Yella (2007)

For all the hype it got I was expecting a lot more!

It’s an especially fun movie from a director and cast who are clearly having a good time allowing themselves to let loose.

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

Although the way this film will end is probably there from the beginning anyone who complains about that is missing the point. The big pluses are the location, the atmosphere and the wonderful leading lady who was totally convincing as a bullied wife. Even viewed from the back she maintained her somewhat cowed attitude. I liked the hint at an unknown dimension of the spirit as she gained her freedom from her horrible husband. I also liked that the world Yella found herself in was strange and alienating but she adapted quickly because she was used to being pushed around. It's another film that demonstrates how much wiser and more satisfying European films are.

In Christian Petzold's film 'Yella', a young woman stalked by her husband after leaving him slowly rebuilds her life, and self-respect, through starting a relationship with a criminal businessman. But it's not clear how much of the story is real, and how much is the product of her traumatised mind. In its conclusion, the film resolves this question, and the answer is almost inevitably disappointing; the kick in the tail insufficiently surprising or satisfying. What is good, however, is most of what precedes the ending, as the viewer is drawn into a world intriguingly on the balance of normalcy and the sinister, as seen by a woman herself on the edge. It's nicely underplayed and there's scarcely a wasted scene; it's just a shame that the final resolution has little new to add.

This was a slow moving, predictable film full of attempts to evoke cheap emotional responses from the audience.The acting was beyond dull. As is typical for this type of film the script was probably five pages long with most of it consumed with "...then there was a long drawn out silence...". By the time of the main actress' tenth drawn out silence I was getting irate.Further to the point, this German film appears to have come from someone more worried about the soundtrack than the script. A love of "Moonlight Sonata" and "Road to Cairo" may be admirable, but not when the absence of such masterpieces would leave behind a film without the capability to evoke an emotion otherwise. I found myself slightly disgusted with the obvious attempt at using music as a kind of tear-jerker, something that only suggests an inability to do it through screen performance.There are other pretentious and annoying little snippets within this film, such as a repeating animal noise, and other "symbolic" imagery and sounds. These only serve to reinforce the aforementioned disgust, but they also play a dual role of destroying any mystery about the ending and making this one of the most predictable and uninteresting films ever made.The ending was so blatantly predictable that most people would probably guess what will happen from about thirty minutes in. Suffice to say, the ending was in the same chord as the rest of the film, pretentious twaddle that leaves you feeling cheated and used like Pavlov's Dog...

Films of the so-called "Berlin School" (Petzold,Arslan,Schanelec)in the last years frequently represented the German cinema at international festivals,and not with small success.Reactions were often similar:Accolades from the critics,especially those from France,while the non-professional spectators mostly were at a loss with the film because of the slow and fragmented storytelling,the long scenes without cutting,the concentration on close-ups and the staging of space.All that applies also to the new film "Yella" by Chr. Petzold,which for many was the favorite for the "Golden Bear" at the Berlinale 2007,but ended up only with a absolutely deserved "Silver Bear" for the fantastic Nina Hoss. "Yella" is some kind of finale to Petzold's "Geister-Trilogie",to which also belong "Die innere Sicherheit" and "Gespenster"; films,which are situated in a clearly outlined reality,but whose protagonists glide through their life like phantoms,unseizable and themselves unable to build a relation to the surrounding world.The story itself is quite simple and more or less superficial: Yella, living in East Germany and married to a man,whose business is near to bankruptcy, has applied for a job in West Germany and plans to leave her past life behind her.Her husband offers to drive her to the station and after having tried in vain to talk her into staying with him and starting their relationship new , he purposely drives the car through the railing of a bridge into the water.They both manage to get to the bank.Yella then disappears and takes the trip to the west.She doesn't get the promised job,but because of her knowledge of dealing with accounts and her appearance she gets the job of assistant to a specialist for venture capital.The film gives brilliant insights into the world of globalized capitalism dominated by greed, betrayal and blackmailing.Yella comes to enjoy the power and the success.It seems that she made it:A profitable job and a new man in her life.But she ruins it all by her own abnormal ambition fed by love.Well, then their is the end,which displeased so many spectators and was called pretentious, illogical or simply stuck on.But if one watches the film carefully and pays attention to all the visual and acoustic guiding themes the end is logic and convincing.A formally stern,deliberately cool and strangely mesmerizing lyrical film.By the way: It tells you more about today's German state of mind than a dozen statistical surveys.