20140104: Drama Review--The Wall

The Wall (Die Wand)

1. Fundamentals, reception.
1. German live action feature length film, 2012, NR, 108 minutes, drama, indie.
2. IMDB: 6.7/10.0 from 1,587 audience ratings.  Spoken word is in German; subtitles in English.
3. Rotten Tomatoes: 74% on the meter; 74% liked it from 955 audience ratings.
4. Netflix: 3.0/5.0 from 4,273 audience ratings.
5. Directed by: Julian Roman Poelsler.
6. Starring: Martina Gedeck as Frau, Wolfgang Maria Bauer as Mann, Karlheinz Hackl as Hugo, Ulrike Beimpold as Luise, Hans Michael Rehberg as Keuschler (cottage dweller, male), Julia Geschnitzer as Keuschlerin (cottage dweller, female).


2. Setup and Plot
1. The protagonist awakes one day in a hunting lodge.  Her husband and a friend had left to run errands in town; she was alone in the lodge.  When she walks to town, she finds an invisible wall keeping her from progressing.  As time passes by, she finds there is no escape at all.


2. During the next two years, she learns to feed herself in a sustainable way.  There is a cow in the region she can reach; she grows and harvests hay for the cow in return for milk.  She cultivates potatoes and some other roots, and collects berries and mushrooms.  She hunts for the occasional deer, and learns to shoot a rifle quickly and accurately.


3. Her other companions are her dog, Lynx, a pregnant cat who scrounges off her, and a white crow that is outcast by the black crows.


4. We follow her narration of events, which mirrors her writing on the paper she happened to have at hand.  There are ups and downs, including the loss of Lynx and the cow's baby bull, both killed by a murderous poacher who is the only other human she was able to interact with.


5. The film, which consists of visuals that accompany the woman's narration as she comes to adapt to her unexpectedly changed environment, comes to an end when she runs out of paper.


3. Conclusions
1. The film was adapted from the book Die Wand (The Wall) written by the Austrian author Marlen Haushofer in 1963.  It received the Arthur Schnitzler Prize the same year.  The dystopian SciFi work was considered her best.
2. One line summary: Beautiful to watch, sad, and thought-provoking.  A woman faces the fact that she will spend the rest of her life without other human beings.
3. Four stars of five.


4. Scores
1. Cinematography: 10/10 Sharp, clear, well-focused and framed.  The landscape in Austria was lovely.


2. Sound: 10/10 The vast majority of the sound is voice-over narration.  There is good incidental sound for: the wind in the trees, pouring rain, crunchy snow, the sound of a rifle shot, the footfalls of the dog, and the like.


3. Acting: 8/10 There is one actor, Martina Gedeck. We see some body English, but otherwise, there is only off-screen narration.


4. Screenplay: 7/10 Moves along well in most places; drags in others.  As an existential piece, it is pretty good; for other purposes, not so much.