‘The Light’ Review: Tom Tykwer Blasts Us With Issues but No Reason to Engage in Overlong Berlinale Opener
In “Run Lola Run,” director Tom Tykwer gave his fast-dashing heroine three chances to get things right, a formula that made it the highest-grossing German-language movie to hit the States since “Das Boot.” More than a quarter-century later, the world is still waiting for German cinema’s edgy new hope to repeat on that success.
The director’s latest, an overwrought cri de c?ur called “The Light,” marks the third time the always supportive Berlin Film Festival has given Tykwer its coveted kick-off slot. Although “The Light” is by far his most personal project to date, it would be downright surprising if the film (which Warner Bros. will release next month in Germany) finds a berth in any other major markets — despite half a dozen kooky musical numbers and the doom-like urgency Tykwer brings to its telling. Not since “Wayne’s World” has a movie leaned so heavily on Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody” (and that includes the Freddie Mercury biopic that bore its name). But to what end?
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Clocking in at 162 minutes, “The Light” is a long, anguished riff on a distinctly German problem. Since World War II, the country has had a tricky time confronting the question of what to do about the complicity of those who came before. A similar generational tension exists in Tykwer’s movie, only here, the dynamic is reversed, as the activism and engagement that motivated German society for several decades has given way to indifference and apathy among its youth.
That clash, between desensitized kids and the burned-out idealism of their parents, fuels “The Light,” which centers on several obnoxious Berlin natives and the mysterious Syrian refugee who proposes a radical way for them to reengage with each other. Tykwer’s movie turns out to be the story of a modern family, though the filmmaker doesn’t reveal that until more than 20 minutes in — which isn’t a twist so much as reckless self-confidence on his part, as Tykwer obviously finds his characters far more compelling than we do. Why hide that they’re related at the outset?
First he introduces Farrah (Tala Al-Deen), whose trauma is so great that she’s turned to fringe healing tactics. As if mesmerized by the blinking light in a distant apartment widow, DP Christian Almesberger’s drone-powered camera floats through the rainy Berlin sky to find Farrah sitting before a high-frequency strobe lamp with her eyes closed, while the LED device flashes in her face. While this type of therapy seems to comfort Farrah, the effect is super off-putting for audiences.
Tykwer, who collaborated with Lana and Lilly Wachowski on “The Cloud Atlas” and “Sens8,” has a weakness for flashy camera moves, piling on shots that might have been impressive in the ’90s. In “Run Lola Run,” the helmer’s punk energy worked to the film’s race-against-time advantage. Now, practically everything moves in slow motion — including ominous cutbacks to a giant CG hourglass — as Tykwer introduces the Engels and their immigrant housekeeper Alia (Joyce Abu-Zeid).
Rushing to work, Alia nearly gets run down by a truck, only to die of a heart attack in the Engels’ kitchen a short time later. Obsessed with VR games, 17-year-old Jon (Julius Gause) keeps to his room, while twin sister Frieda (Elke Biesendorfer) drops acid with friends at the club. Their mom, Milena (Nicolette Krebitz), operates a Nairobi-based arts organization, where she conceived a love child named Dio (Elyas Eldridge), who spends every other week with the Engels. That doesn’t seem to bother her 40-something husband Tim (Lars Eidinger), a once-passionate leftist turned corporate sell-out.
In the tradition of films like “Crash” and Clint Eastwood’s “Hereafter,” Tykwer treats his ensemble like a tapestry, braiding their seemingly unrelated lives until such time that their connections beome clear. In the meantime, what to make of these vignettes? Eidinger should be familiar to those who’ve seen Tykwer’s “Babylon Berlin” TV series, but he’s not terribly relatable as a long-haired (but balding on top) contemporary dad. While everyone else is distracted by their devices, we see Tim bike home in the rain, then strip the moment he steps through his front door, as if ridding himself of the toxic modern world … even as he fails to notice the dead housekeeper at his feet. Here is a family that purports to care, but can hardly communicate, much less look one another in the eyes.
However operatic this opening might sound, it gets practically the opposite treatment from Tykwer, who keeps the background music turned down and lets several scenes play almost without words. Alia’s tragic fate requires the family to find a replacement, and so they hire Farrah, who fulfills the European equivalent of the “magical Negro” role in this context: She shows empathetic interest in each and every family member, listening to troubles they refuse to share with one another. One by one, she convinces them to try her quack LED therapy, until the big finale, when all four agree to do the lamp thing together.
In the unspeakably indulgent more-than-two-hour lead-up to this moment, Tykwer has given each of his characters both an escapist musical number and a chance to rant and scream their lungs out. If the Engels family seems aggravated, that’s nothing compared to the frustration Tykwer feels, and yet, it’s not until Farrah has them all staring into “the light” that the pettiness of their First World problems fully registers. By this point, instead of being made to care, we can’t help but concur with Queen: “Nothing really matters to me.”
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