When I asked
Linda Söffker, who runs the central Berlinale section “Perspektive Deutsches Kino” (Perspective German Cinema), what made
“My Brother’s Keeper” her opening film, she answered: “
It’s experimental without being an experimental film. It’s a good open-ended story that deals with shifting identities between two brothers (two elements we found in several films, by the way). Most of all though, we noticed the cinematography, focussing on colours and shapes to reveal the protagonists’ emotions. Finally, it’s programmatic for this year’s Perspektive:
courageous and striking."
All true. The story in short: Two brothers go on their traditional sailing trip. The younger one vanishes into thin air / runs off / commits suicide. The older one, searching for his brother, gradually slips into his space, his life, his love, his head while detaching from his old life, job, marriage.
At the beginning it feels like it’s filmed in the periphery of the narrative, set to trippy music or shot through transparent photos on a glass wall (DoP: Matteo Cocco). Perhaps one or two too many shots of backs of heads, but overall subtly elegant and fresh, like water flowing sideways from a faucet, without feeling stylized or artificial (an annoying tendency in a number of German films over the past decade). While Berlinale programmers graciously keep answering the inevitable what-is-this-year’s-theme question, the film demonstrates
the strength of the Berlinale programming -- dedication to formal innovation, experimentation and excellence.
Newcomer director Maximilian Leo, out of the Cologne academy, swiftly and sure-footedly sets up the two characters without many words: Pietschi, the younger brother, artsy and as ephemeral as the film’s imagery. Gregor, the older one, a straight-laced doctor — “benign” as Pietschi at some point insinuates. Initially, I’m not entirely convinced by everything falling apart so quickly. But Leo quickly anticipates many potential missteps, smartly interspersing back flashes that hint at the brothers’ back story as we go along. Another stylistic device is nicely used: Some scenes are repeated or slightly rearranged.
“Most attempted suicides are a cry for attention,” the doctor Gregor tells a patient's mother at his hospital. A bit later, playing phone tag with his absent wife: “It’s like we’ve been jinxed!" And Gregor's/Pietschi's girlfriend tells Gregor off for smoking: "It doesn't suit you." It is not difficult to read these scenes as references to his and his brother’s inner demons. But mostly, you have to watch and listen closely to the nuances to put the puzzle together, which never feels heavy-handed or forced despite its characters’ surreal motivations and decisions. The big questions are sometimes asked, sometimes float in the air.
Does your life make sense? What would you really like to do with it? Would you rather jump off a building or in front of a car?
Gregor is played by Sebastian Zimmler, who you may remember as the young dentist-brother in Hans-Christian Schmid’s sombre family constellation “Home for the Weekend” (Berlinale 2012)— strangely also a film where a protagonist mysteriously disappears never to be found. If it wasn’t for his
charmingly unsettled and unsettling portrayal, his tentative probing, this could have turned into a creepy stalker thriller in its second half (see “Stereo” in the Panorama section). Here, the underlying emotions and impulses shine through but never materialize for more than a fleeting moment (and perhaps they should occasionally linger to make more of an impact): jealousy and grief, interdependence and vulnerability, loss and longing, second guessing and filling voids. Towards the end, Gregor drinks and smokes himself into a feverish burn out before letting go.
Turns out you can’t repeat or superimpose or substitute your life.
An accomplished debut, make a note of the name Maximilian Leo.
by Jutta Brendemuehl, Toronto
image: My Brother's Keeper. Perspektive Deutsches Kino 2014. DEU 2014. DIRECTOR: Maximilian Leo. Sebastian Zimmler, Robert Finster. © Matteo Cocco
