WETLANDS (Feuchtgebiete)Strand Releasing
Reviewed for Shockya by Harvey Karten. Data-based on Rotten Tomatoes
Grade: B+
Director: David Wnendt
Screenplay: David Wnendt, Claus Falkenberg, Sabine Pochhammer, based on Charlotte Roche’s book
Cast: Carla Juri, Christoph Letkowski, Meret Becker, Axel Milberg, Marlen Kruse, Edgar Seige
Screened at: Review 2, NYC, 8/25/14
Opens: September 5, 2014
If you think that “Wetlands” is a documentary about the environment—and you can’t be blamed for thinking that given the number of books with that title on the Amazon site about the birds and the bees—you’d be technically correct. It is about the birds and the bees but not the kind that go buzzing and chirping in the jungles or city parks. It’s about the environment, but of the human body. It’s all about sex, particularly an 18-year-old girl’s fascination with her own body, particularly with the fluids that emanate from human beings (and animals)—namely blood, semen, and vomit with a correlative look at how to treat hemorrhoids when you do not want them to disappear. Now do you wish “Wetlands” were about national forests? No? OK, then let’s look further into David Wnendt’s narrative, co-written by Claus Falkenberg and based on Charlotte Roche’s book which sold over a million copies.
The literal coming-of-age (and of manual manipulation) star is an adolescent on the cusp of adulthood, Helen (Carla Juri) who, in flashbacks to a more tender and naïve age is seen scrubbing the toilet and tiles to distraction on orders of her mother, an obvious clean-freak. But that upbringing gets foiled when, like so many teenagers, Helen turns her mother’s ideology upside down, going out of her way to challenge her body to deal with filth. She deliberately wiggles her butt on the dirtiest toilet seat she can find, announcing to the movie audience that she did not come down with a disease. But she is afflicted with a nasty case of hemorrhoids, which lands her in the hospital after a shaving mishap. There she becomes infatuated with Robin (Christoph Letkowski) a male nurse, which informs her decision to stay in the hospital beyond the normal time. What’s more she uses the hospital stay to arrange a union between her divorced mom (Meret Becker) and dad (Axel Milberg), manipulating them to arrive for a visit at the same time.
Helen had previously bonded with Corinna (Marlen Kruse), a young woman of the same age, and together they experiment with their bodies, inserting their fingers into every orifice as though in their first year of med school. It should be noted that Jakub Bejnarowicz, who photographs the scenes with an abundance of John-Water-type pastels, treats us to close-ups of these natural body openings as though to say to members of the theater audience, “So, you say you’re not a prude? Did you look away and blush or did you smile and admire the scenery?”
“Wetlands” is not rated, though if it were, it could be a candidate for an NC-17, the audience-killing rating, which would have been a shame as it would turn away a large number of the young adults who might have read Charlotte Roche’s novel. Still, even when basking in near porn, including a graphic scene of the principal performer in the local bordello with a sympathetic hooker of her choice, “Feuchtgeibiete” as it is called in its original German meaning “Wetlands,” transcends porn with a three-dimensional portrait of Carla Juri, its star, who resembles a young Melanie Griffith. She makes music with newcomer Christoph Letkowski as the male nurse, who can’t be blamed for reciprocating the affection given him by Juri, who at the age of twenty-seven can easily pass for eighteen. She has a wonderful smile.
Unrated. 109 minutes. © 2014 by Harvey Karten, Member, New York Film Critics Online
Story – B
Acting – B+
Technical – B+
Overall – B+
