‘Does our subject still wear pink socks?’
Mark (Sam Neill) and Anna’s (Isabelle Adjani) marriage is collapsing. Anna is having an affair with cartoonishly Alpha male Heinrich and wants a divorce. Their young son Bob is often ignored and neglected in their cold, soulless Berlin flat as his parents lose themselves in their individual sorrows.
Arguments between Mark and Anna descend into ear-splitting screaming matches, physical violence and self-harm. While Mark loses his mind in a three-week long bender and gets off with Bob’s Anna-lookalike teacher, Helen, Anna is Frankenstein-ing herself his Doppelganger from a hideous cthulhu-type monster in a grimy, ancient apartment on a street surrounded by shuttered-up shops.
In what is probably the most famous scene, Anna miscarries in a subway station tunnel, screaming, howling, yelping, and unnaturally contorting her body until she falls to the floor and expels white goo and blood from every orifice.
After Mark and Anna kill each other, Bob is ‘adopted’ by Helen and Doppelganger Mark, and drowns himself in the bath, saving his Unparents a fortune in future therapy bills and keeping up the tradition of Sam Neill’s movie kids dying in horrible ways (see: Dead Calm).
Both the lead’s performances are absolutely unhinged. The acting style is deliberately scenery-chewing, over the top and exhausting.
It’s a brutal, grotesque, disturbing film. Those who want a tightly plotted story with nicely tied up ends will be sorely disappointed. Those who like films that have a nightmarish logic and make you think, ‘what the fuck did I just watch?’ will love it. It’s actually also quite funny, despite it’s awfulness.
It’s probably not a good idea to watch it if you’re going through a break-up, or have been recently dumped, though.
Content warning: child neglect, domestic violence, self-harm, sex with an octopus/man hybrid, Sam Neill’s bare bunda (may cause lustful thoughts).
Final verdict: It’s not enough sitting there, rocking in your rocking chair.
