Emily Atef’s Latest is a Sensual Yet Exhausting Misfire [Berlin]
At certain times in Emily Atefs adaptation of the same name Daniela Kriens Novel “One day we will tell each other everything“, all one hears is the irregular breathing of Maria (Marleen Burow). The oxygen molecules leave the sprawling fields of rural Germany and hastily make their way through the young girl’s lungs, the rush of adrenaline in her bloodstream directly increasing her breathing rate. Adrenaline pumps through her blood as she pedals her rickety bike down rural roads, her feet strapped to both the pedals and flimsy leather sandals, and as she races home, desperate to make it in time for dinner after waking up the pages of a Dostoyevsky novel, which she devours like food.
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But nothing gets Maria as pumped with adrenaline as the presence of Henner (Felix Kramer). The elderly man is one of the few remaining farmers in the once bustling little rural village where Maria and her friend, the amateur photographer Johannes (Cedric Eich) and his whole family. Welcomed to her partner’s farmhouse after her parents’ tumultuous divorce, Maria becomes a surrogate daughter to Johannes’ loving mother Marianne (Silke Bodenbender), who guides the young girl with the care – and attention – she has never experienced at home.
This warm welcome makes it even harder for Maria to realize that she has been charmed by her neighbor, a farm hand with a rough demeanor and bad drinking habits. They first meet when Henner stops by to get groceries from the Johannes family’s farm shop; Maria’s face is buried in a book when Marianne talks to the man about her. Their next meeting is steeped in the tension of a bullet-dodged catastrophe, the thrill of danger that turns Platonism into possibility.
Set against the backdrop of Germany’s reunification, Someday We’ll Tell Each Other Everything weaves a romance between a man far too used to the ways of the past to embrace the future knocking at his door – quite literally Word – enter the form of a young girl whose future will not be like the life he once knew. This cataclysmic chasm, which depicts age not just as a physical barrier but as a historical one, adds a slick political layer to the riotous romance that is rapidly developing between the two.
As Henner pushes and pulls at every part of Maria’s body, it’s both a frantic attempt to fulfill a long-held desire and a subconscious plea to tear up the tangible depiction of a wave of change he’s trying so desperately to overlook. The camera lingers on Henner’s calloused hands as they work their way through Maria’s soft skin, bridging the gap between the two in one hungry thrust. In the pulsating eroticism of expectation, Atef’s film drips with sensuality, the violence of their encounters contrasts with the bucolic backdrop of the village, located directly on the border between West and East Germany – a once insurmountable abyss like that between the lovers and now suddenly bridged .
Had it repeatedly hinted at the political parallels between Berlin 1990 and the romance of Maria and Henner, “One Day We Tell Us Everything” would have been wonderfully set at the interface between a young woman’s coming of age and that of an old woman in the country. Instead, Atef lengthens the story, stubbornly tugging at the corners of the narrative and expanding a story rich in metaphor until it becomes transparent. As lovers transition from stolen moments of unassuming carnal relief to entire afternoons in quiet intimacy, the nagging stains of predictability ooze through what once felt excitingly renegade.
If nuance becomes a scarce commodity in the film, so will the presence of Johannes’ family, the characters Atef so lovingly nurtured in the first act, who slowly fade into the confines of the overstretched central relationship. It’s a shame, as Atef brings together an endlessly watchable cast, from the awkward George Harrison-looking Johannes embedded in the naïve aspirations of the well-loved, to the pair of grandparents who communicate solely through the charged looks exchanged by those who have one life shared. When together, Burrow and Kramer burn through frame and screen alike, their chemistry simultaneously alluring and horrific, a riotous relationship that only underscores the painfully soothing nature of their parting. [C+]
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