Nicolette Krebitz is best known as an actress ("Bandits")and gave her debut as director with "Jeans", a film about the new, trendy Berlin after the reunification.It was part of a whole wave of similar films and didn't make a big impression on me.So I was positively surprised by her new directorial work with the highly romantic and obscure title "Das Herz ist ein dunkler Wald".It is a daring try, albeit not satisfying as a whole.The film is an odd mixture of "Berliner Schule" realism,theatre-like scenes on a bare stage depicting typical moments in a relationship and surreal scenes of a masked ball in a sort of palace,modelled clearly on "Eyes wide shut".The picture takes a bitter stock of today's gender relations and poses some uncomfortable questions.It treats the everlasting battle between the sexes, the moral of the German average middle class and deconstructs all preached ideas of a "new motherlihood".Not only in the teaming of Nina Hoss and Devid Striesow there are parallels to the brilliant "Yella",but also in that both films tell you more about the German society of today than many so called critical films.As in "Yella" the biggest attraction is the face of Nina Hoss, which reflects the abyss of despair and loss.In every scene you feel the will of the director to produce "art" and not all the parts get together well,but as a resume I would say: After "Jeans" I wasn't awaiting a new picture by Krebitz as a director with a curious anticipation, but after "Der Wald..." I am.What more could you say about a film?
