Cracks in the Shell

I saw this film as part of the Rotterdam Film Festival 2012. This film started as a seemingly simplistic, tragic love story (actress mingles with famous director, director drops her later on, and so on), but it progressed splendidly after half an hour. All the ingredients found their proper place in the well constructed film script. As a bonus we got an inside view in what happens back stage among the participants, and more importantly the "making of" process before a stage play is ready for a performance. Of course, we can never be sure this being typical for any stage play, but it certainly had the outlook of being realistic and truthful.

Some of the plot ingredients became apparent not until after a while, like the mother of the actress bearing the burden of a handicapped daughter. The latter needed so much attention that her sister, our main character, seemed invisible for the mother (hence the title). Freud et al would have immediately caught this to be the foundation under the story. As a layman, I needed some time to catch up. Same was the case with the stage director, who made use of the underground frustrations in the process of creating a play. Even the relatively small role of the tunnel worker has its place in the overall story line.

It serves no useful purpose to condense the story here in a few sentences, and I certainly do not want spoilers to be given away. Trust me that the net result is convincing and impressive. I found it worthy of the maximum score for the audience award when leaving the theater.