Director Karl Markovics set the pace for his second film at a slow level because he tells the story of an average woman in her late forties entangled in routines. Time passes slowly while she does her job at the supermarket or prepares dinner for her husband. The changes come via voices she begins to hear. The audience is left out of this experience and for a good reason. We should find out what it does to her, not what she hears.
Ulrike Beimpold carries the film almost by herself. She looks so convincing that I hardly believed it is the same woman I knew as a cabaret artist. The other actors are similar perfect, especially Rainer Wöss as her husband.
We get a few glimpses of what she hears when she repeats the words to a doctor checking her ears at an early stage in the story and later on she tells a friend but pretends it is not her but someone else's story. These two moments are enough to reveal that she endures a cacophony of questions and orders that makes is impossible to concentrate on anything else. At a late point in the film she very reluctantly admits that it is God who talks to her. We can see why she does not say anymore because God seems to be so completely different of what she expected that she can hardly attach the name to him. We don't hear any more talk of God but some events carry biblical references, often with tongue in check. Although the whole story might sound very sad there are many unexpected moments of humor in it too, e.g. when her husband has to deal with a nosy neighbor.
The film does not tell us if she is hearing God or is just going crazy. That's because the film is not about religion or believe it is about awareness of what we endure without thinking. Near the end of the film she realizes that what she learned was that she matters and what a sad life she had been living and how little happiness there was for her. And it is obvious that she will not return to it. Things will have to change.
Ulrike Beimpold carries the film almost by herself. She looks so convincing that I hardly believed it is the same woman I knew as a cabaret artist. The other actors are similar perfect, especially Rainer Wöss as her husband.
We get a few glimpses of what she hears when she repeats the words to a doctor checking her ears at an early stage in the story and later on she tells a friend but pretends it is not her but someone else's story. These two moments are enough to reveal that she endures a cacophony of questions and orders that makes is impossible to concentrate on anything else. At a late point in the film she very reluctantly admits that it is God who talks to her. We can see why she does not say anymore because God seems to be so completely different of what she expected that she can hardly attach the name to him. We don't hear any more talk of God but some events carry biblical references, often with tongue in check. Although the whole story might sound very sad there are many unexpected moments of humor in it too, e.g. when her husband has to deal with a nosy neighbor.
The film does not tell us if she is hearing God or is just going crazy. That's because the film is not about religion or believe it is about awareness of what we endure without thinking. Near the end of the film she realizes that what she learned was that she matters and what a sad life she had been living and how little happiness there was for her. And it is obvious that she will not return to it. Things will have to change.
