How much of the history in our present accommodation remains preserved? Director Carl Bessai attempts to reveal cross-generational and cross-decade dramas in the form of five stories in his new drama LICHTENBERG.
A contemporary MC stands at an abandoned building for rent in a suburb of Berlin, reflecting on what revelations and secrets could be buried amidst the cemen and upholstery. Soon we are transported between past and present with a quintet of stories taking us from the height of Nazi Germany through post-Berlin Wall squatters to the effect of asylum and refugees in the shadow of the ‘War On Terror’.
Amidst this Altman-esque structure, we go a little deeper with misinformed and misunderstood individuals who clearly all seem to share the desire of something that will work out much better for them. Reminiscence about life before the come down of the Wall and memories of the German Democratic Republic also prevail at the heart of this multi-stranded narrative.
Throughout cinematic history, there have always been examples of films that attempt to combine multiple stories (the V/H/S films are one such pair) and LICHTENBERG is one of the latest. The shame of this film is that all five of the stories explored here really do deserve their own specific feature-length stories that would allow each of the characters to evolve and thrive whilst allowing the audience to embrace their respective conflicts. It doesn’t quite gel successfully.
Films like PULP FICTION and SHORT CUTS do try and provide a cohesive narrative incorporating all of the characters that inhabit their cinematic canvasses, but here the mix of past and present does impose of proper audience involvement. The bigger picture of what the film explores in a broader social sense is also lost at the dramatic heart and there are some interesting ideas fragmented throughout.
More of an experimental concept, LICHTENBERG does at least provide part of an insight, if not wholly satisfying, into Germany’s social ideas.
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LICHTENBERG plays as part of the Berlin Independent Film Festival. For more information, please go to:
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