Shameless self-promotion: I've written fairly extensively on Christian Petzold and the "school" of filmmakers he's associated with, the so-called "Berlin School." For the US DVD of the film I wrote the essay on the film for the booklet. You can find it here: https://www.cinemaguild.com/homevideo/ess_yella.htm.
For more on Petzold you can see chapter 2 of my book, The Counter-Cinema of the Berlin School (http://www.amazon.com/Counter-Cinema-Berlin-School-Screen-Cultures/dp/1571134387/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1401910314&sr=8-1&keywords=counter-cinema+of+the+berlin+school), which our library should carry.
I’m not sure how much this film had to do with globalization. Most of the focus was on Germany, and that’s where the entire movie was set. The business side of the film did have some ties to globalization, as they were doing business with people from other countries that had ties to businesses in America. That being said, I really liked this film. In Dr. Abel’s essay for Cinema Guild, he mentions the “non-places” that the scenes take place in. I definitely felt this as I was watching it, we didn’t really have any establishing shots and I am unfamiliar with German geography. It sort of had that sense of “this could be anywhere” that we felt in La Promesse, yet we were constantly reminded by characters through dialogue that they were, in fact, in Germany (not to mention they were speaking German throughout the film).
Dr. Abel also notes how “Petzold's films are dominated by mostly female characters” which I think is very interesting because not a lot of the mainstream movies in the US feature female characters in the lead. I really appreciated that in this film. I think that it is often difficult to get a female perspective in films, usually it is female characters written by men and the perspective that real women have is sometimes different than the ones we see in cinema. Even though Yella was written by man, I think he did a very good job portraying her character. The vulnerability she feels around her potentially dangerous husband, Ben, was very accurate to me. When we first see him pull up beside her in his car in the first scene, we don’t know who he is and it just seems like street harassment. I really loved that first (?) shot when the camera is looking through the car window at her and then as he drives farther away we see the camera looking through the back windshield in what I am not sure is a point of view shot from Ben but it was very interesting to me.
Unfortunately I woke up sick today and couldn’t attend class. But of course, that didn’t stop me from watching today’s film. Christian Petzold’s Yella is one of my favorite films we have seen during this pre-session. It seems very different from the rest of the films. The film follows Yella as she goes to a different city for a new job and is stalked by her husband. I think one thing that struck me the most was how weird it was that she never changed clothes. I also found it weird that she made it to the train just in time. I thought it was too much of a coincidence to be there right at 8:22. It wasn’t until the end that we figure out that she is dead. Was the film a dream or vision that she had before dying? In Yella, we see the idea of loneliness. Yella seemed alone most of the time. During the train ride, we didn’t see anyone around. A person peeked through the curtain but we never see the person. There was never anyone at the hotels. It seemed eerie to me that both Ben and Yella could easily walk into hotel rooms that were most likely locked.
In the conversation with Petzold that’s posted above, Dr. Abel said that Yella, “’is‘ both a ghost and a real person.” I couldn’t agree more. She had ghostly elements to her when she had her little episodes and how she was always in the same clothing. But at the same time she was very much alive. Petzold told Dr. Abel, “the actors even went to their tax accountants in order to observe their poses.” Yella seemed very professional and lively while speaking and demonstrating how savvy she is with “balance sheets” in the meetings.
We saw how globalization works through capitalism. The film does a wonderful job on making the business process as real as possible. Petzold mentioned in the interview that, “everything is based on real negotiations, including the vocabulary.” The meetings were very realistic. Philipp’s idea was very interesting. He told Yella about his dream with the oil drill equipment. Philipp seemed very ambitious on the amount of profit that he wants to get. Profit is one of many things that drive capitalism. Other than that I didn’t see too much of globalization like how we could clearly see it in other films. But it was definitely a lovely film.
I found an interesting discussion of this film in the book "New Directions in German Cinema." I never would have thought of Yella as a horror film, but rather as a thriller of sorts, but this film actually features many elements seen in the horror genre. The book actually places this film in a sub-genre of horror films that are based on a short story by Ambrose Bierce, "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge." A hallmark of this category of horror films is that the protagonists die very early on in the film, but they do not know that they have died until later in the film, which, in the case of Yella, happens to be at the very end. Death is not "terror and nothingness" according to this book, but rather an "uncanny but also intellectual experience." The reason for this is, basically, to play with the way the viewers cognitively perceive the film. The construction of these films leads us, the audience, to empathize and identify with the protagonist. "Here, in the horror genre's play with death and dying, viewers are drawn unawares uncomfortable close to identification with death...but upon realizing the character is and has been dead, viewers draw away rapidly from the protagonist in a more detached search for narrative clues, a narrative act that distances itself from the absorbing linearity of mainstream Hollywood narratives...This mechanism subverts the progressive linearity of such narratives and the kind of progress they imply." I believe that this in an accurate assessment of the way in which I processed the film. I found myself identifying with Yella and empathizing with her, but when I saw that she was dead, I was confused and trying to figure out how that happened...I was detached from her character and searching for those "narrative clues." In a way, this sub-genre of horror can be likened to a psychological thriller, for it has that element of twisting reality and giving the viewers cognitive dissonance. Another way in which this film echos horror films is in the way in which Yella's body is objectified and sexualized, as are the female protagonists in horror films. There is a common denominator in many horror films of women being "stalked" by a "predator" who is drawn to the sexualized nature of her character. We see this in the opening of the film with Yella on the train changing clothes. We also get POV shots of Yella's "stalker," the "monster" of this horror film, shots that liken a predator hunting its prey. It is very interesting that we have talked about American cinema never giving POV shots to the "bad guys," for years, and now we very clearly get POV shots from the "monster" as he stalks Yella, his prey. This chapter in the book also likens Yella's sexualization with capitalism; as if it is a sort of metaphor for capitalism, which is where globalization comes into the picture. Yella employs a "body genre," in which the film is expressed and experienced through bodily sensations, be they pleasure or pain or a mixture of both. Quoting from the book, "contemporary capitalism denatures and recolonises bodily sensation and desire, something that Yella tracks very closely, as her amorous desire, sexual experience, and imagination itself become inextricably intertwined with and obscured by her career plans." If we view the film in this way, we see a frustration with capitalism and a point being made of how it steals from creativity and natural human pleasures. The movie is making a statement against capitalism, a system that largely dominates many world operations.
Cooke, Paul, and Chris Homewood. New Directions in German Cinema. London: I.B. Tauris, 2011. Internet resource.
I agree with Elsa in saying that the first shot of Ben that we see is an interesting shot and makes Ben seem as if he were doing something he shouldn’t have been doing. Like he always has an eye on Yella and will always be watching her no matter where she goes. This is true, when she leaves her hometown to go to her new job, Ben is there yet again and actually attempts to drive her to the train station. He is also there in random moments when she is in her hotel room and in the hallways. He’s always watching her.
At first I thought Ben was an evil person and must have done something very bad to her in the past, however as I found out that he is just merely head over heels in love with her still I felt a somewhat of sympathy for him. Even though he does do painful things to Yella, in the end he is still there.
I didn’t realize for most of the film that she was merely imagining what was going on around her in her new job and the events after her and Ben went over the bridge and into the water. Then I realized that it wasn’t real because of the fact that she was wearing the same outfit throughout the whole film. I thought that maybe this might not be real. And then when Ben was in her hotel room and she runs out into the hallway to Phillip’s room, Ben just disappears. She is imagining everything.
Globalization isn’t seen as easily in this film as in the other films that we watched in class. The little aspects of globalization that I do see is the business work that Phillip is involved with include different countries. The film does take place in Germany, but it could take place in any other country because of the scenes that we see are not precise to Germany itself. The business offices and hotel room shots could be in any different country in the world. I just know it takes place in Germany just because of the cities that the characters talk about and the language that is spoken is German.
Maybe the biggest obstacle I have in agreeing that Yella is the result of capitalism's desiring production is that most of her actions could simply be chalked up to greed. Dr. Abel highlights the moment between Yella and Philipp where he shows her his notebook and future plans, suggesting that “what sells Yella on Philipp is the fact that his desires are desire for the game of venture capitalism itself” (96). True, but couldn't one as easily suggest Yella is simply greedy, and is excited by the project only after Philipp asks her to join him? Regardless of whether the interpretation is correct, the point is that the film's subtlety allows for multiple readings that might contradict the film's ultimate message. In a similar fashion, Dr. Abel also pays close attention to the scene of Yella's blackmailing, suggesting the dream of venture capitalism fails because this action reverts back to an earlier mode of capitalism that is incongruent with the modern one (97-98). Though this is certainly an astute reading, the casual viewer might just as easily say “She was being greedy and wanted more. More for herself; more for Philipp.” That person might be wrong, but reading the film in this way shifts the focus away from Petzold's goal—to capture the process of modern capitalism—and places it more on human nature.
Such a reading wouldn't be too careless either. My biggest problem with Hardt and Negri's is their insistence on the political notion of love: “People today seem unable to understand love as a political concept, but a concept of love is just what we need to grasp the constituent power of the multitude” (Multitude 351). It seems utopian to think in a world so financially skewed that the necessity for love would outweigh the probability of greed, but, nonetheless, their use of a human ideal like love (whether it's Spinozan or not) warrants that kind of counter argument. So yes, it's important for Yella (the film) to depict how Yella interacts with venture capitalism, but neither the subject nor the way it is shown negates the reading of human nature into it. Likewise, Yella's ending and supernatural elements conflict with the subtlety of the film's message by also drawing attention away from it. Is what we watched a dream? If so, when did that dream take place? Or has it been Yella's “spirit” continuing on? If that's case, how much control or input does she have over it? Regardless of the legitimacy of these questions, it means some reviewers shift their focus to the “thriller,” “mystery,” or “psychological” (or horror, like Elaina's post) aspects instead of commenting on how the film interrogates the “lightness” of venture capitalism.
But disregarding the above, Yella still seems intently focused on Germany. Unlike the other films we've watched—which not only show different locations but also hint at transnational machinations in the background—Yella remains fixated within Germany. Because Dr. Abel's book views the film through the lens of the Berlin School and what Yella means for Germany and a German people, I wonder how relevant the film's conception of capitalism remains for the rest of the globe, or if just becomes a stronger message when viewed as a statement about life in post-unification Germany. Lots of attention is payed to the landscape and the features of the German countryside, almost becoming its own character within the film in terms of its sounds. As a result, I wonder how much of Petzold's message is changed if that character is removed or altered to a different setting.
Abel, Marco. The Counter-Cinema of the Berlin School. New York, NY: Camden House, 2013.
Hardt, Michael and Antonio Negri. Multitude: War and Democracy in the Age of Empire. New York, NY: Penguin Group, 2005.
The one thing I'd suggest you put more pressure on is the concept of "human nature." I'm not sold at all that greed = part of human nature, notwithstanding the fact that in a capitalist society, or, in a world in which capitalism is the dominant tendency of value production, it appears as if this is the case. Marx, for one, would certainly give you reason to be highly suspicious of such a claim. And once one historicizes or politicizes the alleged naturalness of instincts I think the appeal to such instincts loses explanatory power on the diagnostic level. In other words: sure, one can say it's just greed, but I wonder whether this doesn't say more about the reader/viewer than about the film. So how does one get out of this problem? In the end I suppose one can't, since it's not possible to control (for a film or an interpreter thereof) what any given viewer brings to the film's table. One could point to the history of cinema and show how the "greed is natural" claim has a cinematic history of which this film doesn't partake in terms of both content (and how it negotiates it) or form; or one could point to interviews with the director and appeal to his intentions (but then the problem with appealing to intentions emerges); or one could look at the oeuvre of the director and show how across his work he's not concerned with "human nature" or such notions but rather with contesting them (but that just generalizes the problem from one to many films). In the end, then, I'd suggest that what it comes down to is the usefulness of particular readings that is in fact grounded in the facts of the film. That is: the question to pose, in the end, is which given reading has more explanatory power in relation to what question. This shifts the ground from "right" or "wrong" as well as from "I can read it this way and you that way" relativism to a matter of expediency and ultimately political force. Of course, that, too, can be debated, but it's a different debate.
As for H&N's notion of love, yes, it seems a bit weak. It might be worth for you to look at Lauren Berlant's work on love such as this on: http://www.amazon.com/Desire-Love-Lauren-Berlant/dp/0615686877. Or, Hardt's conversation with her on the issue, here: http://nomorepotlucks.org/site/no-one-is-sovereign-in-love-a-conversation-between-lauren-berlant-and-michael-hardt/.
Human nature was the incorrect term to use. I wasn't trying to suggest that human's are inherently greedy (regardless of whether they're in a capitalist mode or not), just that the focus shifts away from what I think is the message of the film if Yella is read as simply being greedy. I was more trying to take Assaya's idea from the interview yesterday--where he was not only very aware of his audience, but was concerned to the point where elements of the film were directly influenced by his target demographic--and apply that same notion to Petzold and Yella. Is he writing this for a specifically German audience, or art house/indie film audience? My post was suggesting that, depending on the answer, I question how intuitive it is to arrive at the correct interpretation of the film (yours).
But your point about differing interpretations telling more about the viewer/reader is well taken
You raise ultimately the question of "who's the one who can"--that is, can read a film in this or in that way? Does an art house crowd automatically read a film differently than someone who's not at all exposed to such films? Further, does the former's reading (assuming it's different) "better" than the latter's? More, what is "reading" in the context of cinema? Is it all about "making sense" and "understanding" or does a film get to have effects even if it's not understood by someone? And independent of this: can one look at a film and simply want to figure out what it does, without concern about its success (i.e., whether or not I as an individual viewer "got" what it does)? Conversely, one might want to ask questions about readers/viewers as well as assumptions about them. Only because I don't notice something doesn't mean that it's not there or that a text doesn't do this or work like this (not that you, Chandler, are suggesting otherwise; I'm just running with this train of thought here). That is, if viewer A says, well, I did not see this and viewer B can actually show that what A did not see if there in the film, so to speak, then can one not say--should one not say--that viewer A's view is limited, incorrect, wrong? But not in order to assert the correctness of another reading (one's own) but to raise the question of why viewer A missed what is in fact "there" in the text. Is it the text's "fault"? Viewer A's? The context within which A watches the text and thinks about it? A history of reading practices, socialization practices, value production practices? As we see, things can get complex quickly--which of course is what I tried to bring across when talking about the films throughout these three weeks in different ways, going with our collective responses posted on the blog and expressed in class, pushing on them etc, but in a specific way: namely by insisting that it does matter (ethically, politically, diagnostically) that one works immanently, through the text at hand, even if one's initial response (seeming intuitive, seemingly just "mine") foregrounds my like or dislike, etc. For example, in many of the post to Yella the issue of not being able to figure out what's going on (real or dream etc) is foregrounded. Or, put differently, the claim/complaint is, at times, that someone didn't think the film made sense. Maybe, maybe not. But why is this important? Is there a law that says a film--or more broadly: art, culture, or life--must make sense? What do we mean by "sense"? Can we agree on what "sense" is, what "makes sense" means? Do we all mean the same? Why do we give so much important to "understanding"? Why do we hold a film accountable to this value? And, why is it that some people can quite obviously make sense of X when others, in the same space, can't? It's the same text... And, why is it that some can flow with the inability to make sense and others can't ? What does this tell about the individual, or the culture of which s/he is part? Questions, questions, many more than answers--that's where the fun lies, no?
I, like a number of my classmates, agree that Globalization and all of its aspects was a lot harder to pinpoint in Yella than the other films which we have screened in class. Actually, this was extremely hard for me personally to figure out how it had to deal with the subject until much later in the day as I thought about how to go about writing this post. In comparison to the other films, its relation to the subject seemed to be by far the most hidden. But it would be a lie to state that my thought process didn’t take me to some interesting places.
Beginning with the ideas of “non-places” as Dr. Abel notes in his essay, I came to the same conclusion of my classmates in a sense that this could take place almost anywhere not just in Germany, even though the characters were speaking German and there were German cities. This of course is simply the medium in which we view the dialogue, obviously if an American, English-speaking, director did the film in the exact same fashion, and the only thing that would change would be the spoken language and the set location. This is where I began in an attempt to establish myself in a particular setting. Next, I worked with the closest thing to Globalization I could get my hands on in Yella. This was obviously the business dealings within the film. On the surface, this was the closest thing I could push toward the idea of Globalization which we’ve discussed. There is an obvious inter-connectivity between a number of companies whether it’s a game console, hardware, or software. (This depended on the company, of course). Not only this, but it was through this idea that I began to gain the idea that even love was interconnected with business in the film. It was through business that the two characters fell in “love,” despite the entire sequence being utterly an illusion. Even the love that Ben and Yella had could also be viewed in the same, yet opposite way. Business, therefore globalization, ruined their love causing Ben to go to extremes. And in continuation, business also leads to death, thus globalization also leads to death as we discovered in multiple ways at the end of the film. This I don’t think is a complete idea at the moment, but at least it’s a start.
While I will fully admit that some of these ideas seem somewhat farfetched, I do feel like there is something valuable in terms of thinking along this same train of thought.
Today in class, we talked about Demonlover’s sense of depicting not how a globalized world works, but instead how it feels to live in a globalized world. I believe that this is what Yella is trying to achieve as well. In a sense, we have already seen much of what occurs in Yella in other films: a character leaves home to find a better life only to find that she was ignorant of important information that leaves her life in jeopardy. In Yella, she leaves her home for a job to which she is unaware of her employer’s termination at the company. As director Christian Petzold says in Marco’s interview, “He suddenly realizes, as if on a sailboat on the ocean, that there's no wind anymore.” This seems to be what Yella more or less is having to deal with. Although, we cannot forget that this movie’s narrative is really two narratives: one, in which Yella survives the car accident and the other, in which she doesn’t. The latter narrative seems to be the definitive of the two, because it is placed at the end of the film and thus has the last word, and also because the ending itself, with the crane pulling the car out and the dead bodies being brought to shore, seem completely grounded in realism. The other narrative, which takes up most of the film, seems to have become unstuck from realism. That both Yella and her ex-husband survive the crash seems at least strange, and many critics describe it as “miraculous.” And other parts of this narrative seems to have a dreamlike quality, such as the mysterious wind, the invisible explosions in the sky, the crowing. At the end, the film forces the viewer to question what exactly it was this narrative was exactly. Is it a fantasy or is it a prophecy? For a while, it looks to be a fantasy, with Yella finding a perfect man who loves her and needs her particular expertise with spread-sheets, until at the end of the narrative, where her actions cause the suicide of a man. When the film cuts away from this, back to Yella in the car before the crash, Yella seems resigned, as if she had seen the prophecy/fantasy and was displeased. Much like the main character in It’s A Free World, she sees that her lust for a perfect life, with wealth and love, will lead her down a path of greed that will end up with her exploiting others. Rather than this, she resigns herself to death in the place of her origin, rather than hope to continue living, leave home, and ruin both her soul and other people’s lives with her greed.
A few of the “unsanctioned” reviews I have read of Yella suggest that the film is about two minutes too long. In that they would have would have liked the story much better if Yella’s journey had ended in the backseat of the car, rather than under a space blanket. However without this scene would we wouldn't understand that Yella never crosses the Elbe. She is never able to successfully leave the east and start her new life in the west (although as we see that new life isn't as grand as once suspected). Emily provides an idea that I haven't thought of but that makes great sense in that throughout the movie Yella was in a pseudo dream as " she was wearing the same outfit throughout the whole film." In addition, even in her life with Philippe (who bears a resemblance Ben) she cannot escape the water sounds. Chris Drake of FilmComment makes the connection of the “emblematic bridges” Yella must use as well as the film’s “acute sensitivity to place and space, from...corridors to rivers and roads, carefully infusing materialism with metaphysics” (http://www.filmcomment.com/article/yella-review).
From the scene when she arrives to the West and sees the Gunthens’ happy home life we are privy to Yella’s interest, most likely desire to have something similar. Yella’s relationship with her mother, if she exists, is not clear and with Ben this not something Yella could experience. Instead of surveying flute lessons in a silk kimono Yella is in conference room and after conference room looking at “balance sheets.” It would seem that Yella is not alone, as this is a reflection of the current economy. We have spoken in class about dual income families, and with multiple “good” jobs who take on such responsibilities just to survive. Arlie Russell Hochschild notes that much of the “writing on globalization focuses on money, markets, and labor flows, while giving scant attention to women, children, and the care of one for the other.” Now with Germany in particular, less so on a global scale, it can certainly be argued that in the years following the movie’s release changes were implemented in society to facilitate working women (i.e.the “Parents Pay” etc.), although I got the sense that it was a choice and less of a necessity for these individuals, but I could be wrong.
Hochschild, A. R. (2000). The nanny chain. American Prospect, 11(4), 32-36.
Like others have mentioned the elements of globalization weren’t as obvious as a lot of the other films we’ve watched. We don’t see a lot of travel from country to country or a diverse amount of language spoken. For the most part we see nothing but German culture – the film takes place in Germany, most of the characters are German and that’s what they speak. We do see Yella having to move away from her hometown in order to find work however, which reminded me of Import/Export and Olga and Pauli. I feel this was just another reminder that in a lot of countries finding work is a lot more difficult than it may be in the United States or Nebraska. The business deals that are displayed involve some parts of globalization, particularly the oil drilling rig that’s talked of – oil is needed all throughout the world. Although I enjoyed this film I’m still confused about what exactly happened – did she dream these events (meeting Philip and becoming his business “partner”) right before she died? Is she a ghost? Are Philip and the other characters even real people or just figments of her imagination? Aside from my curiosity about this I found the film’s connection to nature very interesting and often wondering if something horrible was being spread through the air and nature – similar to in The Happening. The scenes of Yella walking aimlessly about into the woods or grass really reminded me of The Happening – it appeared as if higher forces of nature we’re controlling her. I didn’t find this film particularly scary so I initially questioned why it’s classified as a “thriller” however, after analyzing it some more I changed my mind. Like Professor Abel brings up in “German Desire in the Age of Venture Capitalism,” the film is filled with “non-places.” He describes the location,” …they also include amorphous postmodern hotel rooms and lobbies, office parks, car dealerships, and coldly stylized homes, as well as the oddly depopulated urban landscapes that always appear in his films as spaces through which his characters are forced to travel rather than as locations where they would feel welcomed to socialize and forge communities. I think this “lonely” and somewhat desolate landscape is the largest factor as to why this film is classified as a “thriller.” When Yella is forced to deal with Ben she is always alone. These places that would normally be populated such as a hotel or town in general never are. It appears Yella is very much alone throughout this entire film. It’s also unclear whether the scenes even occur or if they are figments of her imagination which leaves us feeling she is again very much alone. Even if these scenes are actually occurring she’s a young female in a foreign place with no family and a psycho ex-husband after her. Not only that, but the one person she’s seemed to find salvation in, Philip, frequently turns on her when overcome with rage, leaving her fate unpredictable.
A couple of comments: "I feel this was just another reminder that in a lot of countries finding work is a lot more difficult than it may be in the United States or Nebraska." I think it depends on what country you're looking at. Germany, interesting, has currently less unemployment than the US. A the time of the film I think the unemployment lines of both countries began to move in opposite direction. Traditionally Germany has higher unemployment than the US (though the US's historically low unemployment figures are "bought" by cheap labor, whereas in a country such as Germany higher unemployment has to do with traditionally higher labor cost. However, in this film a subtle distinction is made b/w what was former East Germany, from where Yella is coming, and former West Germany, to which she's traveling. After unification--and to this day--you see an INTRA-migration movement in Germany from East to West, one that's heavily gendered: today there's a serious imbalance between men and women in the former East because so many WOMEN--esp those who are well educated--left for the West, as does Yella but not Ben or her dad.
"Are Philip and the other characters even real people or just figments of her imagination?" One way of making sense--one endorsed by the director, incidentally--is to think of what's going on through the logic of "dream work." Think about dreams work: dreams take morsels of the real work and build, and re-build, their own world, one that doesn't "represent" the real work but responds to it and also intervenes in it. Also, often dreams "re-boot": the re-booted dream takes as its building blocks what was previously dreamed, but with a difference, thus merging the morsels of reality to which the "original" dream responded with the "original" dream and tweaks that. And so on. One can map the film out (to some extend) along this line: what we see at various moments is Yell's unconscious responding to events that took place in real life but that get altered in her dream, only for her dream to reboot throughout the film a few times, working in new pieces of information, memory, occurrences etc. Freud called this Traumarbeit--literally: dream WORK. And this notion is once again something that undoes the seemingly stable binary of reality and fiction, truth and falsehood, waking and sleeping life, etc. Freud, however, did think of dreams "representing" the world; this idea has been contested--I think justly so.
I am having a hard time with all of the movies this week apparently. I am very confused about what was real and what was not. I realize that this was the point of the film but I found it very frustrating. I'm not sure if the events in the movie took place before the car crash or if it was all some sort of coma dream; I'm pretty lost when it comes to the timeline.
I am also lost when it comes to how this film portrays globalization. I struggle to see any globalization at all. As Monica mentioned the onlytime that I saw globalization was when they were talking about oil rigs, which still seems like a stretch for me. As far as genre is concerned I would classify it as a psychological thriller, it is never completely clear for me if her ex-husband is actually present or if she is having flashbacks to their relationships. The latter seems more likely but there are no cinematic features that would suggest this.
Did anyone else see Ben and Philipp as personified versions of blue collar and white collar workers, respectively? For me, this is where ideas about capitalism and globalization were negotiated. I think about half way through the film (maybe a little more than half way) we learn learn that Ben's (construction? From the discussion about new airport, I gathered Ben was involved in some sort of working class labor) company that goes under in part because of the economic process of globalization. He's a collective stand in for the working class life that Yella is desperately trying to escape.
For Yella, I think work was initially how she sought to escape; when that doesn't work out she turns to Phillipp as a means to enter the middle class life that she literally envisions and with which she interacts in this dreamlike world. Chandler notes that the explicit choice she makes here smacks of unapologetic greed, but I think there's more empathetic reading. Can we really blame her for wanting what looks like a fairly average middle class life? One of the effects of globalization (because of capitalism among other things) we can observe is the growth in wealth inequality; this wealth inequality shrinks the middle class, effectively making it difficult for someone with a lower income to enter. Sure, Yella might be morally ambivalent, but that doesn't necessarily mean she's purely motivated by greed; I'd argue what she wants more is stability.
Leftover notes:
It's worth noting that Ben and Phillip are largely indistinguishable--from their physical appearance (white, blond, similar build, business suit) to their general temperament (both seem somewhat bi-polar, capable of violent outbursts and tenderness) to Yella's accomplice role in their relationship. That they are essentially the same people complicates the choice that Yella makes between them in the sense that a choice implies that there are two distinct options. I think that by the end, there's the sense that life with Philipp (i.e. the middle class life) wouldn't guarantee the stability she desires, just as life with Ben hadn't.
One more thing--it's important to note that Yella's access to the life she desires is guarded by white men in business suits. There's an interesting feminist reading here as well.
Yes, it seems that B and P's physical likeness is on purpose precisely because what we witness it dream work (as explained in another reply I posted): your dream takes a kernel of reality--Ben's looks--and re-works them in a different context, triggered by a specific situation etc.
Also, yes, Ben = ore traditional (Eastern) blue collar than P who = Western and involved in finance capital (white collar). This is, as I argue in my essay for the DVD booklet (and in my chapter of my book) part of the point: the film is dramatizing (by embodying these changes in Yella) the shift encroaching upon the country after unification that's called globalization, albeit in a specific way: the increasing lightness of the finance/service version of capitalism, which has left Ben etc behind and to which Y tries to get access (which for her is mediated through white males, as you astutely point out). Her mistake, as it were, is that she can't help herself but have recourse to "blue collar" methods (at the end) to negotiate a white collar work, in the process bringing about death and catastrophe for everyone. We may still want to discuss how to read the end, for the scene of the car crashing into the river is not exactly identical to how it was shown the first time around.
And I think there's no evidence in the film that she acts out of the traditional notion of greed. The film doesn't mark her as morally bad, it does doesn't judge her, indeed if anything we're asked to be on her side: she's a highly capable, restrained, together etc woman and there's no suggestion that she wants anything more for herself than make a decent living that she can't have in Wittenberge. When she gets involved with P it's not because she's greedy (if it is the film really does a poor job evidencing this through actual facts such as dialogue lines or how she behaves. In turn, however, the film does show how she enjoys the work she gets to do, ever more so. She likes the game in and of itself. And what does in the end is not greedy in the way films mark greed normally (think film noir or Wall Street) but in order to facilitated the ability for P (and her) to keep playing in the game, for which the money is necessary. But that's where she makes a mistake--at that moment--by having recourse to tactics that have lost currency in the new environment, that of global finance capitalism.
It is hard for me to see what Yella has to say about globalization. Like Marco said in class it is a film about what is not and what is real. Given the madness driven into Ben and the stress that Yella is going through could be a statement on shady business tactics and the physiological effects on folks trying to make it into a business world.
Yella also, in her dream, has an important question asked by Phillip. It is if she feels like she stopped loving Ben because he turned into a failure. This could be tied to a middle class feeling in a capitalist society which prides itself in success in a monetary world.
As mentioned before by Marco and brought up here, there are quite a few "non-places." We see buildings but they are brief viewings and any other person is in the scene very briefly and never seen outside of the room we meet them in. This is a surreal world. Inside the car we are always in the country side or we are at the hotel, which seems to be int he middle of nowhere. This all sort of makes sense when we realize she is dreaming.
Shameless self-promotion: I've written fairly extensively on Christian Petzold and the "school" of filmmakers he's associated with, the so-called "Berlin School." For the US DVD of the film I wrote the essay on the film for the booklet. You can find it here: https://www.cinemaguild.com/homevideo/ess_yella.htm.
ReplyDeleteFor more on Petzold you can see chapter 2 of my book, The Counter-Cinema of the Berlin School (http://www.amazon.com/Counter-Cinema-Berlin-School-Screen-Cultures/dp/1571134387/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1401910314&sr=8-1&keywords=counter-cinema+of+the+berlin+school), which our library should carry.
And here's an interview I conducted with the director:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.cineaste.com/articles/an-interview-with-christian-petzold.htm
I’m not sure how much this film had to do with globalization. Most of the focus was on Germany, and that’s where the entire movie was set. The business side of the film did have some ties to globalization, as they were doing business with people from other countries that had ties to businesses in America. That being said, I really liked this film. In Dr. Abel’s essay for Cinema Guild, he mentions the “non-places” that the scenes take place in. I definitely felt this as I was watching it, we didn’t really have any establishing shots and I am unfamiliar with German geography. It sort of had that sense of “this could be anywhere” that we felt in La Promesse, yet we were constantly reminded by characters through dialogue that they were, in fact, in Germany (not to mention they were speaking German throughout the film).
ReplyDeleteDr. Abel also notes how “Petzold's films are dominated by mostly female characters” which I think is very interesting because not a lot of the mainstream movies in the US feature female characters in the lead. I really appreciated that in this film. I think that it is often difficult to get a female perspective in films, usually it is female characters written by men and the perspective that real women have is sometimes different than the ones we see in cinema. Even though Yella was written by man, I think he did a very good job portraying her character. The vulnerability she feels around her potentially dangerous husband, Ben, was very accurate to me. When we first see him pull up beside her in his car in the first scene, we don’t know who he is and it just seems like street harassment. I really loved that first (?) shot when the camera is looking through the car window at her and then as he drives farther away we see the camera looking through the back windshield in what I am not sure is a point of view shot from Ben but it was very interesting to me.
Unfortunately I woke up sick today and couldn’t attend class. But of course, that didn’t stop me from watching today’s film. Christian Petzold’s Yella is one of my favorite films we have seen during this pre-session. It seems very different from the rest of the films. The film follows Yella as she goes to a different city for a new job and is stalked by her husband. I think one thing that struck me the most was how weird it was that she never changed clothes. I also found it weird that she made it to the train just in time. I thought it was too much of a coincidence to be there right at 8:22. It wasn’t until the end that we figure out that she is dead. Was the film a dream or vision that she had before dying? In Yella, we see the idea of loneliness. Yella seemed alone most of the time. During the train ride, we didn’t see anyone around. A person peeked through the curtain but we never see the person. There was never anyone at the hotels. It seemed eerie to me that both Ben and Yella could easily walk into hotel rooms that were most likely locked.
ReplyDeleteIn the conversation with Petzold that’s posted above, Dr. Abel said that Yella, “’is‘ both a ghost and a real person.” I couldn’t agree more. She had ghostly elements to her when she had her little episodes and how she was always in the same clothing. But at the same time she was very much alive. Petzold told Dr. Abel, “the actors even went to their tax accountants in order to observe their poses.” Yella seemed very professional and lively while speaking and demonstrating how savvy she is with “balance sheets” in the meetings.
We saw how globalization works through capitalism. The film does a wonderful job on making the business process as real as possible. Petzold mentioned in the interview that, “everything is based on real negotiations, including the vocabulary.” The meetings were very realistic. Philipp’s idea was very interesting. He told Yella about his dream with the oil drill equipment. Philipp seemed very ambitious on the amount of profit that he wants to get. Profit is one of many things that drive capitalism. Other than that I didn’t see too much of globalization like how we could clearly see it in other films. But it was definitely a lovely film.
I found an interesting discussion of this film in the book "New Directions in German Cinema." I never would have thought of Yella as a horror film, but rather as a thriller of sorts, but this film actually features many elements seen in the horror genre. The book actually places this film in a sub-genre of horror films that are based on a short story by Ambrose Bierce, "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge." A hallmark of this category of horror films is that the protagonists die very early on in the film, but they do not know that they have died until later in the film, which, in the case of Yella, happens to be at the very end. Death is not "terror and nothingness" according to this book, but rather an "uncanny but also intellectual experience." The reason for this is, basically, to play with the way the viewers cognitively perceive the film. The construction of these films leads us, the audience, to empathize and identify with the protagonist. "Here, in the horror genre's play with death and dying, viewers are drawn unawares uncomfortable close to identification with death...but upon realizing the character is and has been dead, viewers draw away rapidly from the protagonist in a more detached search for narrative clues, a narrative act that distances itself from the absorbing linearity of mainstream Hollywood narratives...This mechanism subverts the progressive linearity of such narratives and the kind of progress they imply." I believe that this in an accurate assessment of the way in which I processed the film. I found myself identifying with Yella and empathizing with her, but when I saw that she was dead, I was confused and trying to figure out how that happened...I was detached from her character and searching for those "narrative clues." In a way, this sub-genre of horror can be likened to a psychological thriller, for it has that element of twisting reality and giving the viewers cognitive dissonance.
ReplyDeleteAnother way in which this film echos horror films is in the way in which Yella's body is objectified and sexualized, as are the female protagonists in horror films. There is a common denominator in many horror films of women being "stalked" by a "predator" who is drawn to the sexualized nature of her character. We see this in the opening of the film with Yella on the train changing clothes. We also get POV shots of Yella's "stalker," the "monster" of this horror film, shots that liken a predator hunting its prey. It is very interesting that we have talked about American cinema never giving POV shots to the "bad guys," for years, and now we very clearly get POV shots from the "monster" as he stalks Yella, his prey.
This chapter in the book also likens Yella's sexualization with capitalism; as if it is a sort of metaphor for capitalism, which is where globalization comes into the picture. Yella employs a "body genre," in which the film is expressed and experienced through bodily sensations, be they pleasure or pain or a mixture of both. Quoting from the book, "contemporary capitalism denatures and recolonises bodily sensation and desire, something that Yella tracks very closely, as her amorous desire, sexual experience, and imagination itself become inextricably intertwined with and obscured by her career plans." If we view the film in this way, we see a frustration with capitalism and a point being made of how it steals from creativity and natural human pleasures. The movie is making a statement against capitalism, a system that largely dominates many world operations.
Cooke, Paul, and Chris Homewood. New Directions in German Cinema. London: I.B. Tauris, 2011. Internet resource.
I agree with Elsa in saying that the first shot of Ben that we see is an interesting shot and makes Ben seem as if he were doing something he shouldn’t have been doing. Like he always has an eye on Yella and will always be watching her no matter where she goes. This is true, when she leaves her hometown to go to her new job, Ben is there yet again and actually attempts to drive her to the train station. He is also there in random moments when she is in her hotel room and in the hallways. He’s always watching her.
ReplyDeleteAt first I thought Ben was an evil person and must have done something very bad to her in the past, however as I found out that he is just merely head over heels in love with her still I felt a somewhat of sympathy for him. Even though he does do painful things to Yella, in the end he is still there.
I didn’t realize for most of the film that she was merely imagining what was going on around her in her new job and the events after her and Ben went over the bridge and into the water. Then I realized that it wasn’t real because of the fact that she was wearing the same outfit throughout the whole film. I thought that maybe this might not be real. And then when Ben was in her hotel room and she runs out into the hallway to Phillip’s room, Ben just disappears. She is imagining everything.
Globalization isn’t seen as easily in this film as in the other films that we watched in class. The little aspects of globalization that I do see is the business work that Phillip is involved with include different countries. The film does take place in Germany, but it could take place in any other country because of the scenes that we see are not precise to Germany itself. The business offices and hotel room shots could be in any different country in the world. I just know it takes place in Germany just because of the cities that the characters talk about and the language that is spoken is German.
Maybe the biggest obstacle I have in agreeing that Yella is the result of capitalism's desiring production is that most of her actions could simply be chalked up to greed. Dr. Abel highlights the moment between Yella and Philipp where he shows her his notebook and future plans, suggesting that “what sells Yella on Philipp is the fact that his desires are desire for the game of venture capitalism itself” (96). True, but couldn't one as easily suggest Yella is simply greedy, and is excited by the project only after Philipp asks her to join him? Regardless of whether the interpretation is correct, the point is that the film's subtlety allows for multiple readings that might contradict the film's ultimate message. In a similar fashion, Dr. Abel also pays close attention to the scene of Yella's blackmailing, suggesting the dream of venture capitalism fails because this action reverts back to an earlier mode of capitalism that is incongruent with the modern one (97-98). Though this is certainly an astute reading, the casual viewer might just as easily say “She was being greedy and wanted more. More for herself; more for Philipp.” That person might be wrong, but reading the film in this way shifts the focus away from Petzold's goal—to capture the process of modern capitalism—and places it more on human nature.
ReplyDeleteSuch a reading wouldn't be too careless either. My biggest problem with Hardt and Negri's is their insistence on the political notion of love: “People today seem unable to understand love as a political concept, but a concept of love is just what we need to grasp the constituent power of the multitude” (Multitude 351). It seems utopian to think in a world so financially skewed that the necessity for love would outweigh the probability of greed, but, nonetheless, their use of a human ideal like love (whether it's Spinozan or not) warrants that kind of counter argument. So yes, it's important for Yella (the film) to depict how Yella interacts with venture capitalism, but neither the subject nor the way it is shown negates the reading of human nature into it. Likewise, Yella's ending and supernatural elements conflict with the subtlety of the film's message by also drawing attention away from it. Is what we watched a dream? If so, when did that dream take place? Or has it been Yella's “spirit” continuing on? If that's case, how much control or input does she have over it? Regardless of the legitimacy of these questions, it means some reviewers shift their focus to the “thriller,” “mystery,” or “psychological” (or horror, like Elaina's post) aspects instead of commenting on how the film interrogates the “lightness” of venture capitalism.
But disregarding the above, Yella still seems intently focused on Germany. Unlike the other films we've watched—which not only show different locations but also hint at transnational machinations in the background—Yella remains fixated within Germany. Because Dr. Abel's book views the film through the lens of the Berlin School and what Yella means for Germany and a German people, I wonder how relevant the film's conception of capitalism remains for the rest of the globe, or if just becomes a stronger message when viewed as a statement about life in post-unification Germany. Lots of attention is payed to the landscape and the features of the German countryside, almost becoming its own character within the film in terms of its sounds. As a result, I wonder how much of Petzold's message is changed if that character is removed or altered to a different setting.
Abel, Marco. The Counter-Cinema of the Berlin School. New York, NY: Camden House, 2013.
Hardt, Michael and Antonio Negri. Multitude: War and Democracy in the Age of Empire. New York, NY: Penguin Group, 2005.
The one thing I'd suggest you put more pressure on is the concept of "human nature." I'm not sold at all that greed = part of human nature, notwithstanding the fact that in a capitalist society, or, in a world in which capitalism is the dominant tendency of value production, it appears as if this is the case. Marx, for one, would certainly give you reason to be highly suspicious of such a claim. And once one historicizes or politicizes the alleged naturalness of instincts I think the appeal to such instincts loses explanatory power on the diagnostic level. In other words: sure, one can say it's just greed, but I wonder whether this doesn't say more about the reader/viewer than about the film. So how does one get out of this problem? In the end I suppose one can't, since it's not possible to control (for a film or an interpreter thereof) what any given viewer brings to the film's table. One could point to the history of cinema and show how the "greed is natural" claim has a cinematic history of which this film doesn't partake in terms of both content (and how it negotiates it) or form; or one could point to interviews with the director and appeal to his intentions (but then the problem with appealing to intentions emerges); or one could look at the oeuvre of the director and show how across his work he's not concerned with "human nature" or such notions but rather with contesting them (but that just generalizes the problem from one to many films). In the end, then, I'd suggest that what it comes down to is the usefulness of particular readings that is in fact grounded in the facts of the film. That is: the question to pose, in the end, is which given reading has more explanatory power in relation to what question. This shifts the ground from "right" or "wrong" as well as from "I can read it this way and you that way" relativism to a matter of expediency and ultimately political force. Of course, that, too, can be debated, but it's a different debate.
DeleteAs for H&N's notion of love, yes, it seems a bit weak. It might be worth for you to look at Lauren Berlant's work on love such as this on: http://www.amazon.com/Desire-Love-Lauren-Berlant/dp/0615686877. Or, Hardt's conversation with her on the issue, here: http://nomorepotlucks.org/site/no-one-is-sovereign-in-love-a-conversation-between-lauren-berlant-and-michael-hardt/.
Human nature was the incorrect term to use. I wasn't trying to suggest that human's are inherently greedy (regardless of whether they're in a capitalist mode or not), just that the focus shifts away from what I think is the message of the film if Yella is read as simply being greedy. I was more trying to take Assaya's idea from the interview yesterday--where he was not only very aware of his audience, but was concerned to the point where elements of the film were directly influenced by his target demographic--and apply that same notion to Petzold and Yella. Is he writing this for a specifically German audience, or art house/indie film audience? My post was suggesting that, depending on the answer, I question how intuitive it is to arrive at the correct interpretation of the film (yours).
DeleteBut your point about differing interpretations telling more about the viewer/reader is well taken
You raise ultimately the question of "who's the one who can"--that is, can read a film in this or in that way? Does an art house crowd automatically read a film differently than someone who's not at all exposed to such films? Further, does the former's reading (assuming it's different) "better" than the latter's? More, what is "reading" in the context of cinema? Is it all about "making sense" and "understanding" or does a film get to have effects even if it's not understood by someone? And independent of this: can one look at a film and simply want to figure out what it does, without concern about its success (i.e., whether or not I as an individual viewer "got" what it does)? Conversely, one might want to ask questions about readers/viewers as well as assumptions about them. Only because I don't notice something doesn't mean that it's not there or that a text doesn't do this or work like this (not that you, Chandler, are suggesting otherwise; I'm just running with this train of thought here). That is, if viewer A says, well, I did not see this and viewer B can actually show that what A did not see if there in the film, so to speak, then can one not say--should one not say--that viewer A's view is limited, incorrect, wrong? But not in order to assert the correctness of another reading (one's own) but to raise the question of why viewer A missed what is in fact "there" in the text. Is it the text's "fault"? Viewer A's? The context within which A watches the text and thinks about it? A history of reading practices, socialization practices, value production practices? As we see, things can get complex quickly--which of course is what I tried to bring across when talking about the films throughout these three weeks in different ways, going with our collective responses posted on the blog and expressed in class, pushing on them etc, but in a specific way: namely by insisting that it does matter (ethically, politically, diagnostically) that one works immanently, through the text at hand, even if one's initial response (seeming intuitive, seemingly just "mine") foregrounds my like or dislike, etc. For example, in many of the post to Yella the issue of not being able to figure out what's going on (real or dream etc) is foregrounded. Or, put differently, the claim/complaint is, at times, that someone didn't think the film made sense. Maybe, maybe not. But why is this important? Is there a law that says a film--or more broadly: art, culture, or life--must make sense? What do we mean by "sense"? Can we agree on what "sense" is, what "makes sense" means? Do we all mean the same? Why do we give so much important to "understanding"? Why do we hold a film accountable to this value? And, why is it that some people can quite obviously make sense of X when others, in the same space, can't? It's the same text... And, why is it that some can flow with the inability to make sense and others can't ? What does this tell about the individual, or the culture of which s/he is part? Questions, questions, many more than answers--that's where the fun lies, no?
DeleteI, like a number of my classmates, agree that Globalization and all of its aspects was a lot harder to pinpoint in Yella than the other films which we have screened in class. Actually, this was extremely hard for me personally to figure out how it had to deal with the subject until much later in the day as I thought about how to go about writing this post. In comparison to the other films, its relation to the subject seemed to be by far the most hidden. But it would be a lie to state that my thought process didn’t take me to some interesting places.
ReplyDeleteBeginning with the ideas of “non-places” as Dr. Abel notes in his essay, I came to the same conclusion of my classmates in a sense that this could take place almost anywhere not just in Germany, even though the characters were speaking German and there were German cities. This of course is simply the medium in which we view the dialogue, obviously if an American, English-speaking, director did the film in the exact same fashion, and the only thing that would change would be the spoken language and the set location. This is where I began in an attempt to establish myself in a particular setting. Next, I worked with the closest thing to Globalization I could get my hands on in Yella. This was obviously the business dealings within the film. On the surface, this was the closest thing I could push toward the idea of Globalization which we’ve discussed. There is an obvious inter-connectivity between a number of companies whether it’s a game console, hardware, or software. (This depended on the company, of course). Not only this, but it was through this idea that I began to gain the idea that even love was interconnected with business in the film. It was through business that the two characters fell in “love,” despite the entire sequence being utterly an illusion. Even the love that Ben and Yella had could also be viewed in the same, yet opposite way. Business, therefore globalization, ruined their love causing Ben to go to extremes. And in continuation, business also leads to death, thus globalization also leads to death as we discovered in multiple ways at the end of the film. This I don’t think is a complete idea at the moment, but at least it’s a start.
While I will fully admit that some of these ideas seem somewhat farfetched, I do feel like there is something valuable in terms of thinking along this same train of thought.
Today in class, we talked about Demonlover’s sense of depicting not how a globalized world works, but instead how it feels to live in a globalized world. I believe that this is what Yella is trying to achieve as well. In a sense, we have already seen much of what occurs in Yella in other films: a character leaves home to find a better life only to find that she was ignorant of important information that leaves her life in jeopardy. In Yella, she leaves her home for a job to which she is unaware of her employer’s termination at the company. As director Christian Petzold says in Marco’s interview, “He suddenly realizes, as if on a sailboat on the ocean, that there's no wind anymore.” This seems to be what Yella more or less is having to deal with.
ReplyDeleteAlthough, we cannot forget that this movie’s narrative is really two narratives: one, in which Yella survives the car accident and the other, in which she doesn’t. The latter narrative seems to be the definitive of the two, because it is placed at the end of the film and thus has the last word, and also because the ending itself, with the crane pulling the car out and the dead bodies being brought to shore, seem completely grounded in realism. The other narrative, which takes up most of the film, seems to have become unstuck from realism. That both Yella and her ex-husband survive the crash seems at least strange, and many critics describe it as “miraculous.” And other parts of this narrative seems to have a dreamlike quality, such as the mysterious wind, the invisible explosions in the sky, the crowing. At the end, the film forces the viewer to question what exactly it was this narrative was exactly. Is it a fantasy or is it a prophecy? For a while, it looks to be a fantasy, with Yella finding a perfect man who loves her and needs her particular expertise with spread-sheets, until at the end of the narrative, where her actions cause the suicide of a man. When the film cuts away from this, back to Yella in the car before the crash, Yella seems resigned, as if she had seen the prophecy/fantasy and was displeased. Much like the main character in It’s A Free World, she sees that her lust for a perfect life, with wealth and love, will lead her down a path of greed that will end up with her exploiting others. Rather than this, she resigns herself to death in the place of her origin, rather than hope to continue living, leave home, and ruin both her soul and other people’s lives with her greed.
A few of the “unsanctioned” reviews I have read of Yella suggest that the film is about two minutes too long. In that they would have would have liked the story much better if Yella’s journey had ended in the backseat of the car, rather than under a space blanket. However without this scene would we wouldn't understand that Yella never crosses the Elbe. She is never able to successfully leave the east and start her new life in the west (although as we see that new life isn't as grand as once suspected). Emily provides an idea that I haven't thought of but that makes great sense in that throughout the movie Yella was in a pseudo dream as " she was wearing the same outfit throughout the whole film." In addition, even in her life with Philippe (who bears a resemblance Ben) she cannot escape the water sounds. Chris Drake of FilmComment makes the connection of the “emblematic bridges” Yella must use as well as the film’s “acute sensitivity to place and space, from...corridors to rivers and roads, carefully infusing materialism with metaphysics” (http://www.filmcomment.com/article/yella-review).
ReplyDeleteFrom the scene when she arrives to the West and sees the Gunthens’ happy home life we are privy to Yella’s interest, most likely desire to have something similar. Yella’s relationship with her mother, if she exists, is not clear and with Ben this not something Yella could experience. Instead of surveying flute lessons in a silk kimono Yella is in conference room and after conference room looking at “balance sheets.” It would seem that Yella is not alone, as this is a reflection of the current economy. We have spoken in class about dual income families, and with multiple “good” jobs who take on such responsibilities just to survive. Arlie Russell Hochschild notes that much of the “writing on globalization focuses on money, markets, and labor flows, while giving scant attention to women, children, and the care of one for the other.” Now with Germany in particular, less so on a global scale, it can certainly be argued that in the years following the movie’s release changes were implemented in society to facilitate working women (i.e.the “Parents Pay” etc.), although I got the sense that it was a choice and less of a necessity for these individuals, but I could be wrong.
Hochschild, A. R. (2000). The nanny chain. American Prospect, 11(4), 32-36.
Like others have mentioned the elements of globalization weren’t as obvious as a lot of the other films we’ve watched. We don’t see a lot of travel from country to country or a diverse amount of language spoken. For the most part we see nothing but German culture – the film takes place in Germany, most of the characters are German and that’s what they speak.
ReplyDeleteWe do see Yella having to move away from her hometown in order to find work however, which reminded me of Import/Export and Olga and Pauli. I feel this was just another reminder that in a lot of countries finding work is a lot more difficult than it may be in the United States or Nebraska. The business deals that are displayed involve some parts of globalization, particularly the oil drilling rig that’s talked of – oil is needed all throughout the world.
Although I enjoyed this film I’m still confused about what exactly happened – did she dream these events (meeting Philip and becoming his business “partner”) right before she died? Is she a ghost? Are Philip and the other characters even real people or just figments of her imagination? Aside from my curiosity about this I found the film’s connection to nature very interesting and often wondering if something horrible was being spread through the air and nature – similar to in The Happening. The scenes of Yella walking aimlessly about into the woods or grass really reminded me of The Happening – it appeared as if higher forces of nature we’re controlling her.
I didn’t find this film particularly scary so I initially questioned why it’s classified as a “thriller” however, after analyzing it some more I changed my mind. Like Professor Abel brings up in “German Desire in the Age of Venture Capitalism,” the film is filled with “non-places.” He describes the location,” …they also include amorphous postmodern hotel rooms and lobbies, office parks, car dealerships, and coldly stylized homes, as well as the oddly depopulated urban landscapes that always appear in his films as spaces through which his characters are forced to travel rather than as locations where they would feel welcomed to socialize and forge communities. I think this “lonely” and somewhat desolate landscape is the largest factor as to why this film is classified as a “thriller.” When Yella is forced to deal with Ben she is always alone. These places that would normally be populated such as a hotel or town in general never are. It appears Yella is very much alone throughout this entire film. It’s also unclear whether the scenes even occur or if they are figments of her imagination which leaves us feeling she is again very much alone. Even if these scenes are actually occurring she’s a young female in a foreign place with no family and a psycho ex-husband after her. Not only that, but the one person she’s seemed to find salvation in, Philip, frequently turns on her when overcome with rage, leaving her fate unpredictable.
A couple of comments:
Delete"I feel this was just another reminder that in a lot of countries finding work is a lot more difficult than it may be in the United States or Nebraska." I think it depends on what country you're looking at. Germany, interesting, has currently less unemployment than the US. A the time of the film I think the unemployment lines of both countries began to move in opposite direction. Traditionally Germany has higher unemployment than the US (though the US's historically low unemployment figures are "bought" by cheap labor, whereas in a country such as Germany higher unemployment has to do with traditionally higher labor cost. However, in this film a subtle distinction is made b/w what was former East Germany, from where Yella is coming, and former West Germany, to which she's traveling. After unification--and to this day--you see an INTRA-migration movement in Germany from East to West, one that's heavily gendered: today there's a serious imbalance between men and women in the former East because so many WOMEN--esp those who are well educated--left for the West, as does Yella but not Ben or her dad.
"Are Philip and the other characters even real people or just figments of her imagination?" One way of making sense--one endorsed by the director, incidentally--is to think of what's going on through the logic of "dream work." Think about dreams work: dreams take morsels of the real work and build, and re-build, their own world, one that doesn't "represent" the real work but responds to it and also intervenes in it. Also, often dreams "re-boot": the re-booted dream takes as its building blocks what was previously dreamed, but with a difference, thus merging the morsels of reality to which the "original" dream responded with the "original" dream and tweaks that. And so on. One can map the film out (to some extend) along this line: what we see at various moments is Yell's unconscious responding to events that took place in real life but that get altered in her dream, only for her dream to reboot throughout the film a few times, working in new pieces of information, memory, occurrences etc. Freud called this Traumarbeit--literally: dream WORK. And this notion is once again something that undoes the seemingly stable binary of reality and fiction, truth and falsehood, waking and sleeping life, etc. Freud, however, did think of dreams "representing" the world; this idea has been contested--I think justly so.
I am having a hard time with all of the movies this week apparently. I am very confused about what was real and what was not. I realize that this was the point of the film but I found it very frustrating. I'm not sure if the events in the movie took place before the car crash or if it was all some sort of coma dream; I'm pretty lost when it comes to the timeline.
ReplyDeleteI am also lost when it comes to how this film portrays globalization. I struggle to see any globalization at all. As Monica mentioned the onlytime that I saw globalization was when they were talking about oil rigs, which still seems like a stretch for me. As far as genre is concerned I would classify it as a psychological thriller, it is never completely clear for me if her ex-husband is actually present or if she is having flashbacks to their relationships. The latter seems more likely but there are no cinematic features that would suggest this.
Did anyone else see Ben and Philipp as personified versions of blue collar and white collar workers, respectively? For me, this is where ideas about capitalism and globalization were negotiated. I think about half way through the film (maybe a little more than half way) we learn learn that Ben's (construction? From the discussion about new airport, I gathered Ben was involved in some sort of working class labor) company that goes under in part because of the economic process of globalization. He's a collective stand in for the working class life that Yella is desperately trying to escape.
ReplyDeleteFor Yella, I think work was initially how she sought to escape; when that doesn't work out she turns to Phillipp as a means to enter the middle class life that she literally envisions and with which she interacts in this dreamlike world. Chandler notes that the explicit choice she makes here smacks of unapologetic greed, but I think there's more empathetic reading. Can we really blame her for wanting what looks like a fairly average middle class life? One of the effects of globalization (because of capitalism among other things) we can observe is the growth in wealth inequality; this wealth inequality shrinks the middle class, effectively making it difficult for someone with a lower income to enter. Sure, Yella might be morally ambivalent, but that doesn't necessarily mean she's purely motivated by greed; I'd argue what she wants more is stability.
Leftover notes:
It's worth noting that Ben and Phillip are largely indistinguishable--from their physical appearance (white, blond, similar build, business suit) to their general temperament (both seem somewhat bi-polar, capable of violent outbursts and tenderness) to Yella's accomplice role in their relationship. That they are essentially the same people complicates the choice that Yella makes between them in the sense that a choice implies that there are two distinct options. I think that by the end, there's the sense that life with Philipp (i.e. the middle class life) wouldn't guarantee the stability she desires, just as life with Ben hadn't.
One more thing--it's important to note that Yella's access to the life she desires is guarded by white men in business suits. There's an interesting feminist reading here as well.
Yes, it seems that B and P's physical likeness is on purpose precisely because what we witness it dream work (as explained in another reply I posted): your dream takes a kernel of reality--Ben's looks--and re-works them in a different context, triggered by a specific situation etc.
DeleteAlso, yes, Ben = ore traditional (Eastern) blue collar than P who = Western and involved in finance capital (white collar). This is, as I argue in my essay for the DVD booklet (and in my chapter of my book) part of the point: the film is dramatizing (by embodying these changes in Yella) the shift encroaching upon the country after unification that's called globalization, albeit in a specific way: the increasing lightness of the finance/service version of capitalism, which has left Ben etc behind and to which Y tries to get access (which for her is mediated through white males, as you astutely point out). Her mistake, as it were, is that she can't help herself but have recourse to "blue collar" methods (at the end) to negotiate a white collar work, in the process bringing about death and catastrophe for everyone. We may still want to discuss how to read the end, for the scene of the car crashing into the river is not exactly identical to how it was shown the first time around.
And I think there's no evidence in the film that she acts out of the traditional notion of greed. The film doesn't mark her as morally bad, it does doesn't judge her, indeed if anything we're asked to be on her side: she's a highly capable, restrained, together etc woman and there's no suggestion that she wants anything more for herself than make a decent living that she can't have in Wittenberge. When she gets involved with P it's not because she's greedy (if it is the film really does a poor job evidencing this through actual facts such as dialogue lines or how she behaves. In turn, however, the film does show how she enjoys the work she gets to do, ever more so. She likes the game in and of itself. And what does in the end is not greedy in the way films mark greed normally (think film noir or Wall Street) but in order to facilitated the ability for P (and her) to keep playing in the game, for which the money is necessary. But that's where she makes a mistake--at that moment--by having recourse to tactics that have lost currency in the new environment, that of global finance capitalism.
It is hard for me to see what Yella has to say about globalization. Like Marco said in class it is a film about what is not and what is real. Given the madness driven into Ben and the stress that Yella is going through could be a statement on shady business tactics and the physiological effects on folks trying to make it into a business world.
ReplyDeleteYella also, in her dream, has an important question asked by Phillip. It is if she feels like she stopped loving Ben because he turned into a failure. This could be tied to a middle class feeling in a capitalist society which prides itself in success in a monetary world.
As mentioned before by Marco and brought up here, there are quite a few "non-places." We see buildings but they are brief viewings and any other person is in the scene very briefly and never seen outside of the room we meet them in. This is a surreal world. Inside the car we are always in the country side or we are at the hotel, which seems to be int he middle of nowhere. This all sort of makes sense when we realize she is dreaming.