I Stayed in Berlin All Summer

Angela Schanelec’s graduation film already reveals a fully developed cinematic language. Instead of asking the age-old question of whether cinematic perception is more akin to looking through a window or focusing on the frame around it, Schanelec asks instead from which side we are actually looking through the window. There are those sitting inside imagining how those outside might be and those outside trying to make contact with those concealed by the glass. The film follows four relationships. One is that of a young author and the man who visits her. They try to get closer, but stick to brief touches and back-and-forth dialogues. Another is that of a couple that either lives across the street or in the author’s imagination. Then there is the young woman who looks into people’s windows from the street. The author finally meets the man who forms one part of the allegedly fictional couple. He is a book publisher and tells her why her story is not good enough. All these relationships exist within an impossible state that can be sad, funny or awkward but is mostly all those things at the same time. The film gives an initial impression of Schanelec’s Berlin, which renders the German capital a non-place of subjective experience and possible fictions. (Viennale)