Rating: B-
Dir: Li Wallis
Star: Gildart Jackson, Milena Rendón, Siebe Schoneveld, Juan Hurtado Bergeth
This is definitely a genre melting-pot. While it has the shape of a thriller, the amount of actual thrills provided is scant. Quite deliberately, I should stress, as it the meandering, unstructured and sometimes confusing narrative. I came out the far side frustrated, intrigued, and impressed in roughly equal measures. It’s clear that Wallis has made a film for herself, and the viewer is invited on that journey. There are going to be detours, back-tracking, and it may not even have a final destination in a conventional form. This is not a trip you can bend to your will. However, the seats are quite comfy and in-flight snacks are going to be provided.
Things unfold in Berlin, before, during and after an outbreak of a disease which apparently was transmitted to humans through birds from South America, brought in surreptitiously to the country by shady businessman Osman (Bergeth). Investigating the epidemic is Jack (Jackson), an ornithologist from a family of adventurers. There is also a group of eco-terrorists, the Revered, who are prepared to advance their cause by any means necessary, of which Shauna (Rendón) is a part; the White Brigade, a group intent in covering up the origins of the disease; and a group of dodgy scientists, looking to mix human and bird DNA. This is either with the aim of stopping this kind of transmission, or creating six-foot tall birds with opposable thumbs. Like a lot here, motivations are left kinda murky.
It’s hard to say who are the good guys here, just about everyone being greyer in their morality than a winter sky in Manchester. Conventional wisdom would point at the Revered, but they care little for anyone not part of the central cabal, cynically hacking into and draining their supporter’s bank accounts. Jack is likely closest to a “hero,” though this is mostly because he doesn’t do anything explicitly evil. Weirdly, I perhaps felt most sympathy for Osman, whose rise and fall is almost endearing. He starts off acting the big hard-man, only to discover there’s always someone bigger and harder than you, and ends up driving an Uber. It’s just one of the many stories being told here, to variable effect.
What the film undeniably has is a real sense of place. Berlin may be the most omnipresent character in the film, like in Wings of Desire or Run Lola Run, and under cinematographer Oliver Rotter, the film always looks good. Some of the imagery is striking, though its meaning is often unclear. You need to be prepared to be patient, assemble the jigsaw puzzle yourself, and be prepared to accept that some key pieces will be under the sofa and out of reach. The results occupy an unusual middle-ground between art-gallery installation and multiplex popcorn fodder, and may not work for everyone. Indeed, I’m not certain it all worked for me, yet I’m glad there’s still a place in the world for this kind of individualistic creation.
[The film is streaming now on Amazon Prime and Tubi]