The Future (film)

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Movie
German title The future
Original title The future
Country of production Germany , USA
original language English
Publishing year 2011
length 91 minutes
Rod
Director Miranda July
script Miranda July
production Gina Kwon ,
Roman Paul ,
Gerhard Meixner
music Jon Brion
camera Nikolai von Graevenitz
cut Andrew Bird
occupation

The Future (to German  "The Future" ) is a feature of the American artist and writer Miranda July from the year 2011. The tragicomedy based on an original screenplay by the director. At the same time, she took on the female lead on the side of Hamish Linklater . The film is about a couple in their mid-thirties who decide to take in a sick cat and then plunge into a crisis of meaning and relationship.

The film premiered on January 21, 2011 at the US Sundance Film Festival . The Future was shown for the first time in Germany on February 15, 2011 as part of the 61st Berlin International Film Festival , where the film is featured in the competition for the Golden Bear . July's directorial work is dedicated to the amateur actor Joe Putterlik , who died in 2010 .

action

The cat Paw Paw (Eng .: "paw") sits in the animal shelter in Los Angeles . Although she claims she misses the free life in the wilderness, she has also made friends with the idea of ​​being adopted by Sophie and Jason. The couple, in their mid-thirties, are supposed to bring the cat home in a month as soon as a paw injury has survived. Paw Paw will need daily medical attention from then on.

Sophie and Jason assume that they will only have to take responsibility for the seriously ill animal for a few months. But when they found out that Paw Paw could continue to live for up to five years with good care, they both begin to reconsider and redesign their lives until the animal is picked up in 30 days. They both quit their hated jobs and have their internet access blocked.

Sophie, a dance teacher for children by profession, plans to emulate a work colleague and create a new dance video of herself every day for the Internet video portal YouTube under the motto "30 days - 30 dances" . Unsettled by her overly artificial dance style and the videos of other, more attractive dancers, her project fails at the outset. By chance she got the phone number of the older sign and poster entrepreneur Marshall, from whom Jason had bought a self-drawn portrait of his little daughter out of pity at the animal shelter. She begins an affair with the well-to-do, single father. Her attempts to win Marshall's little daughter Isabella over are fairly successful. At the same time, she is pursued by a crawling, old T-shirt with which she unites one night and, to Marshall's amazement, performs an artificial dance.

Meanwhile, Jason, who worked for a computer hotline, joins a local environmental protection project. Without much success he tries door to door to sell tree sponsorships to save the earth's atmosphere. By chance, he becomes aware of an advertisement for an old hair dryer and gets to know the aged Joe. The hobby tinkerer has been happily married for 60 years and still surprises his wife with indecent limericks . At the same time he gives Jason to understand that his four-year relationship with Sophie is still at the beginning and that this phase is very difficult.

One night, Sophie tries to confess her affair to Jason. He suspects what she wants to tell him and manages to stop time with a touch of her head. In this time loop he holds dialogues with the moon and can only set the lingering waves and the rest of life going again on the beach in Los Angeles. More than thirty days have passed by then and Jason and Sophie have to independently determine that Paw Paw has been euthanized by the animal shelter on schedule . At the same time their relationship is over and Sophie only spends one night with Jason in the shared one-room apartment to pack her things.

History of origin

The film is a German-American co-production. The German producer Roman Paul had already contacted Miranda July in 2005, at the time as the buyer of her first work Ich und du und alle der und alle der wir, ich und du und all we know for the Japanese broadcaster NHK . July was awarded 18 international film and festival prizes, including the Special Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival and the Caméra d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival . However, she turned down further offers of directing and scripts. “I'm not the next young director in Hollywood . The actual film business is terrible, ” says the director, who then devoted herself to art and book projects.

The preparations for The Future fell in the middle of the financial crisis , which is why all private American sponsors dropped out. The contact with Roman Paul remained, however. He and his partner Gerhard Meixner became aware of the script for The Future through July's husband, who was in Berlin . Both produced the film with their Razor Film Produktion GmbH, founded in 2002 . German film technicians were required to take part in the shooting, which is why Nikolai von Graevenitz took over the camera work. The shoot took a total of 21 days. Production costs are estimated at eight million US dollars.

Director and screenwriter Miranda July decided from the start that she would take on the female lead, although she identified more with the role of Jason, "who has a lot of trust, who is curious, who expects a good day" . Several well-known actors then lost their interest in the male figure. Hamish Linklater , who is best known in the US for his role in the 2010 CBS sitcom The New Adventures of Old Christine , was finally hired for the male lead . Linklater described the casting process as "long, arduous, painful and ultimately profitable" . In addition to video clips, he also sent her chapters of his unpublished biography and a "huge, exuberant love letter" . When working with July he felt he was in "very safe hands" . Working with a director / actor could also have been unnerving. "It's complicated because you're wondering whether they are looking at you with the eyes of the character or with the eyes of the person who is thinking about how this is cut together," says Linklater. July is a good scene partner and it was very easy to play in and out of her rhythm.

According to Miranda July, it is not easy to talk about love and longing in a new way, because we are very used to addressing and feeling questions in the same way. That's why she added the figure of the cat as the narrator. I had to “find a way to bring love and also the feeling of loss on a new path, to reposition it for myself too, so that I can talk about it,” said July. After a live cat can be seen briefly at the beginning of the film, it is imitated by two oversized front paws. With the disguised voice of Miranda July, she gives several short melancholy monologues off- screen.

Reviews

Miranda July at the presentation of the film at the Berlinale 2011

After the film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival , the American industry service Daily Variety noted a "fearless realization" by Miranda Julys who found inventive ways to "display the absurdities of life" even if she risked some viewers to alienate with their "cute ideas" . The superficial hilarity is opposed to a much sadder core deep in the film, which is reinforced by Jon Brion's score. It is "strange" that it is this feeling, chosen by July, with which the cinema viewer leaves the film. The Los Angeles Times observed something similar . The Future would fit into the larger context of July's work, but it could terrify those familiar with you and me and everyone we know . While her first film would have relied on a large cast and a naive optimism, The Future has few characters and is "darker and emotionally more sensitive" . The elements that would make the film unique (the cat as a narrator, the complex, science-fiction- like time-loop structure, and the dancing lead actress) could pose a challenge to potential film buyers and the audience.

After the premiere of The Future in the Berlinale competition, the majority of German-language film critics were impressed by July's directorial work. The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung noted that the finiteness of all things is being thought "in the easiest way, with a lot of humor and a few scenes that are among the most beautiful things that cinema has to offer" . The film is "playful" , "joyful and clever" , only the beautifully simulated cat interludes would appear " artificial" . The Süddeutsche Zeitung rated The Future as one of the “highlights of the competition” and, after a flickering and comical beginning, also noticed the heavy weight of the film. “The better you get to know them, the more it becomes clear that their egocentric carelessness isn't cute - it's cruel and cold, Sophie and Jason are full of emotions, but their emotions are fleeting. The point here is not that the rest of the world wants our freedoms - it's about what we actually do with our freedom, ” notes the Süddeutsche Zeitung.

The Future revolves around a whole complex of topics, according to the daily newspaper . “It's about models of artistic truthfulness, about images of oneself and others, about fear of failure and the connection between the inner and outer world in the age of virtuality. And it's about the relativity of time. ” Miranda July presents with “ originality and serenity ” what makes the film “ so special ” . The Future will "supported by a mild summer breeze" behind which "always the big existential questions" einstellten. Der Tagesspiegel called it a "wonderful light-handed second feature film" about the last-minute panic of the mid-thirties, the Frankfurter Rundschau from a "charming thoughtful [n] Love Stories" .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b cf. Platthaus, Andreas: The cat speaks, I have to dream! In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, February 17, 2011, No. 40, p. 34
  2. ↑ a b c cf. Simon, Jana: The woman who can do everything . In: Die Zeit , February 10, 2011, No. 7, pp. 36–41
  3. ↑ a b c cf. Berlinale press conference with Miranda July, Hamish Linklater, David Warshofsky, Gina Kwon, Roman Paul and Nikolai von Graevenitz in the steaming archive at berlinale.de (accessed on February 17, 2011)
  4. ↑ cf. Box office / business for The Future in the Internet Movie Database (accessed February 17, 2011)
  5. ↑ cf. Sundance '11: Hamish Linklater at backstage.com, January 25, 2011 (accessed February 17, 2011)
  6. ↑ cf. Film review in Daily Variety, January 24, 2011, p. 8
  7. ↑ cf. Olsen, Mark: Sundance Film Festival - Peer with Miranda July into 'The Future' . In: Los Angeles Times, January 21, 2011, Part D, p. 4
  8. ↑ cf. Vahabzadeh, Susan: Help, we are free . In: Süddeutsche Zeitung, February 17, 2011, p. 12
  9. ↑ cf. Resch, Andreas: Lost in Time . In: the daily newspaper, February 16, 2011, p. 27
  10. ↑ cf. Tilmann, Christina: Change of life . In: Der Tagesspiegel, February 16, 2011, No. 20890, p. 21
  11. ↑ cf. Kothenschulte, Daniel: Between truth and lies . In: Frankfurter Rundschau, February 16, 2011, p. 34