The Berlin Bride (2020) Film Review
Little dialogue, a location that is beyond spooky, a chilling score and a visual style I don’t remember seeing before. Michael Bartlett‘s The Berlin Bride unforgettable cinema experience. A film can therefore also be considered experimental within its rules. But don’t let that change your mind.
It tells a story. But his narrative approach is neither generic nor friendly. It is a psychological horror film about the power of the human mind in the midst of a slow collapse where common sense does not exist. The Berlin Bride he begins his story after it is too late. However, it’s okay. Bartlett guarantees that everything in this mini-universe makes sense.
The story is told from the perspective of two men living in Berlin in the 80s. One is in charge of a store, while the other picks up trash from the parks. The two find different parts of a female mannequin and take them home. Each of them begins a different kind of “relationship” with their own parts.
Do you follow me? If not, it is not necessary. Bartlett does not follow the usual narrative structure. After a few repetitive scenes, we understand where the film is going, as both men fall in love with their plastic counterparts. Each of them lives in their own way, and each is a manifestation of their emotional repression and expression. The themes of sexual anxiety and gender dysphoria are subtly discernible in the third act, where everything must be resolved.
Still, the writer/director doesn’t make it easy. One must partake in the experience of the meeting of the garbageman and the shopkeeper, and their encounter is a supernatural manifestation of an inanimate object. This encounter has a winner and a loser, but again, that’s not really relevant as the power of the story trumps dramatic justice.
From a technical point of view The Berlin Bride Good job. The film looks great, the cinematographer and production design are indirect actors in the story. Rarely does a European cultural environment seem so restrictive, claustrophobic and nightmarish. Bartlett makes sure you find yourself in an impossible world. The Berlin Bride a fantasy film, but so disturbing that you won’t have the best memories after watching it. And you won’t see mannequins the same, especially the lifeless eyes that seem to move and blink.
Again, this is not your average indie horror film that bends the rules to meet the minimum standard required by the genre. It’s weird, creepy, romantic and psychologically invasive. Each of you will get something different out of it, and that’s the beauty of every horror iteration. Regardless of your opinion and what you comment on The Berlin Bride, there’s no denying that Bartlett made one hell of an interesting horror film. For everyone to enjoy? I still can’t tell. Maybe I’ll answer this after the next nightmare.
Founder of Screentology. Member of OFCS. RT rated critic
Dog daddy.