➤ BUNGALOW, from p.28
almost always a high-profi le English
language movie. Such fi lms,
like Judd Apatow’s “The King of
Staten Island” and Jon Stewart’s
“Irresistible,” are still being released,
but as a trickle rather than
a fl ood.
Netfl ix has become our national
theater in place of chains like AMC
and Regal. Thus, Gaspar Noé’s
2015 “Love” has suddenly found a
large audience thanks to TikTok
videos commenting on its hardcore
sex scenes.
But this moment also allows distributors
and streaming services
to try and guide audiences toward
fi lms from the past that have been
overlooked. In May, the Criterion
Channel presented an ambitious
selection of fi lms by and about
women. Grasshopper Film and the
Cinema Guild last month released
two Hong Sang-soo fi lms that had
gone undistributed in the US. After
putting out German director
Ulrich Köhler’s “In My Room” last
year, Grasshopper has picked up
his 2002 debut “Bungalow” to help
light the fuse for its new streaming
service, projectr.tv.
The director has only made fi ve
features, including one completed
after “In My Room.” But he has a
consistent aesthetic, with a rhythm
based around ennui and negative
space. His fi lms don’t share their
secrets with the audience. “Bungalow”
presents the life of Paul
(Lennie Burmeister), a young German
man, during a few days spent
AWOL from his duties as a soldier.
He returns to his childhood family
home, where his brother Max (David
Strieso) lives with his Danish
girlfriend Lene (Trine Dyrholm.)
The fi lm turns into a laid-back love
triangle, where Paul becomes attracted
to Lene and tries to get her
to sleep with him.
Both “Bungalow” and “In My
Room” are concerned with the
nature of freedom. The actions of
the characters in both fi lms are
pretty banal. “In My Room,” however,
raises the stakes with a postapocalyptic
setting that’s never explained.
In “Bungalow,” Paul’s rebellion
has very clearly defi ned limits. He’s
confi ned to the house. This fi lm is
dominated by a mood of aggressive
banality. It plays like a teenager’s
Tumblr or Pinterest page of “cool
boredom.”
But Köhler has discussed how
much work went into this apparent
apathy. Describing the fi lm as
a “prevented road movie,” he has
also said that it was very hard to
fi nd a house that looked ordinary
on fi lm and actors who could convincingly
play everyday people.
Köhler’s style would in time
become far more assured. “Bungalow”
feels quite tentative. Its
hang-out vibe requires an ability
to express that rhythm with framing
and editing. He wasn’t exactly
there yet. Its stakes never loom
particularly large. Paul wants to
betray his brother and lives in
danger of getting arrested by the
German military police. The latter
constricts his movements. But the
mood is pleasant and low-key.
Only in the fi nal scene does
Köhler really show his capabilities
as a director. Reminiscent of
Jacques Tati’s “Playtime” and Abbas
Kiarostami’s “Through the
Olive Trees,” the fi lm makes effective
use of an extreme long shot,
here one that stages an encounter
among all three characters and
the military police across a busy
road. People are reduced to small
dots, whose visibility keeps fading
in and out of frame, but the shot is
never hard to follow.
The laid-back quality of “Bungalow”
turns into a cosmic distance,
where the future remains uncertain.
At best, “Bungalow” suggests
that there’s something subversive
about laziness. Rather than being
motivated to “succeed,” Paul
returns to childhood and spends
his days lounging around. But
the critique of militarism implied
remains inchoate. The military
police closing in during the fi nal
third plays mostly as a device to
produce tension. Unfortunately, almost
everything about “Bungalow”
is half-formed. But it’s satisfying to
have the opportunity to see a major
director’s starting point.
BUNGALOW | Directed by Ulrich
Köhler | Grasshopper Film | In German
and Danish with English subtitles
| Streaming through Film at
Lincoln Center at grasshopperfi lm.
com and Projectr.tv.
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