A strikingly confident dramatic feature debut from German writer-director Sophie Linnenbaum, The Ordinaries puts a conceptually rich satirical sci-fi spin on contemporary social issues. Combining self-referential humour, strong visual effects and high-calibre production design, the tone here is Brecht with a hint of The Truman Show, or an acerbic political allegory seen through the reality-bending looking glass of Charlie Kaufman’s cheerfully bleak surrealism.
Even if the narrative logic sometimes wobbles and the conceptual framework becomes a little overwrought in places, Linnenbaum’s dark fairy tale is a boldly original offering, all the more impressive for being her graduation film from the Konrad Wolf Film University in Babelsberg. World premiering at Munich film festival this week, closely followed by its Karlovy Vary launch next week, The Ordinaries is a flavoursome feast whose timely themes and genre-friendly elements should help open wider release options beyond the limited realm of German-language markets.
As her inspired conceit, Linnenbaum uses the rules of cinematic drama as the blueprint for a rigidly hierarchical class system in The Ordinaries. In this dystopian society, the upper classes are Main Characters, and thus enjoy opulent lives, lavish costumes, set-piece musical numbers and generous dialogue allowances. The middle classes are Supporting Characters, their lives more constrained but not without modest luxuries and potential for social mobility. Bottom of the social pecking in this cruel caste system are Out-takes, who inhabit walled-off ghettos and face daily hostility from the higher class groups. “They want to replace us!” is a commonly voiced anxiety. Main Characters are even allowed their own portable soundtrack generator, linked to their heart, which creates suitably heroic background music during their crucial dramatic scenes. Meanwhile, the authorities ban Out-takes from generating their own music because, as one pointedly remarks, “they’re scared of what they will hear…”
The film’s young heroine Paula (Fine Sendel, charming and natural in her debut lead role) is a Supporting Character with aspirations to climb the social ladder, which seems possible if she studies hard at Main Character college. Her mother (Jule Böwe) is endlessly encouraging, invoking the heroic example of Paula’s long-dead father as inspiration: “a very special Main Chatracter,” she insists repeatedly, one of the few rote phrases allotted to her as a minor player. But in the process of her studies, Paula becomes entangled with an underground resistance movement of Out-takes, who help her discover some shocking family secrets, and eventually lead her to rebel against the tyrannical power structures that keep Main Characters in charge.
Visually, The Ordinaries is loaded with allegory and allusion. The drably uniform concrete apartment blocks and heavily policed border checkpoints that Paula moves through will instantly invoke the old Communist East, to German viewers at least, an echo knowingly underscored by Linnenbaum’s use of vintage film clips from East Germany’s DEFA archive. But the sharp class divisions she depicts between rival social categories have more universal resonance. Banished to run-down ghettos and the back seats of buses, the Out-takes clearly mirror African-Americans in more segregated times, plus the oppressed experiences of many more immigrant and outsider groups across the globe. In a witty metaphorical touch, the high-status characters have much more colourful skin, clothes and homes while the lower classes inhabit a more washed-out world, the most alienated resembling faded monochrome ghosts.
Linnenbaum fills The Ordinaries with Brechtian, self-conscious, meta-movie touches. “That’s the title, it means the film is starting now,” Paula’s voice-over informs us helpfully as the opening credits roll. Later, protagonists break through the fourth wall and reach across split-screen shots to comfort each other, or stroll through living tableaux of static extras, frozen in mid-action until the scene officially starts. One minor character, a man dressed as a female housemaid, is archly named Miscast. Others are afflicted by disjointed jump cuts, out-of-sync dialogue, pixelated facial features and more. Some of the most marginalised appear faded and crackly on screen because, in this highly unequal society, they cannot afford to have themselves digitised.
Clever stuff, but all these tricksy meta flourishes become a little cumbersome at times, weakening the narrative’s emotional force by repeatedly deconstructing it. In places, The Ordinaries succumbs to the overstuffed, show-offy maximalism of a first-time director acutely aware that she may never get to make another feature again. Which is understandable, but Linnenbaum can afford to relax. On the strength of this highly impressive debut, a fruitful film-making future lies ahead.
Venue: Munich Film Festival
Cast: Fine Sendel, Jule Böwe, Henning Peker, Sira Faal, Noah Tinwa, Denise M’Baye, Pasquale Aleardi
Director: Sophie Linnenbaum
Screenplay: Sophie Linnenbaum, Michael Fetter Nathansky
Cinematographer: Valentin Selmke
Editor: Kai Eiermann
Music: Fabian Zeidler
Production design: Josefine Lindner, Max-Josef Schönborn
Costume design: Sophie Peters
Producers: Britta Strampe, Laura Klippel
Production company: Bandenfilm (Germany)
World sales: The Match Factory
In German
120 minutes