Sophie is a lot, impulsive, pretty, self-centered, just wise, not necessarily. And Georg is not a dragon slayer, not even a martyr, but a recreational musician and budding architect. The characters in this silent and strong, analytically precise relationship film by Miriam Bliese are cast against the symbolism of their names, which already suggests how little cerebral it is. What distinguishes this mosaic-like portrait of the Patchwork generation is its absolute closeness to life. The moods, compromises and accusations are believable down to the finest nuances, sometimes full of tragicomics, then again poisonous and irreconcilable: “He should just not believe that he will get Jakob. I will collect so many statements against him that he will choke on them. "
No separation restores a previous state, especially not when children are involved. Bliese's emphatically calm script, which Birte Schnöink and Ole Lagerpusch interpret in an outstanding manner, does not avoid the emotional contradictions in the argument between a couple who argue about custody of a child after spending time together. It looks well observed how the still existing proximity is now being used to land particularly painful hits, while in the meantime even small approaches seem possible again. This makes it particularly difficult for children to deal with the precarious situation.
As in Bliese's minimalist short film “An der Tür” (2013), which dealt with an ex-couple (Wolfram Koch; Jeanette Hain) having a close-to-a-whisper, distance conversation when the child was handed over, the intercom is becoming a symbol of fragile communication between parents who have a child as the lowest common denominator. A voice connection via this half-forgotten analog medium is more public than a telephone call (someone is always coming out of the house), but no less intimate, if only because it often takes place at the door that was once your own and is now the border. Even desperate sentences are spoken into the sheet-metal microphone, curiously braked: “You will send Jakob down to me right now. If you're going to start this shit again, I'll kick the damn door in, I promise you."
But it is not just fragments of a speechlessness after the evaporation of love that Miriam Bliese shows us. In her graduation film at the German Film and Television Academy Berlin (DFFB), she takes the long road: in retrospect, we also see the development of the relationship between Georg and Sophie, which - albeit in summer pictures - also takes place in a realistic way, not as a television film fairy tale . Georg was just there when Sophie needed him, pregnant by another musician who ran away before his son was born. The two got closer, suddenly the word “always” was in the room and at some point there was adoption. At another time, we see her celebrating the end of the breastfeeding period with friends, including the one in the entrance area of her apartment block, a concrete backdrop with a sad lawn supplement,in which almost the entire film takes place.
The fact that the budget remained manageable due to this fundamental director's decision is just a side effect. What is more important is that the stage situation is accompanied by a theatrical compression that fits perfectly with the chamber play character of this reflection on love and its family follow-up costs; the few props, a plastic table, a self-made seating area, do the rest. That already holds the elliptical narrative together visually. One could almost speak of “framing”, because with the entrance to the house, which is hardly designed for lingering and is staged in a colorlessly dreary way by Markus Koob's camera, Bliese has found an image of emblematic power for modern, freedom-oriented pass-through relationships. Today, when nest building and retreat are considered insignia of bourgeois bourgeoisie, relationships take place in the semi-public,in the draughty foyer of the private, to which friends, acquaintances and ex-partners also have access. Separations are part of it. Individualism versus tradition: The film does not make any assessment.
Miriam Bliese, herself a mother in a blended family and the daughter of separated parents, the actors Eleonore Weisgerber and Joachim Bliese, suggests at best that the patchwork model built into modern urban relationships from the beginning makes it easier to recognize the circumstances in all problems . The couple portrayed also find their way back to a stable state, a modus vivendi, with Sophie's new friend (Andreas Döhler) playing an important role as mediator. How this works in detail and how it is musically mirrored in highs and lows (with friendly irony) - son Jakob (Justus Fischer) makes his big appearance with the eternal love hits "Anneliese" and "Lovesickness is not worth it" - that is of poignant intensity and wisdom.
The individual parts of love
runs at 10:50 pm as a "film debut" in the first.