Jan 9
International Film Forum: THE STATE I AM IN
The State I Am In [Die innere Sicherheit] (Christian Petzold, 2000, Germany, 106 min.) – Josiah Simon
“The State I Am In confirms [Christian] Petzold as one of the new decade’s most strikingly intelligent film-makers. An unclassifiable combination of teen romance, coming-of-age drama, and paranoid political thriller, the film revolves around 15-year-old Jeanne (Julia Hummer). Like many girls her age, she’s growing increasingly resentful of parental demands: who she should see, where she should go, how she should dress, etc. But for the parents – Hans (Richy Muller) and Clara (Barbara Auer) – Jeanne’s blossoming independence poses particularly pressing problems: the pair are renegades, permanently on the run from the police for unspecified reasons.
[T]his feature – Petzold’s first ‘for-cinema’ movie – is deceptively low-key: the characters and the world they inhabit are very patiently delineated, and there are moments of frustrating slowness and/or implausibility along the way. It’s only at the very end that the pieces all fall into place and we realise the brilliance of Petzold’s screenplay, co-written with Harun Farocki. What had seemed like flaws are suddenly revealed as crucial aspects of the film’s meticulously-crafted structure – though to reveal any more about the denouement’s specifics would be cruelly unfair: this is a rewarding journey that the viewer should take alone and unguided.” (Neil Young, The Film Lounge)