In My Room is playing at Northwest Film Forum at 7pm on November 29th, 7pm on November 30th, and 7pm on December 1st.
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The apocalypse is something that has captivated the screen for a large part of the history of cinema. From massive natural disasters, to the zombie apocalypse, to unrelenting viral diseases that sweep the globe, many films have attempted to grab a quick buck from the inherent action, suspense, and tension that such events would undoubtedly carry with them. Most of the time, they are intentionally loud and dumb, pumped with inflated budgets in hopes of making a quick buck off some unwitting moviegoers, yet a select few have shown a preference for contemplation and precision that allows the sub-genre to remain interesting through which to view the human experience.
In My Room, German director Ulrich Köhler’s newest movie, is a film about emptiness, yet it clamors with ideas. In a series of tight, meticulously composed opening sequences, the movie introduces us to the misery of Armin (Hans Löw), an inept news camera operator in Berlin. Armin’s cramped and unkempt apartment, unenthusiastic (and unsuccessful) hookup lifestyle, and seemingly unwanted career paint a life drained of fervor before it’s even halfway through. Pressing that bruise deeper, a visit back home to his dying grandmother and unhappy father prompts a botched suicide attempt. For Armin, the only direction for change is up. Then, overnight, humans are, for some reason or another, wiped off the face of the Earth, and this unsettling survival story finds its groove. As does Armin: Instead of freaking out, he embraces this depopulated world, making a home outside his childhood village and gathering livestock. Time leaps forward between scenes, marked only by Armin’s tightening physique and increasing self-sufficiency as he harnesses hydroelectric power and tills his soil. For perhaps the first time, he seems content in the isolation and tranquility of his daily routine.
Yet make no mistake, at no point does the film romanticize Armin’s apparent growth, nor does it paint its newfound serenity as entirely curative. In fact, as the film draws on, Armin unwittingly comes upon the first human he has encountered in the entirety of the unspecified amount of time since the world-altering event occurred in a young woman named Kirsi (Elena Radonicich). Their clashing mindsets are immediately apparent, as Kirsi’s wanderlust and generally adventurous nature seems in conflict with Armin’s newfound austerity and stolid determination. Of course, their isolation still breeds the inevitable connection and desire that would result from such a cataclysmic event, yet the conflict of mindsets seems to remain an inescapable future roadblock despite their current state of relative chemistry. In this sense, Köhler seems to be playing into some sad and somewhat cruel cosmic joke, as their relationship seems to play out the same way it would’ve in the end in a pre-apocalyptic world.
Köhler’s quiet and patient approach to the disappearance of humanity not only adds a new wrinkle to the genre, but it allows the director to examine his characters more intimately and with a more universal scope. This is most applicable to Armin, as the heart of the film lies in his transformation (or, perhaps, the lack thereof) from before the cataclysm to after it. Despite his obvious bodily transformations and new and improved lifestyle, Armin’s sole encounter with humanity after the event reveals some startling and painful truths about the nature of us all: that even the end of humanity won’t end our subconscious self-destructive pathologies. Yet the film as a whole is not entirely steeped in sorrow and quiet desperation, as the peace and beauty of the emerging natural world in the absence of humans in combination with the connection of the two last remaining lost souls carries with it an almost cleansing property that shifts the film from somber to mostly bittersweet. Its ruminations upon loneliness and the pure, unbridled human struggle to connect make the film a powerful film that takes its time to sew its potent emotional seed, yet when it does the feeling is sure to remain long after the film comes to a close.
3.5/5 STARS