German Currents ’13: Layla Fourie

Lies and deceit hang heavy in the South African air.  That should be good for Layla Fourie’s career.  She is a freshly certified polygraph operator. Unfortunately, she also ensnares herself with a web of lies in Pia Marais’ Layla Fourie (trailer here), which screens as part of the Goethe Institut’s German Currents: Festival of German Film in Los Angeles.

Fourie is a single mother with limited resources, but she stands on the brink of a better life. Hired by a polygraph company, she is sent to a large provincial casino to screen their next batch of prospective employees. Tragically, while in transit, Fourie runs down a stranded motorist she mistakenly takes for a carjacker. It was a dark and stormy night, and Fourie initially tries to do the right thing. Eventually though, she just dumps the body and covers up her crime as best she can. Of course, there is a witness: her horrible brat of a son, Kane.

Duly proceeding with her work, Fourie starts polygraphing applicants, including Eugene Pienaar, one of the few white job seekers. He immediately resents her intrusive questions, but is also somewhat attracted to her.  These responses make Fourie profoundly uneasy around him. As Fourie reluctantly comes to know Pienaar, she realizes his missing deadbeat father was the man she crashed into. The more time she spends with Pienaar, the more her conscience torments her. To make matters worse, Kane turns out to be a natural born blackmailer.

The ethically compromised polygraph operator is a fresh and intriguing noir premise, but Marais and co-writer Horst Markgraf never fully capitalize on its potential. Frustratingly, the polygraph machines entirely disappear after the first act. Still, the relationship that uneasily develops between Fourie and Pienaar is sharply written and smartly played by Rayna Campbell and August Diehl, respectively.  They share some real screen chemistry, but also convey all the thorny collective history making them instinctively wary of each other.

LF really crackles when Campbell and Diehl share the screen.  Regrettably, there is also an awful lot of utterly dreadful Kane, who makes a compelling case for child abuse.  Frankly, his behavior never rings true.  After all, kids are usually highly attuned to their parents’ circumstances and prone to show solidarity.

Conversely, the lawless milieu of LF feels very true to life.  Ruthlessly naturalistic in her approach, Marais holds a mirror up to nature and finds its reflection bitter and two-faced. Now based in Germany, Marais split her childhood years between South Africa and Sweden. Clearly, she is not entirely sanguine about the prospects for her partial homeland’s social fiber. After all, nearly everyone in LF is morally suspect—the only question is to what extent.

LF vividly immerses viewers in its harsh reality.  Cinematographer André Chemetoff nicely frames the character’s intimate angst and the harsh beauty of their surrounding environment.  It might be a bit of a ringer at German Currents, but the work of Campbell and Diehl should still pull in viewers expecting something more like Young Goethe in Love. (It is also part of the trio of Match Factory films screening during the festival.) While not without flaws, Layla Fourie is consistently bracing.  Recommended for who prefer their cinema without any extraneous sentimentality, it screens this Sunday (10/6) at the Egyptian Theatre as part of this year’s German Currents.

German Currents ’13: Measuring the World

You know Gauss’s bell curve and you know Humboldt’s monkey.  They were two of the most celebrated intellects of the Nineteenth Century German states. In addition to a common patron, Austrian Daniel Kehlmann’s fictionalized dual-biography suggests they also perhaps shared an intertwined fate.  Adapted for a big, big screen by the novelist himself, Detlev Buck’s Measuring the World (trailer here), has its American premiere this Friday as the opening night film of German Currents 2013 in Los Angeles.

Carl Friedrich Gauss was born into desperate poverty, but the boy’s stern schoolmaster recognized his remarkable gift for mathematical analysis. With a name like Friedrich Wilhelm Heinrich Alexander von Humboldt, the future Prussian naturalist-explorer was clearly a child of privilege. However, the Duke of Brunswick supported both lads’ education at an early age.

After Gauss and Humboldt meet by chance as children, Measuring splits into two wildly divergent narratives. A mathematician in the purest form, Gauss will spend his life within the German states. He is difficult by nature, yet somehow the uneducated but supportive Johanna consents to marry him.  Meanwhile, Humboldt embarks on a Latin American expedition that will make his name. His most significant companion will be his colleague and uneasy friend, Aimé Bonpland, the French botanist. As the title suggests, both men will take vastly different approaches to quantifying our earthly bounds through their work.  Eventually, the Humboldt and Gauss will meet again in their twilight years, carrying the baggage of two eventful lives.

For a prestige period production, Measuring has a surprisingly idiosyncratic sensibility. With its archly ironic narration and fits of absurdist humor, the film often feels like a distant cousin of Gilliam’s Munchausen. Visually, it is often quite inventive and the sheer scope of its wanderings is rather impressive. Yet, there are some nice quiet moments shared between Florian David Fitz and Vicky Krieps, as the Gausses. At times, Albrecht Abraham Schuch risks veering into Fraser Crane territory as the adult Humboldt, but Jérémy Kapone’s earthier Bonpland helps compensate for and undercut his mannered fastidiousness.

Ironically, one of the most recognizable faces in Measuring for American audiences will be Karl Markovics (lead actor in Stefan Ruzowitzky’s The Counterfeiters), who is quite good in the very supporting role of young Gauss’ teacher, Büttner.  Cineastes will also be intrigued to hear the film was lensed by Krzysztof Kieslowski’s longtime cinematographer Sławomir Idziak. Measuring does not look like a Kieslowski, but it has a distinctive sheen nonetheless.

With Idziak and his talented crew, Buck immerses viewers in an era Americans do not often have the opportunity see on screen.  Granted, Measuring is somewhat inconsistent in patches, but when it works, it works on a very high level. Recommended for fans of cerebral historicals, like Longitude and Pillars of the Earth, Measuring the Earth screens this Friday (10/4), kicking off this year’s German Currents at Egyptian Theatre. It should also be noted in closing: Measuring is one of three Match Factory films screening as part of the celebration of German cinema, along with Gold and Layla Fourie.

German Currents ’13: Gold

Is it worth risking life and limb for the chance to go bust in the Klondike goldfields? A party of German immigrants believes so.  They will endure exploitation and the elements for their dreams of precious metal in Thomas Arslan’s Gold (trailer here), which screens as part of the Goethe Institut’s German Currents: Festival of German Film in Los Angeles.

There is gold in those hills some place.  Unfortunately, Laser, a German promising to take a ragtag group of prospective prospectors up to the remote gold-crazed town of Dawson is a total phony. Although Emily Meyer has few illusions about their guide’s reliability, she continues on the journey.  Like the rest of her group, the divorced former domestic servant has no life to go back to.

At least Laser hired a dependable packer. Carl Boehmer has never been so far north either, but he has cause to make himself scarce.  As the harsh conditions take a toll on the travelers, a quiet mutual attraction percolates between Meyer and Boehmer, but it is a halting flirtation, due to reasons of privacy and privation.

Gold certainly demonstrates how ugly survival can get.  There is at least one scene that will surely have audience members talking afterward and may unfairly come to define the film.  Following in the tradition of revisionist westerns, Gold is pensive but never pokey.  In fact, it observes western conventions when you least expect it.

Nina Hoss is a brilliant choice to play the reticent but resilient Meyer. Following up remarkable work in Barbara and A Woman in Berlin, she once again delivers a tightly controlled but infinitely suggestive performance. She finds a fitting partner in Slovenian actor Marko Mandić, who has a real Viggo Mortensen vibe going on as Boehmer.

Gold is rather fascinating as an example of the Old World engaging with the New World. It looks terrific, thanks cinematographer Patrick Orth’s John Ford-worthy vistas. Dylan Carson’s reverb-heavy electric guitar score also evokes the haunted past, while sounding ultra-retro-contemporary.  Finely crafted and gritty as trail dust, Gold is a good film as well as a curiosity piece. Recommended for fans of naturalistic westerns and German cinema (two sub-sets that do not often overlap), Gold screens this Sunday (10/6) at the Egyptian Theatre as part of this year’s German Currents.