The State I Am In-Movie Review*** 01/02/2011
Posted by Films to consider in German language film, Movies, Suspense, Thriller.trackback
The State I Am In (German) 2000
Die Innere Sicherheit
Directed by Christian Petzold
Starring Barbara Auer, Richy Müller, Bilge Bingul, and Julia Hummer
Among other awards and nominations:
Winner, Outstanding Feature Film, German Film Awards
Winner, Grand Prize (Petzold), Valenciennes International Festival of Action and Adventure Films
Winner, Best Feature Film, Hessian Film Awards
Nominated, Outstanding Individual Achievement-Actress (Hummer); Outstanding Individual Achievement-Supporting Actress (Auer), German Film Awards
A family of three – parents Clara (Auer) and Hans (Müller) and teenage daughter Jeanne (Hummer) – live their lives on the run, the result of Clara and Hans having been involved in terrorist actions for some unnamed group. Jeanne, now fifteen, has known no other way of living.
As her parents plot and react to constantly changing and threatening surroundings, Jeanne is struggling with the same issues other girls her age struggle with. When she meets Heinrich (Bingul), a surfer boy living in one of the towns she and her parents stayed in for a short time, Jeanne wants to be with him and starts to make some decisions on her own. But when her parents come up with another one of their schemes, things go horribly wrong.
I especially liked the performance by Julia Hummer as Jeanne. Although her typical teenage angst (e.g., “I don’t want to wear this stupid sweatshirt”) was taking place in such extraordinary circumstances, her actions and reactions were so normal that it made her parents seem even more unreasonable than they actually were.
On my list of films to watch are Gespenter (Ghost) (2005) and Yella (2007), which together with this film are known as director Petzold’s Gespenter trilogy.
106 min. Not rated. Adult themes.
FILMS TO CONSIDER 
[…] satisfyingly suspenseful retelling of The Postman Always Rings Twice. Christian Petzold directed The State I Am In as well as Yella (which also starred Nina Hoss) and Gespenster which together comprise what is […]