Reviews on movie I Was at Home, But (3)

Even if you do not understand this film (no offense, this is most likely), you will not be able to reproach the author for intentional obfuscation. Yes, the style is avant-garde and unlike anything else. But the meaning was explained to you in advance - it is in the title. If you don’t understand the title, it means the movie may not be for you. In addition to being an arthouse, the title is a reference to the 1932 Japanese film I was born, but... Yasujiro Ozu. Ozu’s film explores the complexities of growing up, where a children’s mythological black and white picture of the world collides with the reality of adult life. That film, for all the weight of the topic, is light, almost comedic - a real classic. Angela Chanelek tells about the same problem of growing up in her film, where the center is no longer a Japanese father, but a European mother. And the story goes through the cultural codes that Europeans understand. We catch the elusive reality of the heroes’ lives through the scenes from Hamlet shown here. Only art is certain, although it is false. The problem of the heroes, as we understand it, is that the son refuses to recognize the right of his mother to a new life after the death of his father.
The difficulty of understanding the film is, it is created by the author intentionally. And that's where I need your attention. This is not a deliberate complexity born of the author’s arrogance of “I see it that way.” It is an attempt to show the true complexity of understanding the other. This is the complexity of understanding that is familiar to all without exception — the complexity of someone else’s life that no one can understand except the one who lives in it. We are shown fragments of another’s life, as we could see them from the outside. But when we look at someone’s life from the outside, how can we say we understand it? Cinema, telling a story about someone, always flatters the viewer, tries to create the illusion of understanding. always tells more than it can know, seeks to fill the voids of ignorance with fiction and lies. The viewer is anxious if he does not understand everything in the film, and the cinema seeks to calm him down. If the viewer puts everything on shelves, then he is happy. But it means that cinema can’t really reflect life, it’s going to lie if it tries. The life of another is incomprehensible by definition. We can't understand everything else. Only in life, unlike the movie, we do not care, right?
Everything the author does in the first quarter of an hour is to relieve your anxiety. If you manage to cope with it and become just an observer of someone else’s life, you will enjoy this strange film, see how smart, kind and beautiful it is, in a way, like life itself. And you'll understand. The lives of others are extremely interesting. Why else would I watch a movie?

8 out of 10

Frozen children are like statues rehearsing Shakespeare's play. A child runs around the city in a crown. A young man confesses his love to a girl like Romeo Juliet. And mom, as a collective image of all dramatic actresses. At the same time, there are life problems between a parent who wants to arrange his personal life, and children who do not always behave as the parent wants. For all the characters, the boundary between theatrical and real is erased, which gives the film an atmosphere of magical realism.
In modern German cinema, I like the minimalism of artistic means, simplicity in camera movements and visual design. There is an emphasis on the actor’s existence in the frame. And therefore, to create a space for the actor to play, the director carefully uses editing, often makes long shots. And when the frames last long and there are not so many, the operator has a huge responsibility: accuracy in the choice of location, composition and light. Ivan Markovich, in my opinion, copes with this task perfectly. The image in this film is of great importance, each frame is built as if it were a picturesque picture.
Everything in the film is subject to inexplicable laws. When the characters play tennis on the court, it is assumed that they are standing opposite each other, but they are filmed as if they are on one side of the net. Of the many such techniques, a general feeling of the film is formed: an unusual movie that captures and is remembered.
'I was at home, but...' expands the audience's interpretation. It is not necessary to understand what Angela Chanelek herself wants to tell you, it is useless to unravel the idea here, try to focus on what you feel and think during the viewing.
8 out of 10

In order to understand a film like “I was at home, but...” you must first listen to the director’s explanation or simply get into his head. Otherwise, you can feel like a silent donkey looking out the window, from the prologue of the film, and failed to get into the new work of Angela Chanelek. Slow storytelling, static camera, little dialogue, that's it. "Berlin School" in one word, or rather, two.
The main character of the film and her two school children have a very conditional relationship to the main theme of the film. What is theater? What's a movie? What is life itself? Can a man at death play a man at death and how should other actors play? Well, pretty much the current Hollywood agenda. The hero of a transgender person should be played by a transgender actor, a disabled person is disabled, a red person is red, and a lawyer is a lawyer. Only at a higher level of understanding, of course.
On the other hand, it may just be a film about an unhappy single mother and her uneasy relationship with her teenage son, and with life itself. The son ran away from home, wandered in the woods and thundered to the hospital with blood poisoning. However, while watching, you catch yourself thinking that you are constantly trying to find some meaning behind all the meaningfulness and emptiness (although some will call it depth) that exists on the screen.
I love a movie that asks questions and stays in my head for a few days. However, I believe that these questions should be asked in a more or less direct text. This can be done not only with words, but also with the help of a camera, music and other tools. But it should be easy enough to read. Otherwise, it's a funny situation. You start asking yourself questions, thinking, and philosophizing about your own topics because the author speaks too broadly and abstractly. Or maybe he doesn’t talk at all and, for example, inserts a story about a bicycle just because it happened in his own life. As a result, each viewer gets his own film, and it turns out not thanks to the director, but in spite.
4 out of 10