NORDSTRAND B
aka: North Beach
Something of a self-taught filmmaker, Eichinger began his
career as an editor, but soon produced several shorts, also directing one, and
used money earned from making commercials to finance BERGFEST (2008), his
low-budget first feature, while NORDSTRAND is the second part of Eichinger's planned
domestic violence trilogy. Opening with
just a touch of understated wry humor, two young boys, perhaps aged 9 and 6,
left alone in their home steal a few sips from their father’s liquor cabinet,
only for their parents to return where they innocently look like nothing has
happened. Their father peruses the
liquor cabinet and pulls out 3 glasses, pouring each one a glass from the
liquor they were drinking and encourages them to drink up. Too startled to move, the kids sit frozen
with fear. When Mom enters the room, Dad
waves her back out, claiming this was men’s business, and shuts the door in her
face, which leads to the title sequence.
What follows is a brooding, slowly evolving character study of two long
estranged brothers, Marten (Martin Schleiß) and Volker (Daniel Michel), returning
to their abandoned childhood home by the North Sea coast where they are
planning to spend a weekend together.
Both have led two distinctively separate lives, where Marten works in
the music business and Volker designs computer programs, but Volker establishes
right away that he’s not interested in discussing careers. Using his big brother influence, Marten
attempts to convince his brother to come with him when their mother is released
from jail, where she has been since the death of their father, but Volker shuns
that idea as well, claiming his only real interest is in selling the house, as
he wants no further family connection with any of them.
They’re seen eating together, mostly bread and cold cuts
with beer, also hanging out at the frigid beach, where an old girlfriend Enna
(Luise Berndt) informs Volker that she couldn’t wait any longer, and after
never hearing from him in years, she finally married and has a child. While their visit is cordial, it’s clear Enna
may be the only person of interest remaining from Volker’s troubled past, as
glimpses of flashback sequences show Volker continually being brutalized by his
father while Marten and his Mom stood and watched from behind a door. When Marten attempts to be sympathetic,
Volker has no interest in being a victim anymore, claiming he’s moved on,
finding nothing to be gained by dwelling on the past, which is why he has no emotional
connection to the house, as it brought him no good memories. In one of the more intriguing scenes of the
film, Volker is paid a visit by an elderly neighbor, Frau Suhren (Martina
Krauel, coming across like a true Fassbinder actress), who informs him that
everyone has continued to talk about his family secrets and hidden childhood
trauma long after he moved away, suggesting “Sometimes it’s impossible to free
ourselves from these patterns on our own,” asking if he sees himself as a
victim? “Of course, but I don’t whine
about it. I want to look forward.” Again, Volker wants no sympathy from this
woman, who he sees as a prying old hag meddling in other people’s business,
contending all she’s really interested in is her own agenda, which has nothing
to do with him. Be that as it may, and
without blinking an eye, Frau Suhren informs him he’s hiding his real emotions behind
a wall, and that he’s poisoning Enna’s relationship, which is her real
interest, before turning and walking out the door. It’s a stunning moment, as she sees right
through him, mercilessly showing no fear of him whatsoever.
Deeply rooted resentments begin to surface between the
brothers as painful memories crop up, where Marten is trying to find some
semblance of the brother he once knew, but he’s completely shut out, like
everybody else. In a desperate measure,
he plays an old LP record which is a light and breezy French recording of a
song called “Paris Smiles,” hopping and jumping around as it plays, making sure
his brother hears, as if there’s some emotional connection there which is never
revealed, but Volker just sits typing away at his computer, putting on earplugs
to block it all out, exactly as he is shutting out the rest of the world. His oppressive nature is elevated when he
takes Enna out to sea in a small rowboat, where she makes it clear to him that
they are finished as a couple, so he pulls out the plug from the bottom drain,
allowing water to rush in. Despite her
pleas, he refuses to budge, literally forcing the boat to sink with her in it,
where she has to swim back to shore in the frigid water, angry at what an idiot
he’s become. There are beautifully
austere moments where Marten runs alone on the seashore in a morning mist as
grinding metal music plays on the soundtrack, producing an anguished scream.
Shot by Andre Lex, the film is broodingly picturesque, a perfect backdrop for a
blunt confrontation with a tragic past.
Sharply written and concisely edited, the drama between the two brothers
comes alive with such bold lines of demarcation, where Volker is a walking time
bomb of unleashed venom, perfectly capable of doing just about anything, as he
seems incapable of expressing remorse.
Marten nearly kills himself trying to get through, but it feels
reasonably clear that even if he died tomorrow, Volker would not be moved, as
he really doesn’t care anymore. The
aggressiveness of his disdain for others is like a loaded gun. Over the end credits, when we hear the
French song again, this time it contemptuously stands for the weakness of the
French, and his brother, and anybody else that’s not a true German. With this
film Eichinger has created another young Franz Biberkopf from Fassbinder’s
BERLIN ALEXANDERPLATZ (1980), something of a prelude to Fascism and becoming a
Nazi, as Volker could easily be on a similar trajectory.
