The Ordinaries
Director: Sophie Linnenbaum
Language: German with English subtitles
Part of KINO! Germany Now! 2023
www.kinogermanynow.com

Linnenbaum’s playful fiction feature debut, is an extraordinary exercise in meta-narrative and metaphor. It imagines a future cast(e) system that divides humans into different levels of characters, from background performers to leading roles, and the slippery spectrum that connects them.

Essentially a work of sci-fi, THE ORDINARIES is primarily a work of allegorical magic realism filtered through an unencumbered love for cinema—this is a film for people with celluloid in their blood. Impromptu dance routines give way to grim dystopia, through social realism, by way of absurdist comedy. It’s a thrilling achievement, wildly inventive and fizzing with the potential of the moment. Don’t be surprised if a talking dog makes an appearance. But the film’s greatest strength is its sense of the profound amid the banal—what does it mean to feel like an outtake in the film of your own life? And can cinema help you find out? The Ordinaries may come close to answering those questions.

свернуть