The 56th Chicago International Film Festival runs from October 14th to the 25th, 2020. Most of the films will be virtually streamed throughout those dates. Some other special presentation films will be projected live at the ChiTown Movies Drive-In located at 2343 S. Throop St. in Chicago’s Pilsen neighborhood. You’ll also be able to livestream filmmaker Q&As as part of the price of your ticket. Download the festival program to purchase tickets and get more information.
So, there’s a nice, small modern-ish hotel in Stainbach, Germany, a forest area south, near Austria, the Sonnenhügel. It’s owned by a lovely older couple, Otto (August Schmölzer) and Lore (Marion Kracht). The thing is, it’s haunted; in fact, so haunted that it haunts flight attendant Marlene’s dreams and sense of sanity after having only looked at a picture of the front of the hotel in an advertisement in the airline’s in-flight magazine. So haunted that, in fact, the three founders of the hotel (built in 1975) all committed suicide there not long after its opening. Marlene (Sandra Hüller) tells her daughter she has a long round-trip in Istanbul, but she really goes to the Sonnenhügel to solve herterrifying nightmares problem. Bad things happen. The hospital calls Marlene’s daughter Mona (the impressive Gro Swantje Kohlhof) in Hamburg; she comes to stay at the same hotel while doing what she can for Mom, starts inquiries to discover WTF, and some even worse things happen to her.
Michael Venus seems to have started his film career roughly twelve years ago with a series of short films, then took a period of time, and now presents his first feature film, Sleep (Schlaf) (Germany, 2020). It’s a very good film, scary as hell without resorting to the kind of freely-spattered gore typical of the genre. The past is returning to take revenge on its generational heirs, while a vaguely fascist strongman does his best to eradicate the past and create a different future. Superstition and scandal weave their way through the local culture, in its small businesses, through its close-knit neighbors, and even in its choral concerts and children’s’ songs. Mona has a lot to sort through before starting to grasp the threads of the generational horrors here, venturing even further than her mother was able to. As inventive as a great deal of it is, however, Venus and his co-writer, Thomas Friedrich, start to overload and overthink many of those ideas – spontaneous orgies here, spontaneous combustion there – and the end becomes somewhat of a mish-mash. It’s too bad – ideally Venus will see his structural and narrative flubs in the doing of this first film and really nail it further down the line. He’s not far. Technically, the film’s really impressive. Problematic, but an admirable and undeniably entertaining spookhouse, especially good for an October weekend’s night.
The recorded Livestream Q&A with director Michael Venus is available to watch here.
Periscope In The Bathtub 