Rating: 4/5
If I jump, I'll have a farewell letter to R with me. Then R will hear of me. He'll have to think about me. And so I'll be a part of him, and he a part of me
Eyes — Heartbeat — Walkman
Simone — walls adorned in posters and newspaper clippings — journal full of Sharpie and tears
Letters from the school to her parents — but no letter from R — the postman is keeping it from her — no, his manager is throwing her letters away
Give him one week to reply, or else
She hitchhikes to Munich for the filming of the show Top-Pop, where he will be performing. He zeroes in on her, standing apart from the crowd. When he approaches, she cannot speak and feints — she wakes up in the studio and gets to spend time with him
I know that you love me, and I love you too
But there is a point when the fantasy must meet the reality of who a person is — and Simone must decide what to do to keep the dream alive
The movie switches between the lonely reality and the dream/nightmare world, and it blends so much that by the end, I’m not sure what happened
Like a krautrock jam (or a trance, as they retitled the film in the UK and Canada), the film is a slow burn, building to a point where we don’t know where it will go — we can assume, but with this one, the only way you’d know is if someone told you, and I won’t do that here
The score in the film is by the band Rheingold, whose lead singer plays R in the movie. The music is fine, but it makes sense why the band came and went in 4 years
The cinematography is what takes this movie from the exploitation realm to something more arthouse — what it shows and what it doesn’t is a significant part of the intent
R uses a cutesy SS logo, and some of the band’s artwork has crowds of saluting Nazi youth — throughout the movie are pieces of National Socialism. I watched an interview with the director to get a better understanding of his intent. The quote contains minor spoilers:
I was asking the question: "Who is actually guilty? Did Hitler summon the Germans or did the Germans seek Hitler? [...] The Fan asks the question too. Is he guilty because he chose her, played with her carelessly? Or was that desire always inside her and needed him to live because she is bored in school, bored with her parents... her life is meaningless without him?
A wild film that I’ll be thinking about for a while