A film by Claire Burger
With: Chiara Mastroianni, Nina Hoss, Lilith Grasmug, Josefa Heinsius, Robert Gwisdek
A friendship between two teenage girls on the French-German border.
Our rate: *(*)
Over-written, Foreign Language begins by laying out its pawns, following a very applied guideline, and nourishing its narrative in a very mechanical (not to say scholastic) way. In trying to tick all the right boxes, the film ends up ticking none. The themes addressed are interesting, sincere and serious, but they get sidetracked by being superimposed one on top of the other. Where a moment’s interest might have allowed us to go further into the question of desire, teenage malaise, harassment and, above all, political commitment, the anthology we are offered is far too reminiscent of many television productions that are content to bring a theme to the screen and rely on the theme to produce its own effect. It’s all the more of a pity, given that some of the scenes and ideas in the screenplay or direction take the story a little further (a pool scene in which the sunglasses seem to initiate a turn, a quest for a virtual sister that recalls, for example, the approach of the character played by Guillaume Depardieu in Pola X, fascinated by the character of Katya Golubeva, whom he pursues in a totally magnetized way (as was Leos Carax himself), …). But there you have it: too diligent, too scholastic, the linear narrative (even if it allows us to see a little of Leipzig and Strasbourg) doesn’t tell enough to carry us away, to move us, to surprise us. Sadly, the project remains little more than a note of intent.