The Pain of Growing Up: Nina in "Gespenster" ("Ghosts")

"Gespenster" (Christian Petzold, Germany, 2005), one of the saddest films combined with one of the saddest songs: "The Foundling", by American singer Mary Gauthier (2010).

It tells the story of Nina (Julia Hummer), whose life life seemed to be dismal and locked, but then, one lovely day, there appears that kind of luminosity that opens up the horizon and makes her believe in the fulfillment of her dreams. There was nobody at her side but suddenly she finds a companion, just out of nothing, someone who was able to share the most hidden feelings of her life. That person was Toni (Sabine Timoteo), a vagabond girl who does not seem to have any roots, just like herself.

But the film's title is "Ghosts", and ghosts appear and disappear as they wish, there is no way to retain them...

Ghosts also represent the hidden fantasies of people, strange ideas that occupy your mind and are only perceived by yourself, hiding away from all other people. Françoise (Marianne Basler), a French woman, is a victim of such ghosts. She once lost her child daughter in Berlin, who apparently had been robbed from her in a supermarket, in just one moment of inattentiveness. Now time has passed, and Françoise is back in Berlin, still looking for the missing child.

Nina could be that child, after all she has got that same scar at her ankle and the heart-shaped birthmark between her shoulder blades which seems to prove her true identity.

And Nina adopts that idea, after all she is not only in desperate need of a companion, she also longs for a mother. But in the end she is empty-handed, Toni has disappeared with a man, and her supposed mum turns out to be a sick woman. "Marie is dead," concludes Françoise's husband, and the statement could not be more disillusioning. Nina is just a "niña", a girl without a name, there is no hope for any divine fulfillment. There is no Marie in this world to accompany our lonely lives. Therefore, in the end, we see Nina all alone, about to walk along the road that has opened up before her, into a future that seems joyless and uncertain.

(from a comment by Two-Rivers, published on imdb.com)

Category:

Film & Animation

Tags:

• German
• Cinema
• Berlinale
• 2005
• Gespenster
• Ghosts
• Christian
• Petzold
• Julia
• Hummer
• Sabine
• Timoteo
• Marianne
• Basler
• Aurélien
• Recoing
• Mary
• Gauthier