Berlinale | Film review “Was Marielle weiß”
What We Prefer Not to Reveal

What happens when your own child suddenly develops psychic abilities? The film “What Marielle weiß” plays this out – and surprises with a successful mixture of lightness, humour and profound storytelling.

By Jutta Brendemühl

Julia and Tobias have everything. Or nothing. Father, mother and child, two demanding jobs in the upper middle-class atmosphere of an anonymous average city. But behind the façade, trouble is brewing. The delicate balance between Julia and Tobias is severely disrupted when daughter Marielle suddenly gains the ability to see and hear everything her parents do – day and night. The couple soon realise that this means the lies they tell themselves and each other are no longer hidden. As their deepest secrets come to light, they both find themselves in a manipulative competition that leads to increasingly unpleasant and absurd situations. 

A child Who Knows Too Much

If you don't know director Frédéric Hambalek, you're not alone. The German Berlinale competition entry Was Marielle weiß (What Marielle Knows) is only his second feature film – and hopefully the springboard for further stories. It is about self-image and self-presentation, about the discrepancy between thinking and talking, about relationship communication and the abolition of privacy. Hambalek smugly plays out the upside-down world approach, in which a child is suddenly able to do and know more than the parents, and the unsteady balance in the entrenched family constellation in various “what-if scenarios”. Just when you think things are going well, things turn out differently. The sparse 86 minutes of film pass by in an entertaining way – by playing through these questions: What if our partner found out about our naughtiest sexual fantasies? What if reality doesn't fulfil our secret wishes and promises? What if the child knows (and uses) the parents' shameful fears and mistakes? And how far would we go to maintain our own coping mechanisms and fictions?

Victim and Perpetrator at the Same Time

Felix Kramer (Irgendwann werden wir uns alles erzählen, 2023) plays Tobias, torn between a father-family ideal and a creative manager who is not given the respect he deserves by his passive-aggressive female colleagues. Julia Jentsch (e.g. Sophie Scholl – The Last Days, 2005) as mum Julia tells us in the first five minutes that she is just bored with her same old daily routine and is quite clearly flirting with her colleague. Later she delivers a very funny, awkward sex scene. We will certainly be hearing more about the self-confident fourteen-year-old Laeni Geiseler as a medium or oracle, who masterfully realises the simple and unexplained narrative omniscience trick in the plot line. All three characters are victims and perpetrators in a derailed togetherness. This makes the film relaxing – also because it doesn't lecture.

Everything that happens is a bit of a double-edged sword, as viewers realise. Meanwhile, in the back of the audience's minds, the film examines the state of (self-)trust, truth, concealment and the social consequences in their own relationships. As the film progresses, it becomes unpleasant, nasty, violent, but also a little liberating for everyone. New perspectives and ways of dealing with things open up. The script is infused with a humour reminiscent of the film Toni Erdmann. In any case, the loud laughter often gets stuck in your throat. The skilfully distorted camera, often from the ceiling-corner perspective of a surveillance camera, visually emphasises the absurdity of the situations. The joy of experimentation of the leading actors charmingly takes the audience by the hand. The direction is elegant, the staging slightly stylised and far removed from social realism or criticism, neither pretentious nor unworldly. For all his precision, Hambalek draws a refreshingly wild and irreverent line through the negotiation of the big questions of existence.

The Light-Hearted and Dark Sides

When asked how he maintains the balance between dramatic escalation and comedic situations, the director gives an insight into his working methods: “I wanted to be true to each scene, to find the right tone. For some scenes, I didn't know where it would go, I had an idea, but when shooting with the actresses ... it felt different and right. You get involved, you have the right touch.” Felix Kramer expands: “The fact that the parents set themselves up in the question of how I can score points with my daughter has a humour ... that arises because you can read so much into it and it's not judged.”

At the press conference, an enthusiastic Spanish journalist praised the film: “A clever German film whose humour will also work elsewhere, you don't see that often.” The work also has enough dark sides, whether unspoken in the subtext or recognisable in an ominous pause, so that it never slips into cliché. Juggling with ambiguities and subtle tonalities is Hambalek's greatest talent. We quickly identify the fine line between honest and blunt, direct and impertinent, chutzpah and offence. 

In Search of Social Peace

“Too much information, TMI” is the social media jargon. Can or do we want to live (or survive) without secrets and maintain our constructed biographies? “How do I want to be?” is how Julia Jentsch sums up the film's question.

Frédéric Hambalek doesn't let the characters and the audience off the hook, but subtly shows possibilities between prudence and forbearance, more conscious communication and more considerate togetherness for the sake of social peace. Profound questions of life told in a light-footed and absurdly humorous way: This makes the Berlinale competition fun.