Malina

In Werner Schroeter's very free interpretation of Ingeborg Bachmann's novel "Malina" (1971), the main character has no name, but appears in four reflections, two of them are the male main characters Malina and Ivan. Moreover, Schroeder used even two light-doubles for a famous mirror scene in which the female character appears in a "chiastic" and thus non-Aristotelian relation. We already see: Schroeder's movie is a movie about the splitting of individuality, but not simply by creating Doppelgängers, as, e.g. R.W. Fassbinder did in the characters of Hermann Hermann and Felix Weber in "Despair" (1978), but so that every time one of the two male reflections and one of the two female reflections stand in an over-cross relation to one another. This had been done before in such a splendid manner only once: by E.T.A. Hoffmann in his "Princess Brambilla" (1820). A comparison of the time of Schroeter and that of Hoffmann is made here not merely by the coincidence of some motives, but by the fact that Schroeter very often uses Pre-Illumination procedures instead of telling a story in the rationalist way. Very often, this happens by the use of mythological movies or specific themes out of operas. We remember the famous Paphnutius episode in which the former fairy Rosabelverde appears as Fräulein Von Rosenschöngrün and the puzzled narrator explains that by order of the ruler all non-rationalist concepts have been banned out of the state. However, we are also told that certain relics of thought have survived, and in the modern time of film we mostly meet them in the fascinating oeuvre of Schroeter where causality appears together with magical series, the subject is subject to a topic taken from association rather than logic and so on. In a certain, no less fascinating, way one could say that Schroeter uses for deconstruction of our reality, based on two-valued logic, not the famous procedures prepared by Derrida and already by Heidegger, but by dissolving rational structures in the streams of Pre-Enlightenment pictures. When the female main character, who doubtlessly bears the signs of writer Ingeborg Bachmann herself, talks about her constant pains and her impossibility to live under the premises of her work and the two men who are her projections, we realize that Bachmann's writing (including her PhD dissertation about fundamental ontology) are interpreted by Schroeter from the standpoint of deconstructing femininity. After having destroyed her femininity up to a certain measure by construction of her different mirror images ("I exist only in the mirror", she says in the movie), she tries to construct it newly by means of what one would call language criticism methodology based on the fundamental ontology of her own work. To see that and how she fails leads in Schroeter's movie to a spectacular last scene - and also in Bachmann's 47-years-old-life in "reality". In reality?

Malina, the key character of this psychological enigma, is the strong rational part of a fragile personality, which splits also in a passionate female character, played by Isabelle Huppert, both actually symbolic figures of a single personality. The story describes, in a thrilling performance of the dual actors, a disastrous love affair, where love substitutes the reason of being and in spacial reflections of her childhood and parents, unfolds the puzzle of authenticitation in a passionate relationship. Symbolic behavioral patterns are the driving elements of this movie by a german director, but in perfect line with classic French movies, e.g. by Claude Chabrol.

Malina is incredibly complex drama on the nature of insanity and to watch it, especially in the beginning, is quite a labour. A woman believes that she is a writer and all her men are fruits of her ill consciousness or personages of her unwritten book or alter egos of her split imagination. And episode after episode her consciousness keeps deteriorating more and more but the end breaks everything once again so all that was happening comes up in absolutely different light and changes its meaning. Malina is an anagram of 'animal' and it isn't accidental but symbolic to the entire surrealistic content of the film. Malina is unique and utterly fabulous movie having many layers of narration and visualization.

Isabelle Huppert as an actress give the brilliant performance in this movie. And she's the only reason to see this totally nonsense movie. Sorry, but don't waist your time.

German director Werner Shroeter unfortunately never became as well known as other directors of his generation and origin (Fassbinder, Wenders, Herzog). I had the chance to discover him years ago and was truly impressed. It's hard for one to describe him. His films are strange, surreal, they are just too much! It's this kind my most favorite, that one I always seek It's as if John Waters, David Lynch or maybe Louis Bunuel dropped something from their uniqueness into Shroeter's mind and then he evolved it into something more special and personal! To all this, add the obsession of the director with opera and then we maybe can have a picture of his work. Anyway, about this film. This flick, "Malina", is a work of art. Isabelle Huppert is a great actress anyway. But, in this particular one, she overcomes herself. If the Oscar is the ultimate award to an actor then we are talking about an award winning performance. Unfortunately though - and this is a huge issue to be analyzed within a few sentences- there are plenty of times when these awards go to actors who don't deserve it. I think it would be fair to acknowledge productions outside and beyond the USA. Of course American independent cinema is amazingly worthy but sadly 80% of it is ignored by the Academy. I am going to rate this film with a nine though it doesn't need my rate. It's so extraordinary that it's above judgment.