Screened at the Berlin International Film Festival
BERLIN -- In "The Free Will", German director Matthias Glasner challenges himself to make a human monster sympathetic. His success will vary from viewer to viewer. For that matter, most people will not bother to spend nearly three hours with a sexual predator. Even students of abnormal psychology and edge cinema may be put off by the movie's remoteness from its characters and plodding pace.
Clearly, the filmmaker accepts those risks. It is a measure of Glasner's integrity that those who do stick with the film will come away disturbed and saddened but comprehending the awful compulsion that tears at the protagonist from his very insides.
Theo (played by Jurgen Vogel, one of the film's writers and producers) is a shy, sullen and emotionally stunted man who commits a brutal assault and rape in the film's opening minutes. A tiny bit of compassion for his victim -- he goes to retrieve a first-aid kit from his car -- causes him to get caught. More than eight years later, he is released from psychiatric lockup. He was judged mentally disabled and therefore was never criminally prosecuted.
Everyone, including Theo, thinks he can make it in the outside world. However, Sascha (Andre Hennicke), who runs a kind of halfway house in a medium-size German town, tells him to prepare for hell. Through sheer force of will, Theo does everything he can to stave off his demons: He takes martial arts, performs gymnastics, takes saunas, masturbates and watches porn.
He meets Nettie (Sabine Timoteo), the daughter of his boss, who has suffered years of abuse at her father's hand. A wary courtship ensues based, strangely enough, on their mutual dislike of the opposite sex. In one remarkable scene at the martial-arts studio, Theo demonstrates a self-defense technique to Nettie in a session where the combat escalates to the level of anger and frustration.
Before the relationship goes any further, Nettie takes off to study chocolate making in a Belgian coastal town. In her absence, Theo comes close to assaulting another woman but manages to run away.
He then tracks Nettie down, and their relationship begins in earnest. Mutual pain and emotional neediness spur their passion. Soon Nettie is shocked though pleased to hear herself say she loves Theo. The two move in together, but domestic bliss, as the viewer anticipates, doesn't last long. Theo's compulsive urges are never far from the surface.
No characters in the movie can articulate feelings. There are no scenes where these people sit down and explain themselves. All issues are repressed, leaving only uncomfortable silences and hesitation.
Even the most sympathetic viewer may find the last 45 minutes implausible if not intolerable. Theo angrily confesses his terrible secret to Nettie, then even more angrily breaks things off. She turns into a stalker, tracking him down to Berlin, as if she were a crack detective, then shadows him from one city to another for an implausible ending in another seaside town. (The film's sense of geography is at times needlessly puzzling.)
To his credit, Glasner, who wrote the film with Vogel and Judith Angerbauer, allows no sentimentality or soothing platitudes about mental illness obscure a crystal-clear portrait of a monster. Theo is a monster but not a sociopath. His crimes make him sick.
Glasner, who also did the cinematography, goes for a probing, often hand-held shooting style with much of the color drained away, in some scenes even approaching black and white. Lighting is naturalistic, and sets reflect the characters' emotional ups and downs.
"The Free Will" is a demanding, difficult film about a man who grows to hate what he fears: women.
THE FREE WILL
Colonia Media Filmproduktion/Label 131/Schwarzweiss Filmproduktion
Credits:
Director/director of photography: Matthias Glasner
Screenwriters: Matthias Glasner, Judith Angerbauer, Jurgen Vogel
Producers: Frank Dohmann, Matthias Glasner, Christian Granderath, Jurgen Vogel
Production designers: Tom Hornig, Conni Kotte
Costumes: Sabine Keller
Editors: Mona Brauer, Julia Wiedwald
Cast:
Theo: Jurgen Vogel
Nettie: Sabine Timoteo
Sascha: Andre Hennicke
Claus: Manfred Zapatka
Anja: Judith Engel
No MPAA rating
Running time -- 159 minutes...
BERLIN -- In "The Free Will", German director Matthias Glasner challenges himself to make a human monster sympathetic. His success will vary from viewer to viewer. For that matter, most people will not bother to spend nearly three hours with a sexual predator. Even students of abnormal psychology and edge cinema may be put off by the movie's remoteness from its characters and plodding pace.
Clearly, the filmmaker accepts those risks. It is a measure of Glasner's integrity that those who do stick with the film will come away disturbed and saddened but comprehending the awful compulsion that tears at the protagonist from his very insides.
Theo (played by Jurgen Vogel, one of the film's writers and producers) is a shy, sullen and emotionally stunted man who commits a brutal assault and rape in the film's opening minutes. A tiny bit of compassion for his victim -- he goes to retrieve a first-aid kit from his car -- causes him to get caught. More than eight years later, he is released from psychiatric lockup. He was judged mentally disabled and therefore was never criminally prosecuted.
Everyone, including Theo, thinks he can make it in the outside world. However, Sascha (Andre Hennicke), who runs a kind of halfway house in a medium-size German town, tells him to prepare for hell. Through sheer force of will, Theo does everything he can to stave off his demons: He takes martial arts, performs gymnastics, takes saunas, masturbates and watches porn.
He meets Nettie (Sabine Timoteo), the daughter of his boss, who has suffered years of abuse at her father's hand. A wary courtship ensues based, strangely enough, on their mutual dislike of the opposite sex. In one remarkable scene at the martial-arts studio, Theo demonstrates a self-defense technique to Nettie in a session where the combat escalates to the level of anger and frustration.
Before the relationship goes any further, Nettie takes off to study chocolate making in a Belgian coastal town. In her absence, Theo comes close to assaulting another woman but manages to run away.
He then tracks Nettie down, and their relationship begins in earnest. Mutual pain and emotional neediness spur their passion. Soon Nettie is shocked though pleased to hear herself say she loves Theo. The two move in together, but domestic bliss, as the viewer anticipates, doesn't last long. Theo's compulsive urges are never far from the surface.
No characters in the movie can articulate feelings. There are no scenes where these people sit down and explain themselves. All issues are repressed, leaving only uncomfortable silences and hesitation.
Even the most sympathetic viewer may find the last 45 minutes implausible if not intolerable. Theo angrily confesses his terrible secret to Nettie, then even more angrily breaks things off. She turns into a stalker, tracking him down to Berlin, as if she were a crack detective, then shadows him from one city to another for an implausible ending in another seaside town. (The film's sense of geography is at times needlessly puzzling.)
To his credit, Glasner, who wrote the film with Vogel and Judith Angerbauer, allows no sentimentality or soothing platitudes about mental illness obscure a crystal-clear portrait of a monster. Theo is a monster but not a sociopath. His crimes make him sick.
Glasner, who also did the cinematography, goes for a probing, often hand-held shooting style with much of the color drained away, in some scenes even approaching black and white. Lighting is naturalistic, and sets reflect the characters' emotional ups and downs.
"The Free Will" is a demanding, difficult film about a man who grows to hate what he fears: women.
THE FREE WILL
Colonia Media Filmproduktion/Label 131/Schwarzweiss Filmproduktion
Credits:
Director/director of photography: Matthias Glasner
Screenwriters: Matthias Glasner, Judith Angerbauer, Jurgen Vogel
Producers: Frank Dohmann, Matthias Glasner, Christian Granderath, Jurgen Vogel
Production designers: Tom Hornig, Conni Kotte
Costumes: Sabine Keller
Editors: Mona Brauer, Julia Wiedwald
Cast:
Theo: Jurgen Vogel
Nettie: Sabine Timoteo
Sascha: Andre Hennicke
Claus: Manfred Zapatka
Anja: Judith Engel
No MPAA rating
Running time -- 159 minutes...
- 2/13/2006
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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