She is still remorseful to kill, she leans onto the joyfulness of Lynx or her other animals for hope, and once she forgets about the parameters by which the world defines humanity, her animals acquire more value than those granted humanity by birth. The woman’s self-imposed boundaries, as those imposed by everyone else onto himself or herself, are what define her as human even when surrounded by beasts. Said wall becomes irrelevant as the story develops. This woman, a city girl, must now face the elements and tough labor, yet, perhaps the most devastating enemy in her new habitat, is the immense silence and lack of human contact that coerce her to think about death.Ī 108-minute audiovisual poem is what the director has crafted with The Wall. Her journey to self-discovery is plagued with circumstances that are mostly foreign for most living in the developed world. She is now exposed to the rules of nature therefore, she slowly turns into an avid hunter and farmer, but not without a great deal of guilt, doubt, and loneliness. Soon enough, and after seeing other people on the other side of the wall who are not aware of her existence, she realizes that she is boxed in with limited supplies and no idea of what is happening.Īs her hopes of being rescued by someone in the “outside” fade away, the woman begins to forcefully develop her primeval survival instincts. As she walks through the roads followed by her loyal dog Lynx, she discovers a bizarre obstacle on her path there is a wall, transparent and unbreakable.

What could have become something bland is rescued by the subtly of the images and passages that turn it into an almost Biblical odyssey.Īfter waking up alone in a lodge in the middle of the woods in the Austrian countryside, an unnamed woman (played by Martina Gedeck of Jude Suss and The Baader Meinhof Complex) searches for her friends, an older couple that she accompanied on this trip. Almost completely dialogue-free, the journey is one of fully narrated metaphors and poetry by her as she writes to keep track of time and of her thoughts. The story deals with profound existential questions via a woman who is stranded in the woods by an invisible barrier, and who must survive a life of emotional starvation with a group of animals as her only company. Director-writer-actor Julian Roman Pölsler’s devotion for Marlen Haushofer’s novel drove him to create a film that could have easily been deemed “uncinematic”. Furthermore, such complexity of translating a text into its visual counterpart becomes more challenging when the written piece is limited in space, characters and dialogue. International Sales Agent: Starhaus Filmproduktion GMBHīook-to-film adaptations are known to be tricky affairs.

The Wall, Austria’s Submission for the Academy Award Nomination for Best Foreign Language Film.

Brave writer wand