377) Dreilieben: Beats Being Dead (2011) Dir: Christian Petzold Not Yet Released Date Seen: September 23, 2011 Rating: 3.75/5
As usual, Petzold's exacting mise en scene and absolute technical control is only hampered by the heavy-osity of his films' capitalist critique. Perfect example: there's a totally alienating shot-reverse shot in the scene where the hotel maid is dropped off at her job. Petzold delineates that there is a boundary between her work and the outside world, one that she can't traverse as well as her upwardly mobile medical student boyfriend can. So once she crosses over the threshold into her workspace, she can't go back to him. But he can visit her if he wants to.
Seeing all of that conveyed in just one shot-reverse shot is pretty damn impressive. It's also fairly distracting. Still, some absolutely stunning sequences, as usual. The wedding reception didn't do much for me but holy shit, how about that night-swimming scene with the motorcycle gang? Beautiful, scary, erotic; it brought De Palma to mind, which probably just shows to go you how my brain is hard-wired to think of De Palma now that I'm a De Palma fan.
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