WE MIGHT AS WELL BE DEAD/ Wir könnten genauso gut tot sein
Germany/Romania, 2022, 93 minutes, Colour.
Ioana Iakob, Pola Geiger, Jorg Schuttauf.
Directed by Natalia Sinelnikova.
This is a German-Romanian coproduction, and drama, some comedy, satire with serious intent.
The setting is a gated community, the audience seeing a family trying to enter but rejected. In charge of the community is Anna, obeying regulations, supervising, but with difficulties with her teenage daughter, Iris, who locks herself in her room, thinking she has the evil eye.
At first, the gated community seems ideal, the range of people there, the comfortable home units, self-sufficiency, interactions. But, the disappearance of a dog sets up a chain of events which leads to some disaster.
Ann ais under some suspicion, she goes looking for the dog, is seen by a couple who think there is a prowler, they report to her. Further complications with her daughter, her setting up evidence to blame a poet who runs the elevator and who is targeted by the community. The community then unites, in fear, self-assertion, also scapegoating – and, eventually, ousting Anna and her daughter.
The film is made with a European sensibility, European audience – and so appreciating it, many will find it difficult to identify with.
- The tone of the title? Realistic? Ironic?
- The setting, the gated community, the grounds, the building, the interiors, lavish vestibule and style, corridors and rooms? The surrounding countryside? The musical score?
- The opening, the music of the Carol, the family hurrying through the forest, to the compound, entry, interview, difficulties, not accepted? And the ending, Anna and Iris hurrying away from the building, encountering the family in the forest, the music of the Carol?
- Anna, six years of the compound, her role, supervision, the public announcements, creating the mood of the residents? The surveillance, touring the grounds? The interrogations and the formula for acceptance? Announcing the festivities, participation? Her own problems with her daughter, locked in the room, the opening for the dog, her communicating with Iris through this? Her interactions with the other residents?
- Iris, the issue of the evil eye, her friend wanting to get the evil eye, Iris to nightmares, the various fates of the residents, her prophecies? Her age, relationship with her mother, refusing to come out? The reaction of the residents?
- Anna, out looking for the dog, observing the husband and wife, their emerging, thinking that there was a prowler? And are not telling the truth?
- The older ringleader of the residents, the issue of the dog disappearing, his continued reactions, at the party, drinking, his denunciations, rallying the residents, complaints, accusations, criticisms of Anna, the golf clubs as weapons, developing the mindset of the residents? Bringing the dead animal, stating that it was the missing dog? The buildup of the atmosphere, the range of residents supporting him, the issue of the couple, the injury, making demands? And at her good friend, turning against her?
- Anna, trying to cope, to continue her work, to control the residents? Her scapegoating the poet, his selling his poems in the elevator, working in the basement? The residents turning on him, his expulsion?
- Iris emerging, the group turning on Anna and her daughter, the denunciations, the expulsion?
- The community offering an allegory of enclosed community, leadership, rebellion, influence, scapegoating, truth and fantasy, cruelty?
