{"id":9757,"date":"2020-09-10T08:55:10","date_gmt":"2020-09-10T06:55:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.queerlion.it\/?p=9757"},"modified":"2020-09-11T09:00:15","modified_gmt":"2020-09-11T07:00:15","slug":"usa-the-hollywood-reporter-and-tomorrow-the-entire-world-film-review-venice-2020","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.queerlion.it\/en\/usa-the-hollywood-reporter-and-tomorrow-the-entire-world-film-review-venice-2020\/","title":{"rendered":"Usa, The Hollywood Reporter: And Tomorrow the Entire World, Film Review | Venice 2020"},"content":{"rendered":"

A young German law student leaves her wealthy family to live in an Antifa commune and fight fascism in writer-director Julia von Heinz\u2019s competition feature<\/em><\/p>\n

It\u2019s not easy to grab hold of Julia von Heinz\u2019s And Tomorrow the Entire World (Und morgen die ganze Welt), an attempt to describe what motivates a young political activist of the German nobility to embrace the warm chaos of a social commune, where she mulls over the use of violence in the class struggle with like-minded souls. But life is not all politics, and conflicting feelings arise when she finds herself attracted to the coolest guy in the house, Alfa (Austrian actor Noah Saavedra), who like her appears to be college-educated and bisexual.<\/p>\n

Viewers of this Venice competition title are likely to find the ideological confusion contagious and the romance pretty trite. But the camerawork and music choices are lively and may enable a younger gen to relate and discuss.<\/p>\n

An immediate point of interest is the story\u2019s setting amid a group of Antifa activists, who have been frequently called out for their supposed violence by Donald Trump and speakers at the Republican convention. The film, however, remains ambiguous in its support of the group, or parts of the group, as the activists depicted have conflicting ideas about what they are doing. On the one hand, there are the peaceful banner-painters, who seem to be in the majority in the commune; on the other hand, there is charismatic leader Alfa, pushing the group to ever more violent actions: besting the cops, bloodying a gang of neo-Nazis and watching bombs explode in glorious slow motion.<\/p>\n

In a time of social unrest over real distress \u2014 including police violence against Black people in the U.S. and around the world \u2014 these earnest young Germans can come across as 20-year-olds searching for a reason to rebel, particularly since their nemesis is ill-defined and the racist terror attacks the neo-Nazi group carries out are not dramatized on screen. More political background would have gone a long way toward establishing the stakes.<\/p>\n

Among von Heinz\u2019 many films for television is the 2017 TV drama Katharina Luther, the story of a 16th century nun who leaves the cloister to embrace the religious reform movement. Here, too, the story begins with a woman making a momentous decision, as Luisa (Mala Emde) decides to leave the peace and harmony of her parents (Dad is a baron) and the family\u2019s country manse. A quick post-hunting scene pans past a slew of dead hares with a wink to Renoir\u2019s The Rules of the Game. But we see too little of the parents to blame them for their daughter\u2019s restless search for something more than the upper class can offer.<\/p>\n

While continuing to attend classes on constitutional law with her best friend and presumable lover Batte, played by Luisa-Celine Gaffron, Luisa moves into Batte\u2019s commune. As we read several times in the film, the constitution gives citizens the right to resist those who try to subvert the social and democratic order of the state, and Luisa seems intent on exploring its ramifications outside the classroom. The commune is dedicated to fighting fascism, but hardly united in the means to use. While Batte and a number of women are firebrand pacifists, Luisa finds herself spellbound in front of the impulsive Alfa. His attraction to violent struggle entails not only damaging property but inventing occasions to beat up members of an extreme right-wing group. The latter are very generic enemies, and the only close-up look we get of them is in a heavy-handed scene where they strum guitars and furiously wail their hatred of Blacks and Jews.<\/p>\n

Making a trio is Alfa\u2019s buddy Lenor (notable newcomer Tonio Schneider), who obviously has an unrequited crush on him and views Luisa\u2019s appearance on the scene with understandable frustration. Like Batte, he\u2019s a believer in non-violence, but lets himself be dragged into Alfa\u2019s bravado adventures. Although the film has been nominated for the Venice\u2019s Queer Lion<\/strong>, there is a lot of reticence in depicting gayness directly, notably in a scene in which Luisa, Alfa and Lenor share a bed, chastely \u2014 and this in spite of the fact that Alfa admits to sleeping with practically the whole commune. Saavedra, who played Egon Schiele in Dieter Berner\u2019s 2016 biopic, brings a great deal of exotic rogue charm to the part, but the frantically roving camera prefers to stay close to Emde\u2019s angelic face, amplifying her churning, undirected feelings and impulses.<\/p>\n

There are echoes of the violent revolutionary groups operating in Germany in the 80s like the Red Army Faction \u2014 for instance, a thank you to Margarethe von Trotta, whose key 1981 film Marianne and Juliane told the story of two terrorist sisters from the RAF. Von Heinz and her co-screenwriter John Quester suggest the current generation sees these older radicals as defanged and irrelevant; they are represented here by the retired revolutionary Dietmar (Andreas Lust), who hints he had something to do with the fatal car bombing of a Siemens executive in 1986. Having gone to prison and lost his chance at med school, he works quietly as a hospital orderly and even sews up Luisa\u2019s gaping leg wound after a skirmish, leaving her, strangely, without so much as a limp in subsequent scenes.<\/p>\n

Production companies: Seven Elephants, Kings & Queens Filmproduktion, Haiku Films
\nCast: Mala Emde, Noah Saavedra, Tonio Schneider, Luisa-Celine Gaffron, Andreas Lust
\nDirector: Julia von HeinzScreenwriters: John Quester, Julia von Heinz
\nProducers: Fabian Gasmia, Julia von Heinz, John Quester, Thomas Jaeger, Antoine Delahousse
\nDirector of photography: Daniela Knapp
\nProduction designer: Christian Kettler
\nCostume designer: Maxi Munzert
\nEditor: Georg Soring
\nMusic: Matthias Petsche
\nCasting: Mai Seck
\nWorld sales: Film Boutiques
\nVenue: Venice Film Festival (Competition)
\n111 minutes<\/p>\n

The Hollywood Reporter<\/a> by Deborah Young<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A young German law student leaves her wealthy family to live in an Antifa commune and fight fascism in writer-director Julia von Heinz\u2019s competition…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7391,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[421],"tags":[1677,1416,1187,1676,704],"class_list":["post-9757","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-press-review","tag-and-tomorrow-the-entire-world","tag-queer-lion-2020-en","tag-the-hollywood-reporter-en","tag-und-morgen-die-ganze-welt","tag-usa","post-item","post-even"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t