The critical gaze of Maria Vittoria from the Zoo Palast

(from Berlin Luigi Noera with the kind collaboration of Maria Vittoria Battaglia and Vittorio De Agrò of the editorial staff Ground floor– The photos are published courtesy of the #BERLINALE)

#EveryYouEveryMe by Michael Fetter Nathansky was presented in the #Panorama section and is the story of a very unhealthy relationship, based not on love but on dependence

All that you are (Every You Every Me) by Michael Fetter Nathansky | con Aenne Schwarz, Carlo Ljubek, Youness Aabbaz, Sara Fazilat, Naila Schuberth – Germany / Spain 2024 | WP

Do you know the feeling when you look at a strange man and find it bizarre how he talks and what he says and after a while you realize that it’s your own husband?

The question represents the leitmotif of the film, which tells of Nadine and her love for her husband Paul. Love is a jarring word though, because Nadine no longer loves Paul and can no longer recognize him. The story of this non-love fits into the story of the couple's everyday life, she is a factory worker struggling with union struggles to avoid layoffs and cuts, he is unemployed and struggling with panic attacks. Two daughters, a turbulent past, post-partum depression. In this everyday life the two characters interact and with each interaction Nadine sees Paul in a different way, like a naughty child, an adult man, a boy in his early twenties, a bull, a mother figure. The spectator gets lost behind these countless shapes, just like the protagonist cannot understand who Paul is. The narrative device is effective in this case, but the film gets lost behind too many sophisms.

The continuous slippage between temporal planes, combined with the continuous change of Paul's forms, risks losing the thread of the story too many times. The love, the doubts, the feelings, they never manage to emerge; Nadine doesn't seem to fight to find Paul's love again, he just seems like a person who, for reasons and a history that we cannot fully know, is unable to feel affection for anyone. Adja too, Her best friend, we always only see her as a colleague, in a relationship as devoid of affection as the one that binds her to her family. In fact, Nadine gives nice gifts to Paul, plays with his daughters, but they are brief moments immediately canceled under missed glances, broken smiles, cold and rancorous shouts.

The only moments in which Nadine's harshness softens are when Paul becomes a maternal figure, and Nadine, freeing herself from the responsibilities of having to love her husband or daughters and having to support her colleagues, then seems to find some peace.

On the other hand, Paul also seems to be rather unresolved: torn apart by anxiety, he ends up having panic attacks and constant aggression towards himself or others, he seems to be tired of fighting for his wife's love, he seems to have given up on the idea of ​​losing her. But the two, who can't be close to each other without hurting someone, they can't even do without each other, and in the end what remains in the narrative confusion of the film is the story of a very unhealthy relationship, based not on love but on dependence.

Maria Vittoria Battaglia