Run Lola Run director Tom Tykwer falls short with The Light, a muddled film that fails to do justice to its weighty themes.
Tom Tykwer, of Run Lola Run fame, premiered his latest film Das Licht (The Light) as the kick off movie at this year’s edition of Berlinale – the third time that the Berlin Film Festival has given Tykwer this coveted spot in its programme. With Run Lola Run marking one of the most exciting moments in modern German cinema, with its experimental, profound and conceptual brilliance leading it to be heralded by some as “one of the best technical films ever made”, expectations were set high. Unfortunately for all involved, Tykwer failed to surpass the bar he set for himself all those decades ago.
Das Licht is a difficult film to synthesise or summarise. Coming out of the screening, it seemed that every possible contemporary issue, as well as most cinematic genres and styles, had all been thrown confusingly into a washing machine for the almost three hour run time. From VR to DMT, Nairobi to Syria, climate change to abortion, startups to flatshares, musical numbers to animation, this movie really spanned it all, hitting all themes without ever delving deeply into a single one.
Ostensibly, the film deals with the German sense of guilt, history and regret about how to confront the past. Since WW2, this question has underpinned almost all debates in the country, and can still be seen to have an incredible influence on many issues – most pressingly and controversially the issue of Israel/Palestine. Modern day colonialism, privilege and migration dynamics weave throughout the film. This first emerges through the character of Farrah (played by Tala Al-Deen), a Syrian refugee who has recently arrived to rainy Berlin, and who uses an LED lamp – which is never quite explained – to deal with her trauma and reconnect (mysteriously) with her family.
We are next introduced to the Engels family and their housekeeper, an immigrant named Maja who dies of a heart attack in the Egnels’s typical Berlin flatshare family home. Video game obsessive Jon (Julius Gause) – the 17 year old son of the Engels unit – continues playing on his VR headset, unaware of the dead woman in his kitchen. The daughter Frieda (Elke Biesendorfer) is out partying with friends in a cliche club scene and upon returning home finds Maja on the floor.
Both children are disillusioned – to say the least – by their out of touch and disconnected parents, for whom at least Frieda partially blames Maja’s death. Their mother, Milena (Nicolette Krebitz), plays the white savour in Nairobi as an arts campaign coordinator whilst their father, Tim (Lars Eidinger), is a corporate sell out, trying to act the cool 20-something year old in his Berlin start-up, despite being clearly past 40. The final and youngest member of the family is Dio, a young boy who is the result of Milena’s affair with a Nairobi man, and who spends the film bursting into renditions of Bohemian Rhapsody. Farrah becomes intertwined with the family when she becomes their new housekeeper and shows each member the power of her LED lamp, which she believes will heal their wounds – of which there are many.
The heavy handedness of the film in dealing with incredibly politically charged and sensitive material was astonishing. This, alongside the dream sequences, VR game scenes, dramatic musical numbers, pounding techno tracks and acid trips made a difficult viewing. This felt like a missed opportunity, particularly as the film premiered on the eve of the German elections, to deal poignantly and thoughtfully with the difficult questions that Das Licht raises.
Film Fest Report is an accredited media at the 75th Berlin International Film Festival.
