Switzerland proved to be a rather challenging selection to complete. The first complication stemmed from the fact that several different languages are spoken in the country (mainly French, German and Italian) so it’s not uncommon for actors and actresses from other nations to sneak into Swiss cinema. For this country, confirming the ‘theatrical performer’ portion of my checklist was more frustrating than normal. Take for instance the 2010 film Songs of Love and Hate. This film was shot in Switzerland. Its director Katalin Gödrös was born in Switzerland and, based off what I’ve read, has spent a decent portion of her life living there. But when I got to the cast which included Dutch actor Jeroen Willems and a trio of German actresses; Sarah Horvath, Luisa Sappelt and Mira Elisa Goeres, it suddenly dawned on me that this film wouldn’t work. There is a part of me that really hates excluding a film on the basis of such technicalities and yet I know that if I go ahead and select it, I run the risk of having someone complain ‘hey these people are German, not Swiss’, so either way I can’t win.
And when I did find a film that better satisfied my selection criteria I still had trouble accessing it. For some titles, even piracy was of little assistance. Usually my options consisted of either coughing up money to stream it online or embarking on a lengthy road trip to one of the few libraries in Chicagoland that were holding a copy. For Niklaus Hilber’s 2015 feature I chose the latter. To my knowledge this film has never appeared in American theaters, and not even on the festival circuit either. A company called Synergetic Distribution acquired the US rights and apparently decided to publish a DVD and Blu-Ray version of the film without much fanfare. Granted the streaming options for this title are really good, with the film being available on Google Play, iTunes, Kanopy, and the ‘legit, pay for a rental’ side of YouTube. Still the distribution of hard media copies has been sparse. While copies can still be bought online at sites like Amazon, I was surprised to learn that Facets didn’t even have a copy. Libraries are not a great option for this title either. According to worldcat.org only 3 public libraries in all of Illinois were holding a copy. Thankfully 2 of them were within 40 miles of where I live. I ended up driving to the library that was closest to me in order to watch it and in an odd, ironic twist of fate, this took me to a public library in a town called Geneva, naturally. Although this was a German language film that was shot in Zürich, so I just barely missed a rather freaky transatlantic parallelism with this one.
In the film’s synopsis which has been practically copied verbatim all across the Internet, the story was described as being about a group of schoolchildren and how their lives are impacted by ‘social media and the ever increasing sexualization through the Internet’. I must admit that I don’t necessarily agree with this description and strangely I didn’t interpret the film as containing a particularly modern story. Yes, there are scenes of characters passing judgment on others based off their Facebook metrics or of them bullying others through explicit social media posts, but I nonetheless regarded such moments as mere modern twists to what is already a well established trope. I suppose the film could get credit for capturing the brutality of bullying someone through social media platforms which came across as more severe due to its incredibly far-reaching public nature. But at the heart of the narrative I saw the age old saga of teenagers struggling to deal with all the complexities and pressures of fitting in socially with their contemporary peers. Furthermore the film was not noteworthy for adding a sense of modernity to this narrative trope, but rather for exploring the limits on how far its characters would go in order to acquire and retain social acceptance. And the price that they were willing to pay in regard to their own sense of individuality, morality and dignity was especially galling.
Given the familiar ground that it traversed, the narrative was not particularly interesting. There was hardly any plot to speak of and it generally had no real sense of direction or purpose. I suspect that the filmmakers went for more a pseudo-documentary style in order to mirror real life to some degree, and if this was the intent than its tendency towards an aimless, drifting exposition could be excused. What made less sense to me though was how the narrative was structured.
The film was divided into 5 ‘acts’ that seemingly served little to no purpose since it constantly shifted its attention between the 6 main characters. In fact given how many characters were featured in the film, its lack of narrative focus was often an issue. At times the film lost touch with certain characters before they essentially re-entered the film. It’s hard to get a good feel for a character, when they effectively disappear for long stretches of a film. Not only that but in the interim, the film offered very little to prevent one from wondering why they weren’t featured more often. This subtly hints at the other problem that I had with the narrative; that the film seemingly went out of its way to show the more mundane moments in the lives of its characters, which unfortunately came at the expense of seeing more dramatically intense and profound events. The way the narrative was presented was baffling in that its most important events were often revealed strictly through verbal exposition after they had occurred.
With the way the film was edited, the viewer saw the buildup to the tragedy and perhaps its aftermath, but not the tragedy itself, which I think stripped the film of its potential to achieve a haunting, deeply felt emotional resonance. Perhaps this may represent a sick, perverse desire but nonetheless, there was a part of me that wanted to be disturbed by the film and yet it refused to descend into depravity. There’s also a part of me that thought it was perhaps too gentle in how it dealt with the sexual misconduct of its characters. And don’t get me wrong; when it comes to content in the vein of a drug-induced gang rape there are probably some lines that a film shouldn’t cross. But yet I felt that the filmmakers went too far in the other direction; settling for an approach that was too cautious and emotionally detached. They attempted to convey the traumatic nature of this event solely through the acting of the performers and while they gave a spirited, valiant effort in this aim, ultimately films are a predominately visual medium. Not even seeing a glimpse of what took place kept the viewer at too great a distance.
As for what the film did show the viewer, the cinematography was decent without being particularly exceptional. In fact I would describe the overall approach as being so bland, that the use of blank, white screen transitions could be thought of as the film’s most notable bit of artistic flair. And I honestly can’t fathom why such transitions were used. They were not interesting at all and become more tedious as the film progressed. They also hindered the pace of the story ever so slightly, more so than simple jump cuts would have. As for the shots themselves, I thought the framing was mediocre at best, with a style that relied heavily on an intimate, personal approach. In many of the film’s sequences you hardly ever see two characters in the same shot. A large portion of the film’s dialogue was shown using the banal approach of quick jump cuts between alternating shots. Establishing shots were rarely used and one never really got a good sense of where any of action took place. In a couple of scenes characters would literally disappear into the background that was inexplicably kept out of focus. The larger environment in which the story took place got lost in the film’s intense focus on its characters.
The tight, up-close framing clearly showed an intent to place a great deal of emphasis on the acting, which was easily one of the better attributes of the film. There was a great deal of emotional complexity and intensity in the acting, with the performers showing an aptitude at capturing all the conflicting desires of their characters. Sometimes they would change their temperaments a bit wildly but yet did so with some grace. The non-verbal acting from the cast was often excellent and while I don’t think too highly of the film’s dialogue, which I often thought was trite, it fit the characters well. There was a considerable amount of conviction in the portrayals which I think was partially the result of casting actual teenagers into the role of teenagers. The cast also did a good job of portraying a decent range of distinct personalities.
Early in the film Luna Wedler stood out with her portrayal of Milena, a bratty, self-assertive go-getter who had the capacity to be brazenly rude to those who threatened her status as the most dominate figure within her social circle. Wedler’s performance was absolutely brimming with self-confidence which made Milena one of the more interesting characters in the film. Wedler also played the role with enough depth to cast Milena as a person of rather discriminating desires. One of the more distinctive aspects of Wedler’s performance was her look of utter disgust at the unwanted advances which were directed towards her character. Ultimately one could view Milena as a child who wanted to impatiently rush into the perceived freedom and independence of adulthood. In sharp contrast to Milena was Sabrina, played by Chiara Carla Bär, a character who’s identity was far less defined. She was nowhere near as confident nor as self-assured as Milena, but yet she also lacked the former’s ruthlessness and arrogance. I would argue that Carla Bär stood out for playing the only character who was willing to show some compassion and sympathy for others in the film. I also like the growth in the character as the film progressed for which Carla Bär did a great job of handling. This was perhaps most evident in the razor sharpness of Carla Bär’s final critical appraisal of Milena.
Perhaps though the two most intriguing characters were the so-called ‘outsiders’. Annina Walt played Lara, a new transfer student who early in the film was so nervous, awkward and aloof that she struggled initially to make new friends. If that wasn’t enough Walt also tapped into the subtle weirdness of her character which rarely had a chance to rise to the surface. Walt though was good with the pure raw emotion that was required in her first scene following Lara’s sexual assault. Here she effectively worked in elements of terror, fear and shame into the performance. While the decision that Lara ultimately made could generate some debate, Walt still did an excellent job of crafting a character who had a strong urge not to be thought of as a loser, which made Lara’s decision easier to fathom. This narrative twist didn’t bother me as much as it should have, and I think some of this came down to how effectively Walt played the role. Fabrizio Borsani in the role of Selim, played an immigrant who was still struggling to acclimate himself to his adopted culture. This was evident by the fact that he would still get teased by his supposed friends. Borsani though played the most honest and virtuous character despite the fact that Selim lacked the self-confidence and courage to truly express himself when in social situations. Borsani did a good job of capturing his character’s most pertinent weakness; that he was easily susceptible to peer pressure out of fear of being ostracized. Beyond this I liked the forwardness of his approach to his counselor following the gang rape and how much regret he conveyed when confessing what he had done. In this scene Borsani captured the right amount of emotion without being excessively melodramatic.
The other two male characters were probably the least interesting among the primary roles. Although Benjamin Dangel in the role of Adi did the most to live up to the film’s synopsis by playing a character with a budding porn addiction. Generally though Dangel played the role as a rather obnoxious prick with a somewhat inflated self-opinion of himself. Even with the one scene between Adi and his father where Dangel got an opportunity to flesh out the character a bit by showing Adi as a person who was self-aware of his own faults, I still didn’t find the character particularly engaging. Jérôme Humm also played a character who might be considered somewhat of a loser. This was established by the fact that Jan struggled to get good grades and had a modestly aloof personality. Granted the scenes that Humm shared with Walt allowed him to add some depth to the character and if anything Humm portrayed Jan as a more friendly and thoughtfully considerate person when compared to Adi. But even then I thought the performance was too dull to be considered compelling.
Like most films that center around youth culture, the roles of the adults are often considered mere afterthoughts. In some cases their lack of presence in such films, may contain some subtle commentary about social dysfunction. While I don’t think Amateur Teens went that far, there was still only one adult role that felt important in regards to the story and that was the counselor played by Francesca Tappa. I thought Tappa did great work in her scenes with both Borsani and Walt, especially with her subtle yet expressive physical acting. The apprehension and disbelief that she expressed in her dialogue with Walt was perfectly portrayed. But ultimately this was all that the film had to offer. It was a decent movie that was largely supported by its quality acting, but which traversed territory that had already been covered dozens of times before. Arriving two decades after a film like Larry Clark’s Kids it was considerably tame and didn’t come across as a particularly interesting or unique entry into this narrative trope.