Director: Sophie Linnenbaum (Germany). Year of Release: 2022
Some time in the past. A man is approaching an old-time train from Cannes to Berlin with a bunch of roses. He is headed for a woman who has just got off the train. As the incidental music bursts towards a romantic crescendo, we hear a voiceover by a girl saying “that’s my mum”. No, not the woman about to receive a heap of roses, but one of the extras – a women in the background who will do to swell a progress, start a scene or two.
Move forward to a dystopian alternative future, where everyone is part of a film, and society is divided between different social groups. At the top is the Hauptfiguren, the leading characters who get all the best dialogue. Below them are the Nebenfiguren, the supporting characters, who may have a speaking role in the film, but only to forward the plot. At the bottom are the Outtakes and the Schwarz-weißen, monochrome figures whose skin has no colouring.
It takes a while to come to terms with the logic at work here. In fact, it’s probably better to accept it for what it is, and just go along with the flow. Everyone is trapped within a film, and you regularly see static figures in the background, waiting for someone to shout “Action” so they can start moving. Only the Hauptfiguren are allowed any real agency. Nebenfiguren have a limited selection of phrases which they repeat whenever the occasion calls on them to say something.
Paula is at a school for kids who want to be Hauptfiguren, and she has an important test coming up which will determine whether she will really make it. Paula’s mother Elise is only a Nebenfigur and they live in a grey tower block where Elise walks a march of death to work in a queue of other drones every morning. Elise tells Paula that her father was a leading man who died in the Great Massacre, although when Paula visits the public records office, she finds no mention of him.
Paula’s friend Hannah, on the other hand, comes from a blue blood family. Her parents are prone to intricate song and dance routines a propos of nothing. In contrast to Paula’s grim home, Hannah’s mansion is colourful and brightly lit. Her younger brother’s head is full of conspiracy theories that the lower classes want to take over. When he starts to get too annoying, Hannah and Paula tell him that he’s suddenly become asynchronous, ie a flawed part of the master race.
Hauptfiguren, and aspiring Hauptfiguren, are equipped with a sort of heart monitor which plays incidental music whenever they approach situations of high drama. Paula’s monitor seems a little on the blink, and instead of the expected sentimental background music, her speeches are accompanied by insubstantial parps. Paula visits a doctor who asks her if she has experienced any notable turning points or cliffhangers in the previous week.
In search of her father, Paula is taken to the world of the Outtakes by Hilde, Hannah’s maid, who is clearly a bearded man. Hilde calls herself a “miscast”, and it is a bit of a false step for a film whose mission is to fight intolerance to be a bit too lax with anti-trans stereotypes. This is more unfortunate under the current climate than downright annoying, though. Hilde’s main dramatic role is to show Paula the underworld she doesn’t know and to act of the tribune of the oppressed.
The outtakes live mainly subterraneanly, and all seem to all hang out in the same underground bar, constantly in fear of being raided by the police. The clientele consists mainly of clichés – such is the role of the outtake – such as weary men in gabardine macs and a group of almost identical sailors who sit together at the same table to drink melancholically. Some of them are out of focus, while others have pixelated mouths. Who wants to hear what someone with a walk-on role has to say?
In the world of the outtakes, Paula encounters Simon, a young man who makes a living selling sounds on the black market. Like those of his fellow outtakes, Simon’s scenes are filmed with reels that have been swept up from the cutting room floor. His movements are jerky, and sometimes he jumps from one side of the screen to another. Some scenes are repeated several times, which would have been irritating if done several times, but fortunately the director shows restraint here.
The message of the film is progressive, if a little banal. Oppression is bad. We should respect differences. In a director’s note Sophie Linnenbaum says: “that’s my playful fist in the air: change the story, change the world,” This sounds good, but is a response of a liberal director who missed the debate about Base and Superstructure. The film hopes that better art will improve people rather then recognising that art reflects the conditions which produced it.
Nonetheless, The Ordinaries is a good watch which keeps its audience engaged. This is obviously a film made by a cineaste, and maybe there are too many insider jokes, but I laughed when a split screen scene was interrupted by one character leaning over into the opposite screen. Yes, it’s been done in other films, but The Ordinaries has a graceful playfulness to make you appreciate its sense of fun and originality. It’s a film best seen without thinking too deeply about what it’s trying to say
The Ordinaries has a political problem in that it describes rather than explains. It shows us how things are, rather than saying how we can change things. For all the talk of revolt, the inequalities between different classes is generally taken as a given. But not every film needs to change the world, some are mainly there to entertain. And The Ordinaries is entertaining enough. It’s funny without being hilarious, and it is very inventive. It has its limitations but definitely worth a go.
CinePhil 