BERLIN - Dysfunctional families, isolation, and a generation gap; the latter used by one side to accuse the other of having failed to take up an opportunity. The Berlin Film Festival turns on the lights with its opening film, Das Light (The Light), written and directed by an author beloved by the Festival, Tom Tykwer, (Run, Cloud Atlas, Babylon Berlin) who has opened the Berlinale previously: in 2002 with Heaven, his first international production, and 2009 with The International, a political thriller. Presented in the Berlinale Special section, The Light is set in the heart of Berlin, here a fragmented constantly moving metropolis in a permanent downpour and the setting for the dysfunctional family dynamics between parents in their forties and their teenage children. With everyone focused for the most part on their own lives, the resulting family unit is an isolated, fragmented microcosm, a reflection of larger, global tensions and social dynamics, as the director noted at the press conference.
“There is a tendency for isolation, I thought this microcosm demonstrated it well: people have isolated themselves, they live in their own aquarium, they have stuck their head underwater, built their own worlds. They look around and think it’s very nice, but no-one talks to anyone anymore, everyone has their head underwater”.
In addition to distance and the generation gap, the film focusses on an intertwined, almost interconnected, dimension between human beings who share a single, common energy which surprisingly, despite their isolation, brings them closer and makes them accessible to each other. This is how the isolated microcosm of the family is saved by an enigmatic character who makes a forceful entrance into their lives, the mysterious Syrian immigrant Farrah who comes to work as their housekeeper. This energy from the outside shakes them, pulls them out of the bubble of their world and makes them look at each other again, bringing them closer.
“This microcosmic dynamic is what we should adopt on a larger scale, on a political level and in our collective desire for a different world. It is the only solution we have that can tackle the problems we face,” adds Tykwer.
The narrative protagonists include the city of Berlin, where the film was shot: a metropolis in constant transformation that changes its skin every day. A place where people discuss, repeatedly meet and clash; filled with an energy that can bring about change and is also incredibly stimulating. “Shooting in Berlin was an extraordinary journey - notes the director - It is the best cinematic city in the world because it is always unfinished as if it does all it can to remain imperfect. When something seems finished, two thousand new construction sites appear. It is so grotesquely ugly on top of something incredibly beautiful, and yet, this is precisely what makes it come alive and makes me love it. So I find myself defending something that would actually be negative: the bad management of urban planning and architecture, which I almost secretly cling to because I always have the feeling that when something is completed, it stops and becomes petrified. It is difficult to bring cities that are too perfect to life on the screen. But in Berlin you don't have to do anything, everything is crumbling and patched up as best as possible, an intermediate situation that is perfect for the film".
A French-German co-production, in collaboration with Italy
The film is a French-German co-production, which also involves Italy. Produced by X Filme Creative Pool, in co-production with ZDF, ARP Séléction, Gold Rush Pictures, Gretchenfilm and B.A. Filmproduktion in collaboration with Beta Cinema, and in collaboration with Rai Cinema whose presence confirms the role of the Italian film industry in the European and international production landscape.