Berlin hit "Wendini", loving you forever is just a moment of love

Ruby 2022-03-03 08:01:23

This article was first published on the public film Salt, welcome to pay attention

It is said that this film became a hit in Berlin this year, and it was even more difficult to get a ticket when it premiered, and it lived up to expectations and was nominated for the Golden Bear Award.

In the end, Paula Bell, played by the heroine Wentini, won the Silver Bear Award for Best Actress, and the director received the Fabisi Film Critics Award.

Paula Bell, 25, has been sealed in Berlin

Followed by polarized scores, IMDB: 5.9 (out of 10) and Rotten Tomatoes: 82%, people's expectations for this film have dropped significantly.

But the mythological aspect of the film is still very attractive. The water elf, one of the four elements in the ancient European legend, is the protagonist of the film. According to the director in an interview, this is the original version of the "Mermaid" story.

The English Rose Keira Knightley has publicly stated that her daughter is banned from reading fairy tales like The Little Mermaid. The mermaid, a character who gave up everything for love, is spurned by modern feminism.

After all, women should not sacrifice everything for so-called love. Unlike Andersen's mermaid, this is not a story of sacrifice for love, but an ancient curse of betrayal and being killed.

As a water elf, Wendine can choose to marry a mortal man and have children, but she will lose her eternal life. And once the man who is married to Wendini has an affair, she must lure the man into the water to drown and return to the water to live again.

The director and screenwriter Petzold did not put the story into marriage, but into a relationship. It opens with Wentini breaking up with her boyfriend Johannes, Wentini warns her boyfriend with death, but apparently Johannes thinks this is just a trick of a weak girl.

She then quickly met Christopher, an industrial diver working in a reservoir area in western Germany, and the two began a new relationship.

At this time, he met Johannes again, and he and Wentini promised to break up with the current one. The structure of the film is interesting, the breakup at the beginning and the current reunion are all a cafe, Johannes waiting the same, and Wentini watching from the window.

The only difference is that one eye is gone and one eye is still there. Halfway through the story, it seems to have returned to the starting point at this moment. It has the taste of love very much, and it is empty when it is divided and closed. But then Christopher's phone call showed that it was all just another fantasy.

And people are always in fantasy, closing their regrets. However, it is this scene, meeting the ex and leaning on the current one, which is destined to become a memorable scene for movie fans in 2020. "Your heart skipped a beat when he walked by"

It was also at this moment that Wentini found herself detached from her ex's feelings. It was also at this time that Christopher had an accident and was dying. In order to save Christopher, she killed Johannes herself.

Christopher wakes up, and Wentini returns to the water. He, who could never find Wendini again, chose a new relationship. Even later, he tried to find Wendini in the water, but returned to his current girlfriend.

The so-called love, but only a moment. Even if the historical sense of European mythology is substituted into the context of anxiety in modern life, one cannot escape the fate of the moment.

Wentini, who did not give her life for love, returned to the water. In the end, the love item was returned to Christopher, which fulfilled him and his current girlfriend, and they will also have their own children.

Like Andersen's mermaid, watching others get married. But there is no need to turn into a bubble and return to your own life. Even the god who rules everything must learn to let go from possession in love.

In fairy tales, the obsession of coming to the world is resolved in this film. Learning to love in love may be more important than momentary disputes and revenge.

Aside from the romance part, Petzold sets the heroine Undine as a historian and docent for the city planning department. A lot of brush and ink in the film is Wentini explaining the architectural history of Berlin to the public.

And in the first explanation of the film, that is, after Wentini broke up at the beginning. Indifferent and rational explanation of history, but the interaction at the moment "Can you see where you are through the architectural model?" Through the historical architectural model, Wentini saw the ex who just broke up.

In an interview, director Petzold said he had lived in Berlin for 40 years. And Berlin is a city built on legends. This city has too many traces of Undine, such as the residential project Undinestrae.

And this is also a narrative basis for the film, the intersection of the model image and the man's image, the intersection of Berlin and Wentini, this is a modern myth written by the director to the city.

And whether the myth of Wendini exists or not, all the narratives are sometimes true and sometimes dreamy, which makes people puzzled. But for Petzold, people in this era lack dreams and dreams, and he wants to create such a dream.

"This is also the effect I wanted to achieve when I made "Wendini"." In a modern city, there is a water spirit.

young director

The director and screenwriter Petzold, as one of the representatives of the "Berlin School", is also an important writer-director in contemporary Germany. The "Berlin School" is in contrast to the representative figures of "German cinema in the era of the Berlin Wall".

The latter is represented by Fassbender, Schlondorf, and Herzog. The label "Berlin School" happens to represent the revival of a new generation of German cinema after reunification (starting with "Lola Run" (1998)).

Transit (2018)

As a new generation of German directors, his films always revolve around East Germany and West Germany. Such as "Barbara" (2012) and "Transit" (2018) when trying to escape.

In addition, he also likes to re-create classics. Appropriation is the core element of contemporary art. The appropriation of "Wendini" this time is only the first part of director Petzold's "Elemental Elf Trilogy".

The other two, Norm the Earth Spirit and Sylph the Wind Spirit, are scheduled to be released in the next four years.

Hopefully there will be other surprises in the upcoming series.

View more about Undine reviews

Extended Reading
  • Pete 2022-04-24 07:01:24

    Petzold tactfully concealed Chencang, using a ghostly love sketch to carry the city-nation (re)invention in the post-Cold War era. With the intersection of water nymphs, he not only makes Undine the incarnation of external mnemonics (historical-museum), but also demonstrates the dual swings of this invention between reason and passion, eroticism and violence. Paula Beer's charming temperament is derived from this polar swing. Undine dives into the water, Christoph returns to the world, and the two have been connected throughout Berlin-Germany history.

  • Laurine 2022-03-20 09:02:59

    I am a fairy who can gain supernatural power when dipped in water, and you are a puppet who can save love even with a broken leg. Let's swim in the fish tank and live in the reservoir. You use your love to save me, who is reborn as a human being, and I use my divine power to repay you, who drowned and died. If my heart skips a beat and it's not because of you, and if our love is a deception that uses the 18th century style to achieve the 21st century function, I am willing to sink into the lake and let you stare at my legendary name from the bottom of the water forever.