Directed by:
Timm KrögerCinematography:
Roland StuprichCast:
Jan Bülow, Olivia Ross, Hanns Zischler, Gottfried Breitfuss, David Bennent, Philippe Graber, Imogen Kogge, Emanuel Waldburg-Zeil, Vivienne Bayley (more)Plots(1)
1962. Johannes Leinert, together with his doctoral advisor, travels to a physics congress in the Swiss Alps, where an Iranian scientist is set to reveal a “groundbreaking theory of quantum mechanics”. But when the physicists arrive at the five star hotel, the Iranian guest is nowhere to be found. In the absence of a new theory to be discussed, the physics community patiently turns to skiing. Johannes, however, remains at the hotel to work on his doctor’s thesis, but soon finds himself distracted, developing a special fascination with Karin, a young jazz pianist. Something about her seems strange, elusive. She seems to know things about him—things that he thought only he knew about. When one of the German physicists is found dead one morning, two inspectors arrive on the scene, investigating a homicide case. As increasingly bizarre cloud formations appear in the sky, the pianist disappears without a trace—and Johannes finds himself dragged into a sinister story of false memories, real nightmares, impossible love and a dark, roaring mystery hidden beneath the mountain. (Venice International Film Festival)
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Reviews (3)
This looks a bit like film-noir shot in the 1960s by Orson Welles according to a screenplay by Fritz Lang, who played around with the subject of an enigmatic murder at an annual conference of theoretical physicists and twisted it into the form of a mysterious metaphysical sci-fi crime thriller set in the Swiss Alps. Among other things, the movie’s theme is based on the multiverse. Whereas other filmmakers often use the concept of the multiverse to build hectic stories packed with wild ideas, here it is conversely part of a loose, elliptical narrative intended for a more discerning audience. The film itself is a multiverse in terms of its visual and stylistic aspects, as various forms of black-and-white film from different decades come together here thanks to the camerawork and manipulation of light and shadows. However, the interestingly written characters interact with each other in an increasingly less coherent story that is already utterly unclear, especially in the last quarter of the film. Overall, The Theory of Everything is interpretively stimulating, but it also runs up against the limits of the viewer’s willingness to engage in inferring the connections and meaning in the intertwining of the individual storylines.
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Stylized distinctively and effectively into the black-and-white works of the 1940s and 1950s, the film tells the story of a gifted physics student who arrives with his PhD at a scientific conference in a cozy hotel in the Swiss Alps. The conference comes to an untimely end, as does the life of one of the participants. And the strange events are far from over. The Theory of Everything throws everything into the blender – from film-noir to conversational drama, romance, detective story, conspiracy thriller to sci-fi and horror about metaphysics. And despite this fascinating list of genres, it flows very slowly and the viewer has to go through several dead ends to get to the final explanation. A difficult film to evaluate. I imagine that for a lot of viewers with a lowered patience threshold, it will just be "meh", but I actually quite liked it – with just a little editing and tweaking, it would have been a great film.
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Johannes goes to the Alps for a congress of highly intelligent people, but things start happening that even his head can't comprehend. Unfortunately, mine doesn't either, because I started to get lost in the snowy landscape from the second half onwards. Still, you can't deny that Timm Kröger has managed to make a solid retro-noir for our times, with a properly dense atmosphere, a period soundtrack, distinctive actors and carefully built tension. Only the script would need better coaching for next time.
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