Wolke 9 (Cloud 9)

Cecil says: I'm starting to realise that the opening scene of a film is as important as the opening line of a novel - it sets the tone of the whole film. So why are there more quiz questions about closing scenes than opening scenes??

OK, having opened this entry with that question, I have to mention the opening scene of Wolke 9: it's actually the sound we notice first and only as the camera pulls back from the shot that we see the scene is a woman in her 60s sitting at a sewing machine. Almost immediately, you know that this is going to be one of those social-realist style of films and actually there is no music soundtrack through the whole film (sounds are important, though, like steam trains, yapping dogs, orgasms...). Within two minutes of the opening, we are also involved in an intense and passionate sex scene which sets the tone of the film, also: the story is all about love and passion between a woman in her 60s and a 76 year old man...

Actually, the film deals with all the usual issues around a classic love-triangle, with the key difference between the geriatric characters involved. How they resolve their issues, how they talk about them, how their uncertainties (or certainties) come to the surface could be the stuff of any Holywood drama we see every week. But this film WAS different: and the age of the characters is significant beyond just the fact that we don't normally see pensioners on film having sex. This is a generation of people who have not learnt the language of feelings, not had the emotional awareness people today gain either through actual therapy or through Cosmo magazine; so we hear Inge telling her husband she had hoped they could have a reasonable conversation about the situation; we have the husband suddenly accusing her of always having been naive - their inability to express their feelings or ask about the others' feelings, or even have any notion of feelings somehow comes across as something that would be less likely in a more contemporary (or youthful couple).

It is an intensely emotional film to watch, however, even if the characters aren't able to verbalise their own feelings. We have probably all at some point in our lives left someone or been the one who is abandoned - so for me the most powerful moment was the final touch of Inge's hand on Werner's hand as she leaves for the last time...but to say more would give away the plot, so I'll hand over to Bea...

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Bea says: Well, Cecil said a lot about this one, so I will just give my impressions. The film is very physical in its exploration of pleasure; sex, singing, skinny dipping, cycling, bathing; to my own surprise at first I was unsure of how I felt about the abundance of older bodies naked and the realities of an older body, but before long this hesitation fell away, perhaps because of the simple, and hardly new, storyline, but also because it was good to see sensuality between ordinary people, without airbrushing, soundtracks and Hollywood-style manipulation. No Botox here! It was a story that I could completely relate to; it seems that all the relationship joys and traumas of my twenties and thirties will be continuing into my old age.

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