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*** This review may contain spoilers ***
Everybody is busy trying to save someone else in Swiss director Alain Gsponer's first general-release feature. Roland tries to save his son Charles from homosexuality. Sybille, Roland's prototypical frustrated gallery-owning wife, tries to save the neighbors' daughter from her loopy parents and turn her into the biggest thing since Rothko. Charles tries to save his introvert kid brother Linus from blowing himself up with home-made explosives. Florina (Hannah Herzsprung, going places) is the only one not trying to save anyone. She is busy hurting herself, charring, boozing, shaving, drugging, cutting, drowning till the morning comes. Oh, and there's a dead kid buried somewhere too. As a running gag, Roland is vainly trying to tear down a wall in their living room. Much like the script, the wall won't give. This one will go straight to film studies discussion group hell, bleak suburban family trauma, the metaphor of spatial transgression, Bergman transferred to post-capitalism, pervasive architectural symbolism, you name it. Extra thumbs down for Katja Riemann's poorly shaved armpits.
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