These days, populism and tribalism blare their volatile trumpets on our television screens and Twitter feeds on a routine basis. Though it’s not the world’s only region experiencing the trend, the contagion of hostility and contention over national fault-lines is felt strongly throughout the European continent, from the North Sea to the Black Sea. And its echo is often deafening.
Valeska Grisebach’s Western, a film which debuted in 2017 at Cannes and made its way to New York last week, looks at the issue of national identity deeply and successfully, highlighting the ambiguity of Europe’s current state—a place caught between the inevitable force of globalization and the insularity of the unexpectedly resurgent nation-state. But, in contrast to the news cycle, the movie offers a significant twist on the interpretation of the continent’s crisis: it’s quiet.
The film follows a group of German construction workers who set out to the forested hills of Bulgaria to build a water power plant for villages in the area. At the outset, Grisebach sets it up as a “West meets East film”, where the capitalist power (Germany) exerts its influence on the peripheral state (Bulgaria) by means of a friendly gesture. The title is even meant to invoke old western movies, where the protagonist ventures into the hinterlands to face the unknown.
There are also moments that invoke the complicated past between these two countries. The Bulgarian government was initially determined to remain neutral during the war, but, by 1941, Nazi Germany forced the country to capitulate and join the Axis Powers. The film clearly tries to acknowledge that this voluntary-but-not-really-voluntary partnership left a bitter taste in the mouths of Bulgarian citizens. For instance, a Bulgarian shop-owner refuses to sell one of the workers, Meinhard (Meinhard Neumann), a Cigarette on the basis of the wrongs his country had inflicted upon hers. From the German perspective, one of the construction workers, while driving through the village upon arrival, chuckles, “We’re back. It only took us 70 years.” In the minds of the characters on both sides, the renewed presence of the Germans in Bulgaria is just a continuation of the past.
The tension between the two forces at play remains palpable for most of the movie. Grisebach skillfully has the audience assuming that something will burst that tension. But, in the end, she never wavers from her commitment to subtlety and introspection.
One of the more uneasy plotlines in the film concerns a German flag that the construction workers raise over their basecamp. A few of the men are weary that the Bulgarian villagers will not look kindly upon the gesture, but they are outnumbered and the flag goes up anyway.
After an altercation in which the leader of the workers, Vincent (Reinhardt Wetrek), humiliates a local woman, some of the men in the village find retributive justice by stealing the flag. The workers are angry, but eventually the script meanders away from the issue. That is, until the movie’s climax when the Bulgarians and Germans congregate at a village barbecue and a few of the Bulgarian men expose their bounty, laughing and waving the tricolor in the Germans’ faces.
Their taunts irritate Vincent, and he pursues the flag bandits right into the river. Here, surely, something shocking will happen, the viewer assumes. This innocuous conflict over a stolen flag will lead to consequences that far outweigh the deed. But Grisebach holds steady. The men splash around in the water and soak their clothes, and eventually tire of the childish antics. Vincent is able to retrieve the flag, but his face shows that the success of his rescue mission is somewhat hollow. The barbecue goes on.
The capture-the-flag incident is an example of how Grisebach’s film does not deny the existence of nationalism, but shows that, maybe, it’s not quite as powerful as some political leaders and media members might have us think.
Likewise, the movie often drifts away from Germany-Bulgaria relations and focuses more intently on the individual characters—in particular, the budding friendship of Meinhard and Adrian (Syuleyman Alilov Letifov), one of the village leaders. They don’t speak each the other’s language, but form a bond anyway, as Meinhard tries to make inroads with the locals and Adrian extends a welcoming hand.
The most significant scene in the movie consists of the two men having a late-night conversation, which they are able to decipher through a mixture of hand gestures and an innate sense of tone. Adrian asks Meinhard, who has served in many foreign countries as a member of the German special forces, what the rest of the world is like. Meinhard tells him that people are like animals, that only the strong survive. He goes to say, his lips quivering, that he came to Bulgaria because there was nothing left in Germany for him after his brother died. Adrian can relate to this; his children live in the United States and England, so he, too, feels alone. At this point, stripped of the things they cherish, what are Bulgaria and Germany, if anything, to these men? Perhaps nothing but painful reminders of the past.
Photo: A scene from “Western” (2017), directed by Valeska Grisebach. (Source: IMDb — Komplizen film). The image may have been cropped automatically by our WordPress theme.
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