Pálmason’s “The Love That Remains” and the celebrated debut “Sechswochenamt” get under your skin. Here our reviews.
What should you watch in the cinema this week? Here are our two recommendations.
“The Love That Remains”
Laughing When It Hurts Most: The Miraculous Cinema of Hlynur Pálmason.
What has been liked so far about the cinema of Hlynur Pálmason – who made the leap into the A-class of auteur filmmakers with “Godland” – was his filmmaking rigor, the complete control over everything that happens on the screen: a reflection of his obsessive stories full of hardships. “The Love That Remains” is a test, so to speak, because the Icelander talks about a broken marriage and the affected family with three children, but adopts a lighter tone than one is used to from him. A laugh might be a novelty in Pálmason’s work.
And yet he finds the balance – with his pictures of the rugged and beautiful nature of Iceland, in which an artist becomes increasingly emotionally distant from her seafaring husband, who is often absent for weeks at a time. For the sake of the children, she persists and finds a way out in her creativity. Despite all the idiosyncrasy of the design, this is striking. And you have to laugh at the little bit of love that remains here.
Four and a half stars
“Six-week office”
Life and how to live with death: outstanding directorial debut!
If you prefer clattering in the cinema, you really don’t need to continue reading this short review. Jacqueline Jansen’s autofictional feature film debut has a tidy subtlety that demands attention. And it’s about something: “Six-week office” should get under your skin. That is the minimum requirement when you talk about a young woman at the beginning of the corona pandemic who has to deal with the death of her 55-year-old mother from cancer and in the process distances herself more and more from her environment and her community – in order to miraculously find herself.
It’s sparse and minimal, but told just right. And gives Magdalena Laubisch the space to announce that she could be the new Sandra Hülser.
Five stars