Alle reden übers Wetter / Talking About the Weather (Berlinale 2022 Panorama)
Clara lives in modern day Berlin where she is writing a PhD dissertation in philosophy. She’s originally from the former East Germany province of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern where her mother still lives. She’s 39 years old and has a teenage daughter who’s living with ex-husband and his wife. Her everyday struggles include her academic writing, discussions with her moody and strange supervisor, as long as her hide and seek with her secret boyfriend / student.
The latter calls her “Ossi”, the term used for the East Germans, and makes fun of her stealing shampoo from the hotel they are spending the night. While she plays along and jokes on the stereotype of the poor “Ossi” who steals shampoo from hotels, the trip to her mother’s house for her birthday party will make her realize how far she has moved away from her roots in her search for a self-determined life.
Annika Pinske after a handful of short films and working as an assistant director in films like Toni Erdmann, presents her first feature film. Alle reden übers Wetter feels like a film full of autobiographical elements. Pinske was born and raised in the former GDR and probably has similar experience with her protagonist, Clara. An experience of the lost generation for the East Germans, a generation of people that saw their lives changed drastically oven a night. And of course in terms of freedom it was a change for the good, but the provinces of Brandenburg or Mecklenburg-Vorpommern still suffer a vast financial and social decline, that can be seen in the film. In Berlin the status of Clara as a PhD student living in a communal flat and with her daughter living with her ex-husband sounds the status quo and nothing to be surprised about. But in rural ex-GDR her life seems not-traditional. Or vise versa the lives of the people still staying there, with their not evolving views and boring lives seems unbearable to Clara.
Talking about the weather, seems like a common ground. After so many years, each party expects the other one to be someone else, than the person they finally evolved to be. In that view, the film is a comprehensive study of the communication gap with another generation or people with another lifestyle. On the other hand the film includes probably too many characters from Clara’s life in Berlin, trying to establish her different life there. Even Sandra Hüller has a small part in the film that seems to be wasted as the whole underdeveloped scenes of Clara at the university or with her advisor. Same goes for her family stories and her relation with her daughter and ex-husband. Anne Schäfer though is a real lead during the whole film with a really good performance.
A sometimes problematic but promising first feature for Pinske.
Grade: 3/5
by Annika Pinske
Written by: Annika Pinske, Johannes Flachmeyer
with Anne Schäfer, Anne-Kathrin Gummich, Judith Hofmann, Marcel Kohler, Max Riemelt, Sandra Hüller
Country: Germany Yaer: 2022
Duration: 89’
