The German film "Wendini" that was shortlisted at the Berlin Film Festival in 2020 is a film that I liked very much after watching it, but I couldn't say why I liked it for a while. It doesn't have subtle shots, and it even has a bit of a TV feel to it. Its narrative is not particularly novel, the story is just a one-line love story. But it does create a vibe between the lines, and that vibe is what draws me to it. Some friends said that this film felt particularly cold, perhaps because of this atmosphere. In my opinion, "Wendini" is trying to express the same thing that many movies are trying to express today: the sense of alienation that the city brings. But Wentini made this feeling more three-dimensional and more tactile, and it gave this feeling a medium, that is, water.
The film's poster also "expresses" this. The original stills with normal colors are covered by the blue-green water in the poster, with water plants and air bubbles below, and water ripples above. What connected the two seemed to be the dark green under the water.
Undine is the name of the heroine and the name of the water elf in mythology. The appearance of Wentini can be traced back to the alchemist culture of the Renaissance. A physician and alchemist named Paracelsus in Switzerland proposed that every basic element of the world (earth, water, fire, wind) has an elemental spirit corresponding to it. The elf that corresponds to water is called Nymph, Undine or some other name. Because water is considered a feminine element, they are generally considered to have a feminine appearance. There are many other branches and variants of them, and the image was quickly adopted and used by many other writers in Europe, the Danish writer Hans Christian Andersen's "The Daughter of the Sea" is one example. Undine are generally depicted as female elves living in waterfalls, streams, and lakes in forests. They sometimes fall in love with humans, but if humans betray their love, there is often a disproportionate price to pay, which is usually is his life.
The film makes no secret that the heroine is a water elf. But her daily life is no different from ordinary people.
In fact, if you think about it, her connection to water is minimal. She always wanders in a Berlin where construction is everywhere, she travels by train, she lives in a short-term rental apartment, the room is empty, there are few personal items, the only thing that stands out is a shallow wall Curtains in shades of blue, which appear brighter when the sun shines through, are reminiscent of the color of water. But even the curtains were not hers. When she left, the apartment was rented to someone else, and the curtains were handed over to someone else, along with the entire empty room, because there were no personal belongings, and the room after someone else moved in looked the same as when she was there. There is no difference, only her traces are swept away.
When she was searching for her departed boyfriend in the coffee shop, she was attracted to the men's toilet by the sound of running water, and found that it was just a faucet that she forgot to turn off. She turned the tap in disappointment, and the background music fell silent along with her fantasies.
She walked out of the toilet and was attracted by the aquarium displayed in a cafe. This is a luxurious aquarium with water plants, stones, and rockeries in it, trying to simulate a more realistic underwater environment for small fish. This is indeed the most vivid image of the underwater environment in the whole film. Even if it is a real underwater, it is far less alive than this aquarium in the film. There is a small statue of a diver in the aquarium, which later became a keepsake for Wentini and the actor Christopher.
Rather than being attracted to this aquarium, Wentini said that the aquarium was calling her. The water was whispering to her a message that only she could receive. She stood there immediately, and the male protagonist Christopher appeared out of time. At this time, the water in the water tank began to vibrate. Wentini foresaw what was about to happen, and dragged Christopher away from the aquarium. The aquarium immediately burst open, and the water and Fish and shattered glass poured onto the two people who fell. For a moment, the two people covered by water seemed to have a connection that only those who understand water can make. We later learned that Christopher's job was an industrial diver.
I tend to interpret this as an attraction between Wendini and the water in the aquarium. In order to get close to Wendini, the water broke through the glass cage to hug her, calling her back. The water in the aquarium, like Wendini, is a prisoner of modern society who has left her natural destination. Wentini no longer has a natural body of water to inhabit, and water itself has become an industrial product in the city. The most beautiful and most natural image of water in the film is just a simulated aquarium.
Wentini's job is to provide a historical account of Berlin's city miniatures in a small exhibition hall. In her tireless recitations and lectures, she occasionally mentioned Berlin as a city built on swamps. This piece of historical knowledge makes us understand why Wendine is here. But what was once habitat has been artificially diverted, cut off, or used for some other urban purpose. Wentini can only get out of the water, adapt to the arid city, watch the city continue to expand and expand itself day by day, and live an atomic life like every urbanite.
Wentini and Christopher fell in love, and an innocent smile appeared on her face. When they go diving together at the dam where Christopher works, we see the largest body of water in the film. On the surface, it was a calm river, but on the other side of the bridge there was only a towering and eerie wall. This is a dam and the river is completely cut off for industrial use. The sight of calm nature on the side with water is just an illusion, the bottom of the water will tell you the truth.
The bottom of "Wendini" is the gloomiest, darkest, most depressing bottom I've ever seen. The visibility is poor, the water is turbid, the color is a single gray-green, and the light is very dim, almost like lazy, can't see anything. The most dynamic things are aquatic plants, and there are no other small lives. The walls of the dam, the presence of machines like turbines, motors, explain why this water is dead. Only one giant catfish has ever appeared here, and this catfish is also a mythical figure like Undini. However, it was in such dark stagnant water that Wen Dini was like a shower.
It should be mentioned that, although in the film, the space where water appears as an entity is always compressed, the film still incorporates the element of water into the air as an illusion and memory. This is achieved through sound design. The sound of the city has the character of water, which is thicker, wetter, and more prone to echoes. Sounds in the air sound as if they came from water. When Wendini took the train or subway to see Christopher, the green outside the window flashed quickly, and the roar of the train was mixed with the ambient sound in the water. Incorporating the characteristics of water sound into the sound design of the film, the city has a damp smell. Although water is invisible, water is everywhere like a ghost. Water is the memory of the city in the past, but now it has become an illusion.
Later, Christopher suffered a diving accident and became a vegetable. Wentini burst into tears in front of his hospital bed, and the image of a bursting aquarium and gushing water suddenly burst into her mind. She received a message from the water, and she also clarified her destiny and curse. She calmly heads to the mansion of her disgruntled ex-boyfriend, who is exercising in the swimming pool (another man-made body of water) in the backyard of her mansion, where she silently dives into the pool and drowns her ex-boyfriend in it. Then, she walked out of the pool calmly, walked all the way to the dam where Christopher worked, and immersed herself in the water, completing her return to her destiny.
Across the city, Christopher, who was declared brain dead, screamed and woke up. In the months since, he has been looking for Wendine, but there is no trace of her either where she lives or where she works. People knew she existed, but no one cared where she went. The disappearance of a city man is so silent.
The love between Wendini and Christopher is particularly moving because of the coldness of the city. Either of them is missing some kind of connection and is looking for connection. Wentini is looking for someone or a love, and she is stripped of her connection to water. Christopher is a low-income ordinary person, and the city he built did not give him much in return, but he was almost fascinated by the history of Berlin, and he tried to connect with this historic city by constantly absorbing historical knowledge. Because they have very little, both of them cherish this love very much. This hard-earned connection was one of the few real, warm things in their lives. They are happy like children when they are in love.
And Wentini, stripped of the phantoms and myths on her body, she is every lonely ordinary person in the city, an atom ignored by people, a mermaid of the sewers, and Haimei who disappeared in "Burning". Beneath her grim exterior, she, like everyone, seeks some kind of connection. In many cases, one's own existence can only be proved by making a connection.
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