Chris by contrast as serious, introverted? Discussions about what it was to be manly? His work, the competition, the failure? Seeing the client about redecorating the villa? Telling and not telling? With each of his friends, being exclusive, the games?
9.The arrival of Hans and Sana, her pregnancy, talk, the visit, Gitti and her wilfulness, Sana’s dream and the interpretation, Hans being acerbic, Chris and his embarrassment?
10.Petersen, the meeting, the talk, the boat – their not going, seeing them later and apologising?
11.Gitti, the makeup, the dress, meeting Chris, the talk, wanting to go to the disco and dancing?
12.Her night alone, Chris’s return?
13.Gitti trying, cooking, the meal with Hans and Sana, the reactions, the taunt, the pool?
14.Gitti deciding to separate, Chris and his reaction, her collapse – and the uncertainty of the ending?
15.Insightful into the behaviour of twenty- and thirty-year-olds? Issues of love and commitment? Work? Personalities? Difficulties in commitment?
