Linkeroever a.k.a. Left Bank (2008) IMDB
Synopsis:
[From IMDB;] When Marie moves into her boyfriend’s apartment, she uncovers a disturbing mystery.
My take:
That I found it hard to get a gauge of the timeline in Linkeroever made it hard for me to really get my head around what was going on. It almost seemed like everything happened within the span of weeks (if not days) based on some indicators, or months based on others. The result is a bit disorienting.
Of course, this sense of disorientation seems to be a common theme in Linkeroever. Sometimes it’s a feature, such as when surreal scenes are interwoven into the movie in earlier parts of the movie and never mentioned. Other times it seems to be a fault, often related to the issue mentioned above – with plot and character developments seemingly coming out of nowhere,
There were also certain events during the movie that seemed to be highlighted as having some kind of import, but which never went anywhere. And, while I don’t think that having all the answers at the end of the movie is necessary, in this case it just cemented a sense of Linkeroever being incomplete.
It’s because of this that, despite being a wonderfully dark and moody movie, with a hauntingly beautiful score, I ultimately found myself feeling unfulfilled after the credits started rolling.
I can’t exactly bring myself to classify Linkeroever as a bad movie, though. I think it had a lot of interesting themes, which it explores in intriguing – if confusing – ways. There was also a lot of symbolism that left the movie open for multiple interpretations. And I do think that these are good things in a movie of this kind.
I think the plot just needed better treatment, so some of its more needlessly disorienting elements were ironed out; and then it could have been a truly great film. Or, alternately, it could be that this movie will require some more viewings and a bit more thinking on my part, in order to recognise that it’s already a great movie. I just can’t seem to decide.
Fright 365 