马赛

The first movie of the "Berliner Schule" ("La Nouvelle Vague Allemande" Cahiers Du Cinema) that gained international recognition with it being screened in the "Un certain regard"-section of Cannes Film Festival 2004.
　　After the very sparse white on black of the opening credits we see the back of Sophie's head. She's in a car, she speaks awkward French, the woman who drives gets out, gets her a map, of Marseille. We learn, very soon, that they are exchanging apartments, the other woman, her name, we learn later, is Zelda, will go to Berlin and Sophie will stay, for a few weeks, in Marseille. Zelda says: Guten Tag, Auf Wiedersehen, Mein Freund, der Baum, ist tot - the latter phrase being a German song by a German singer who died young. Zelda disappears, Sophie stays. Zelda very literally disappears because there won't be a trace of her when Sophie will return to Berlin. The Marseille apartment, empty, unlived in as it is, will have been a gift, something inexplicably given in a film that ends with something - almost a life - taken.
　　Sophie, for the first third of the film, is in Marseille. She walks around, she takes pictures. She looks at the pictures, she moves without a direction, the camera is with her, sometimes distant, sometimes following her closely. Sophie is a stranger in a strange world, she sometimes seems cut off from her surroundings. We hear sounds, we see her face but the background is blurred. She does not seem unhappy, she does not seem happy. She does not talk much and she always thinks for a long time when she is asked. In the end she will be asked what it is she photographs. She will think for half a minute (or perhaps she does not think, but simply refuses to answer, to herself, to the policeman who asks) and then she says: The streets.
　　We do not know much of her and we do not learn much of her in these minutes we spend in Marseille, walking around with her. She meets a young man from a garage, who lends her his car, she drives around, which we don't see. There is a lot we don't see - although it takes some time to realize how much. She meets the young man in a bar, they drink, a friend arrives who insults Sophie, for no reason. Sophie and Pierre, the young man, walk up in a street that is lit in brownish golden light and they sleep with each other, which we don't see (and, really, don't know). The next night they dance.
　　One very sharp cut later Sophie is back in Berlin, she is approached by a young woman who returns a cap to her, a cap she has left in a McDonald's restaurant before she went to Marseille. There is more she has left, or rather: she has run away from. (At least this is what can - but does not have to be - inferred.) There is Ivan, a photographer she might be in love with. There is Hanna, an actress, Ivan's girl friend, their son Anton. We learn more about Ivan, we learn more about Hanna. We see Ivan taking pictures of women workers in a factory, without an explanation. We just see and watch. We watch the women from a sidewards angle, then we watch Ivan taking the pictures, then we watch the woman from Ivan's perspective. They talk, but not much. We just hear and see and watch. There is a lot we see - although it takes some time to realize how much. We are left with these images. They remain unexplained and they don't explain what we see. "Marseille" has a bewildering structure, switching from the elliptical cut (shocking, really) to the insistent gaze (frustrating first, but amazing after all).
　　For ten minutes, at least, we watch a rehearsal. Hanna plays a minor role in a Strindberg play