Nemanja Vukmanovic
Before I decided to see this movie I was familiar with the phenomena of the novel I even read it but only half way through, because I thought it was not leading anywhere.Most people around me say that it is pointless and everything the main character does, all her little hygiene experiments, make no sense. Even the few ones who didn't abandon the book half way through. Since the German critics gave the book positive reviews, I was wondering what's behind it.I expected the movie to be trash. But it isn't. It is beautifully shot and well edited, the soundtrack is on point and best of all - the leading actress shows such a refreshing talent. At first, her face looks so friendly and familiar. Then she strikes you with all kind of emotions, acted out almost easily. If you are interested in what happens in the novel and want to treat yourself to a little sexual gore fest, see the movie. However, what I take away from it that feeling you only know if your family is dysfunctional too and the realization that the choices you make in life are an aftermath of that. I hope you are in touch with all your mommy/daddy/sibling issues, if these things don't make you too uncomfortable and you have learned to live with all that - you will be deeply touched by this story.Warning: see the movie alone, as if you would be reading a book. If you see it with your friend, relative or God forbid: a family member - it might lead to complications in your relationship and you don't need anymore of that. Luckily the first 5 minutes of the movie show you what you are in for. If you survive this, you're good.
Blake Peterson
Wetlands is the kind of movie where things like jizz-covered pizzas, anal tearings, vegetable-based masturbation, purposeful vaginal dirtying, and other taboos are thrown into our face and someone, most likely David Wnendt, wants us to accept the graphic vulgarity like we accepted There's Something About Mary or one of those eye-roll inducing Hangover films. Wetlands dares to call itself a romantic comedy, a coming-of-age story, a family drama, and a gross-out assembly line, and if it were written by someone like Seth Rogen then maybe, just maybe, it would have turned into a sh*t covered disaster. But under Wnendt's authority, it's likable, even if much of it is frustrating. It goes through stretches where it's earnest, legitimately touching, but it also has a tendency to turn around the next minute and tell us about another bodily dysfunction that we'd rather not hear about when we're eating. Part of me wishes it was dirty like a 1960s sex comedy, provocative but not overtly so. But Wetlands can be so appallingly gross that any form of realness seem to be covered in some STDs you caught from a smelly hippie down the street.At the center of the filth is Helen Memel (Carla Juri), a sexually rambunctious 18-year-old who spends her free time exploring her body in the most disgusting ways imaginable. In the opening alone, a barefoot Helen attends an underground public bathroom so repulsive that it makes a backwoods 7-11 restroom seem pristine. And, as if things couldn't get any more nauseating, she decides to rub herself around the … oh, never mind. Just discussing it makes me shudder.The film continues in a series of revolting events that seem more NC-17 than cutely edgy, climaxing when Helen accidentally tears her anus (yes, her anus) while hastily shaving. When she finds herself in the hospital for surgery, she cooks up a foolproof plot: as the daughter of divorced parents, she wants nothing more than to get them back together, so why not stage a reconciliation during visiting hours? To Helen, it's ingenious. To us, the thought is depressing, to say the least. But a blossoming romance with a male nurse (Christoph Letkowski) promises better things to come in a world where sexual experimentation is the only source of feeling.Wetlands is kinda sorta scatterbrained; who knew a movie could transform from a gross-out comedy into a melancholic drama? The best parts of the film, which are (1) the last thirty-minutes and (2) the melancholic drama components, are really, really good; finally, the gags end and deal with Helen as a human instead of an icky caricature. We're given an explanation as to why she is the way she is, and what we find out is gut- punchingly sad — yet it doesn't fit. I can understand her position (ex.: does horrifying things to her body to numb the pains of reality), but I don't understand why the film has to show what she does and what she fantasizes about with such explicit detail. I guess it's meant to shock, but the film is far too well-made to merely act as an exploitation movie. Wetlands covers several genres, and they all work wonderfully; problem is, there's always a slutty cousin wandering about in the background haunting any hint of authenticity. For many films, the level of wildness in a dirty joke can be a calling card (a la American Pie's pie, There's Something About Mary's "hair gel"), but in Wetlands, a dirty joke — scratch that, a dirty image, is a major weakness.But if you can stomach the vileness of it all, the film is more sweet than it is sickening. There are truly funny moments, and there are affecting moments too. As a coming-of-age drama, its ballsiness is refreshing. And Juri, a combination of Greta Gerwig, Run Lola Run era Franka Potente, and a young Cécile de France, may as well already be a star. With my last impression of Wetlands being that of the earlier mentioned "melancholic drama", though, it must have done something right, despite being one of the most disgusting films I've ever seen. And that's saying something, considering it travels through the microscopic world of a pubic hair within its first few minutes like it's a roller coaster ride.
Horst in Translation ([email protected])
"Feuchtgebiete" is a German movie running for clearly over 90 minutes (and dragging for most of it) from roughly 1.5 years ago. There was lots of media coverage around it as it was fairly explicit and polarizing in terms of the sexual content it depicted and dealt with. It is based on Charlotte Roche's partially autobiographic and very successful novel. I have not read it, but I can say that I think she is a smart woman and I enjoy seeing her in talk shows and so on. The first camera shot gives a good description where this film is headed. we see something that looks like a bare ass, but turns out to be the hollow of a knee. The movie is made my David Wnendt. He had quite a lot of success with his previous work "Kriegerin" and there is really nothing similar here like in that one, except that we have a female protagonist in both. The main actress here is Carla Juri and while she has received acclaim from so many awards bodies, I cannot see it at all. Her physical acting was mediocre, her narration was pretty awful, her voice is always the same, and sounded like taken from a bad television movie. She has no talent in terms of line delivery at all. For Juri this was the big breakthrough. Other well-known actors (before this film already) include Meret Becker (Otto Sander's daughter, as her mother), Axel Milberg (as her father) and Edgar Selge (as a doctor).Now, let's talk about the plot. It is very repulsive. There are scenes, in which a young woman uses her genitals to wipe over a public toilet seat and she shows off that she does that on a regular basis and has never gotten any infection. In many other scenes, she puts her finger into something gross (inclusding herself) and licks on it afterward. She tries out all kinds of vegetable in the bathtub and makes a list which ones are most suitable for masturbation. People talk about putting their feces on their beloved's belly. Drugs are abused as if it was perfectly normal. This movie gives a lot of horrible messages and acts as if it was perfectly fine. No area of disgust gets left out. And in the face of all of this, the film tries to be actually relevant as it occasionally refers to the main character's wish for her parents to reunite again. This is the central dramatic storyline, when they are not talking razor injuries in the genital area that is. Anyway, that parents story line is, in my opinion, just a distraction from all the repulsive parts to make this movie somehow seem to have an appropriate plot that touches people.To mention more details, there is a scene involving tampons that you really do not want to see and something involving pizza as well near the end. It's a mess of a film, neither funny, nor dramatically relevant. A movie can be shocking and still deliver a worthwhile story. This one does not even in the slightest achieve that. I highly recommend to stay away.
vanwilgen
I am a student and admirer of the works Antoine Artaud and am very pleased to see a movie breathing the spirit of my second favorite insane Frenchman. This movie is aimed at the idiots who think they have to bear children. The body fluids and bleeding assholes are metaphors for what happens in the minds of children of infantile parents. I'm not big on symbolism in movies, but this thing a Bosch puzzle, it just goes on an on.. Four guys jerking off in a pizza, I think it's brilliant, think about it, what do these parents feed their kids spiritually? Crap topped with crap. It is no wonder says she has had herself sterilized because she doesn't want any kids. The sad and also - in a perverted way - beauty of the end is that, life repeats itself. The asshole represents the circle of life. This is what Fassbinder would make if he would be alive. Have you paid attention to the face lines of this woman? It's very similar to Fassbinder's heroins. Life is good in Germany, you can tell by movies like this. No freedom for an honest movie here in the US.
