The advantage of going to see a film that has had no hype is that the film can retain the possibility of surprise.
Yella is a film where not a great deal happens, save for a moment when all is revealed to be other than it seems, and a great deal of things suddenly make more sense. To reveal the twist would be discourteous; however to write about the narrative without revealing the twist restricts the critical approach.
Yella is the name of the heroine, played with a honed blankness by Nina Hoss. Yella doesn't say much; in itself a bold anti-heroic move. She suffers from strange mental fits: a glass falls off the table in a meeting and she trips out, an effect rendered almost entirely, and most effectively, through the sound mix. She is pursued by her stalker ex-husband, (played with a honed sociopathy by Hinnerk Schonemann), an experience she finds both terrifying and also strangely unconcerning. Why do these things happen? Why is her life so aimless? The director constantly teases the viewer, playing with the language of cinematic significance, and all is indeed revealed at the end.
Petzold's cinema appears to be one of close observation (like the Argentine Trapero). Yella even riffs on this with a playful scene where the body language of the boardroom is documented and ridiculed. In conjunction with her newfound lover, Phillip, Yella plays a small part in the great game of capital, and sees straight through it. She knows it's a haphazard, merciless game of power, which snuffs out the weak, to whom she is attracted. Her marriage has faltered on the rock of a bad business deal, and her relationship with Phillip goes through a similar cycle. Along the way, the director initiates the viewer, Mamet-style, into the workings of power, a game which Yella has no desire to win.
Yella is a subtle, unshowy film, dealing with big issues of power, death, society and the meaninglessness of the modern condition. It is to its credit that in its unassuming style, it never really lets on that this is what it's doing. The editing and cinematography is plain to the point of ordinariness; it is only in the inner world of the sound mix that the hard edges are explored. In this way the film creeps up on the viewer, like its twist, which when revealed seems obvious, but is so artfully set up that it never crossed my mind until it occurred.
Days later, Nina Hoss's blank expression, in the face of this world she had been granted to inhabit, still haunted.
Yella is a film where not a great deal happens, save for a moment when all is revealed to be other than it seems, and a great deal of things suddenly make more sense. To reveal the twist would be discourteous; however to write about the narrative without revealing the twist restricts the critical approach.
Yella is the name of the heroine, played with a honed blankness by Nina Hoss. Yella doesn't say much; in itself a bold anti-heroic move. She suffers from strange mental fits: a glass falls off the table in a meeting and she trips out, an effect rendered almost entirely, and most effectively, through the sound mix. She is pursued by her stalker ex-husband, (played with a honed sociopathy by Hinnerk Schonemann), an experience she finds both terrifying and also strangely unconcerning. Why do these things happen? Why is her life so aimless? The director constantly teases the viewer, playing with the language of cinematic significance, and all is indeed revealed at the end.
Petzold's cinema appears to be one of close observation (like the Argentine Trapero). Yella even riffs on this with a playful scene where the body language of the boardroom is documented and ridiculed. In conjunction with her newfound lover, Phillip, Yella plays a small part in the great game of capital, and sees straight through it. She knows it's a haphazard, merciless game of power, which snuffs out the weak, to whom she is attracted. Her marriage has faltered on the rock of a bad business deal, and her relationship with Phillip goes through a similar cycle. Along the way, the director initiates the viewer, Mamet-style, into the workings of power, a game which Yella has no desire to win.
Yella is a subtle, unshowy film, dealing with big issues of power, death, society and the meaninglessness of the modern condition. It is to its credit that in its unassuming style, it never really lets on that this is what it's doing. The editing and cinematography is plain to the point of ordinariness; it is only in the inner world of the sound mix that the hard edges are explored. In this way the film creeps up on the viewer, like its twist, which when revealed seems obvious, but is so artfully set up that it never crossed my mind until it occurred.
Days later, Nina Hoss's blank expression, in the face of this world she had been granted to inhabit, still haunted.
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