Munich Film Festival Review: Silent Summer (2013)

Cast: Dagmar Manzel, Hans-Jochen Wagner, Victoria Trauttmansdorff
Director: Nana Neul
Country: Germany | France
Genre: Drama

Editor’s Notes: The following article is part of our coverage of the Munich International Film Festival. For more information on the festival visit filmfest-muenchen.de and follow the Munich International Film Festival on Twitter at @filmfestmunich.

Kristine is married to Herbert; Kristine’s daughter Anna has a relationship with Franck; Kristina and Franck develop an affinity towards each other; Herbert had a relationship with Bernard and now a slight inclination towards Maurice. It all happens in this German family of Nana Neul’s latest Silent Summer. Kristine (Dagmar Manzel), an art historian, in her fifties, suddenly loses her voice in one of the auctions and returns to France to meet her daughter. Once she comes to France, she meets all her old friends and they are quite surprised by Kristine’s silence, without knowing the fact she had lost it temporarily.

As the relationship between characters continues to grow, the reason and the view point of each individual towards others had been shown quite clearly. Though not much of emphasis has been given to the background of each character, almost all of them make an equal screen presence and have done their performances, though they do go overboard at times.

Kristine’s daughter Anna (Marie Rosa Tietjen), studying there, introduces Kristine to Franck (Arthur Igual), her boyfriend. Both Franck and Kristine develop a special relation with each other, as Franck helps Kristine come out of the crisis, that everyone have in their fifties. She forgets everything that’s happening in her family, and starts leading the life to the fullest with the company of Franck, even after acknowledging the fact that both Anna and Franck are dating. Anna gets a bit possessive and suspicious and under perfect circumstances, Anna’s father Herbert (Ernst Stötzner) comes into the picture and further creates confusion in the relationship among the family and tries to solve the problem at the end to lead the family happily ever after.

Even for a German family, this comedy of errors in the relationships looks a bit awkward and not easy to handle. But a friend of Herbert comments, ‘This is France, Herbert’. As the relationship between characters continues to grow, the reason and the view point of each individual towards others had been shown quite clearly. Though not much of emphasis has been given to the background of each character, almost all of them make an equal screen presence and have done their performances, though they do go overboard at times.

Kristine and Barbara becomes the representatives of women who face a relationship crisis when they tend to get older. Their discussions are so candid, yet reveal a lot of expectations and grievances, women have when they start ageing. But only of the weak links of the film comes in the way the director fail to explain the depth of each relations and at certain point of time, it’s almost clear that some of them have physical demands as a priority when compared to the relationship as a whole, which makes the characters turn sour. But the circumstances in which they get caught by the eyes of the others make it comical and spread the contagious laughs among the German audience.

(Director) Nana Neul has understood the feelings of audience, who get crazy ideas with respect to their relationships, while undergoing a crisis. The cast is versatile and almost all of them provide us the necessary dose of eccentricity.

Nana Neul has understood the feelings of audience, who get crazy ideas with respect to their relationships, while undergoing a crisis. The cast is versatile and almost all of them provide us the necessary dose of eccentricity. We get to experience a new phases and types of relationships among people and even if we can’t appreciate them fully in reality, we can sit back and enjoy how the fate of this crazy German family unfolds.

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Venkateshwaran Ganesh

Staff Film Critic. Visit my personal blog at framesofeternity.wordpress.com

Venkatesh is a cinephile, who always try to relate some of the moments of his everyday life with the moving pictures. Though he started a bit late in exploring world cinema, directors like Kubrick, Bresson, Kieslowski, Kurosawa, Satyajit Ray made him stay in this wonderful world of cinema for years to come. Even in the midst of an apocalypse, he tweets @venkkeyy about films. And you can check his not so active blog http://framesofeternity.wordpress.com/ and motivate him time and again.

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