Festival programmers work hard to build lineups that fit their sections. It’s part of the trust they build with audiences who come with expectations of what to expect from a particular festival or section. Attending a new festival, part of the experience is figuring out what to expect and the promise of the sections. Perspectives is a section at Berlinale that you can get a sense of from its name, but more precisely it is for exceptional emerging filmmakers from around the world who have bold and fluent cinematic language and offer arresting perspectives and new ways of seeing the world. Writer and director Florian Pochlatko’s How to Be Normal and the Oddness of the Other, which ask the questions, “What is normal? Who gets to decide who is normal?” as Pia (played by Luisa-Céline Gaffron), a 26-year-old freshly released from a psychiatric hospital, struggles with identity as she struggles to try to hold onto to who she was as she and world have changed. The film is centered in perspective. While Pia is the main perspective, the film does a good job of weaving in other perspectives of those in Pia’s orbit, particularly her parents. These additional perspectives are an important layer because in a film that asks questions rooted in “Who gets to decide what is normal?,” it’s important to see that characters without diagnosis also struggle, can get anxiety, or fail to react appropriately.
The aspects of the film that captured me the most were the editing and composition. Early in the film, unprompted or revealed until much later, you are dropped into a scene from a TV drama, creating a stark contrast from the previous shots. This early use of different looking works, paired with a monologue centered on the world ending and how Pia slips through time, does a good job of setting up a visual sense for the film. However, it is in the sequence after Pia sees her ex with his new girlfriend (who looks a lot like her), where the shots cut back and forth between locations with sounds as she spirals and even as a viewer you feel like you are slipping through time with her until her mom wakes her and it’s the following evening. This reminded me of the TV series Big Mood (recently renewed for a second season), where Maggie, who is bipolar, lost time at an important time for her friend Maggie.
For a good portion of the film, Pia is going through crisis. Her parents don’t realize she’s going through crisis and someone will be quick to condemn them as bad parents, but charitably I think what so often happens is people hope their loved ones are doing better than they are until they can’t deny it. Pia’s young neighbour is the only one that seems to be able to get through to her when she’s in crisis because he still treats her like she’s normal. This is what she’s been seeking and hasn’t been able to feel on or off her medication.
The film also touches on the tragic reality that people with mental health issues often face police whose training has in documented cases resulted in injury or death. SPOILER: While the film briefly makes it look like the latter, it is thankfully the former and ties it back to slipping through time.
The film also features an impromptu tap dance scene, keeping you on your toes.
How to Be Normal and the Oddness of the Other World had its World Premiere at the 75th annual Berlin International Film Festival in the Perspectives section. Paris-based sales company Alpha Violet has acquired the international sales rights for the film.
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