“Unexplainable attraction leads to an extramarital affair…” – no better way to start our report about Christoph Hochhausler‘s new project with title The City Below premiered at the Cannes Film Festival, Un Certain Regard category.
German director shows how the manipulation and amorality of the banking world play out in a private setting. And if you're interested in this kind of stories (as you see, we definitely are), than you should check the rest of this report, because The City Below synopsis part goes like this:
“A man and a woman at an art exhibition share a fleeting moment of attraction, which neither can act upon. Days later, a chance second meeting leads to an innocent coffee and the two strangers – both married – toy with their unexplainable fascination for each other.
Svenja is curious and finds herself in a hotel room with Roland, but she does not consummate an affair. A powerful executive at the large bank where Svenja's husband works, Roland is used to getting what he wants. He manipulates the transfer of her husband to Indonesia to replace a recently murdered bank manager. Unaware of Roland's actions, Svenja now ceases to resist…”
It looks that with this project Hochhausler wanted to show us two completely different points of view, and not just because we have classic male-female story, but because, as he explained:
“Svenja and Roland are not on the same social level, and they never will be. He's part of corporate aristocracy, and he married into old money for a reason. His whole life is dedicated to the game and its rules. He loves deals and deals love him. Svenja's game is life. She could not care less for the game of big finance.
There is this famous phrase by artist Maurizio Nannucci: “You can imagine the opposite.” For me, it means that the opposite follows us, like a shadow, like a nihilistic desire to break up with the comfort we have surrounded us with. We want to get real, to wake up. It's a confrontational thing. We have the hope to be awakened by someone, an opposite force. One longs for the opposite. This is perhaps the heart of the film. It's really about losing touch with reality, and about the counter reaction, attaining reality in love, in the body.”
Cast includes Nicolette Krebitz as Svenja, Robert Hunger-Bühler as Roland, Mark Waschke as Oliver, Corinna Kirchhoff as Claudia, Van-Lam Vissay as Andrew and Wolfgang Böck as Werner.
What's also interesting about this one, is the reality moment and the tension of impending crisis in the ruthless world of big banking. Ever wonder what you might get when you mix capitalism with some love story?
There you go, you get The City Bellow, and that's why you should definitely check this movie out!
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H4N4btPr0Qs&feature[/youtube]
