Movie review "Wolke 9": the ordinariness of love in old age

The last time I went to see a movie knowing in advance that it was dealing with a taboo subject was a while back: “Brokeback Mountain”. Recently, I received an invitation from dot-friends.com to watch the movies “Wolke 9” and “Young@Heart” for free at the cinema, write a review and then publish it on my blog. The campaign was commissioned by Senator Entertainment, but is independent of my opinion of the films. So yesterday I also watched “Wolke 9”, a film by Andreas Dresen that won the “Coup de Coeur” in Cannes, but which, in addition to a lot of light, also casts shadows.

The stuff the movie is made of: a love triangle between pensioners

“Wolke 9” is about a love triangle in old age. Inge, a woman between 60 and 70 years old who has been happily married to Werner for 30 years, falls head over heels in love with Karl, who is almost 80 years old. The two experience their love like teenagers and meet secretly for sex, but Inge is plagued by guilt. In the end, she has to make a momentous decision between her heart and reason to stay with her husband and family.

Wolke 9: a film between courageous attitudes, successful aesthetics…

Dresen masterfully stages this classic material in an unusual setting. His actors perform great: the audience looks into the faces of old people in love, who seem years younger because of their love. The director supports this impression by frequent close-ups of the faces and slow cuts, which refuse to conform to the conventions of the fast-paced cinema of the 2000s. His aim is to present the material in a realistic way: the characters were largely developed by his actors, and improvisation played a major role in the filming. With the exception of a few scenes in which Inge sings in a choir, the film does not contain any background music. Dresen’s images are hardly glamorous, but they are effective nonetheless. Using cinematic devices such as the cramped apartment and the slowly dripping coffee, he symbolizes the boring everyday married life of Inge and Werner, who passionately likes to ride the train and even listens to records with train sounds. Repeated dialogue illustrates the differences between the two men. Dresen’s film is incredibly reduced, not a single shot is superfluous. His narrative style is elliptical, leaving developments open, entering the action abruptly and leaving it just as abruptly.

His treatment of the nudity of his actors is equally realistic. The sex scenes are unembellished, shot in a documentary-like fashion, and the bodies do not even begin to conform to today’s ideals of beauty. The audience in the cinema reacts to these unusual images with mischievous jokes and “oh no” comments, as if naked older people were something fundamentally different from naked young people. Even in old age, love has a physical aspect: this is the message that runs through the film like a red thread.

… and emotional coldness

“Wolke 9” can certainly only be compared to Ang Lee’s epochal “Brokeback Mountain” to a very limited extent, because the production conditions are just as different as the intended message. Nevertheless, the comparison impressively shows the step that Dresen’s film fails to take. You go into “Brokeback Mountain” knowing that it is a film about a taboo love between gay cowboys – but you don’t leave the theater with that feeling. At the end, you are left with the realization that it is a film about love, just between gay cowboys.

It is precisely this transition that Dresen does not succeed in making. He does not create empathy for his characters, nor understanding for their situation, nor emotionality. His dramaturgy is straightforward, his staging seems distant despite the directness of the camera, as if the film were not his own. The characters seem like realistic people straight out of everyday life, but unfortunately they also remain just as alien.

Conclusion

In the end, what remains is a good movie with great acting and brilliant direction, but one that hardly touches the audience emotionally. We appreciate the film’s head-driven performances, but we do not develop any real understanding for the characters. In this way, Dresen is able to draw attention to the topic and point out to the viewer the (also physical) ordinariness of love in old age. If he had also succeeded in raising awareness of this, it would have been a great film.