I went to see this movie without fully understanding what I was in for. It played here in Seattle as part of the Seattle International Film Festival (SIFF) at the Seattle Center, and i thought it would be a subtle investigation of the two men. My first surprise came when the audience was addressed by a festival employee who told us that although the movie was German, the dialogue was English. Good for me, because I think I need new glasses. The second surprise was that Kerri Russell was in it (huh?). I'd like to preface my comments by stating a few things: I am in my twenties, and therefore have grown up in an age violence and moral deprivation, and consider myself to be desensitized, sometimes to an alarming degree. The interest I have in abnormal psychology (particularly sexual) is deep and passionate, and although I am pretty well adjusted, my curiosity borders on the creepy-even to those that know me well. I am also extremely liberal in politics, and as close to an atheist as someone as spiritually apathetic as I can be. This movie made me ill. Physically. The grad student that Russell played was (although annoying in the beginning) the one saving grace in this movie, because the character acted as a device that separated the viewer from the actions taking place. Yes, these were sad people who had shitty lives, but it is not in me to be sympathetic. In and age where people can find each other on the internet via a chat room, surely one of them could have found a descent therapist. The "made for each other" aspect that attempted to romanticize the story was sickening and pathetic. I know that they were not trying to make it into a beautiful love story, but really-where was the psychological analysis? This film is irresponsible-the ideas that the viewer is exposed to are not easy to forget when given this sort of treatment. It rushed to the climax and then dragged out the gore for what I can only assume was shock value and media provocation. Cannibalism is the one taboo we have left on this planet, and this movie dealt with the subject with all of the subtlety of the rock Russell throws through the window. I think that people should be allowed to explore the darkest sides of their shadows without shame, but the desire to eat another human, and the desire to be eaten are not sexual perversions, they are severe mental illnesses. Human frailty is not something to be mocked and stylized. This was simply a movie about suicide and murder. I wish I had never seen it.
Review of Grimm Love
