Review of Böse Zellen

Böse Zellen (2003)
8/10
Mosaic of People's Lives Recovering from an Accident
2 November 2003
Parallel stories about various people in recovering process from a car accident are interwoven into one picture. The director has craftsmanship to incorporate different styles of genre films, such as horror, coming-of-age, and arthouse-erotica. The influence from several European melodrama giants, namely Fassbinder and Almodovar, also permeates on the screen. The rare feeling, which only occurs when I witness the moment of a new talent's emergence, caught me while I was watching this film at New York Film Festival 2003.

The screenplay is questionable; the plane crash at the beginning is barely related to the rest of the whole film. The director's explanation in Q&A session at the Festival, that the crash indicates chaos, irony and unpredictability of life in the relation to the entire story, doesn't convince me enough. Also, a bundle of absolutely separate stories, which don't interact with each other, may look dated in the future, though it is admittedly faddish at this moment.

Several choices of music, such as Take On Me and San Francisco, are so personal that the director's feeling may not be conveyed to the audience.

Overall, this is an unpolished but young and energetic film, which shows the director's promising future.
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