Berlin Syndrome is the movie to watch as it is a film that takes indie cinema receptivity and skillfully paints them onto a mainstream picture. Berlin Syndrome casts Teresa Palmer, Max Riemelt and Matthias Habich. Speaking about the couple, the movie solely rests on the shoulders of two lead actors – Teresa Palmer, who looks and acts precisely like Kristen Stewart and Max Riemelt. They represent their characters’ vulnerabilities, fear and erraticism with utmost conviction.
The Berlin Syndrome story revolves around A young photographer, i.e., Teresa Palmer, who recently arrived from Brisbane strikes up a closeness with an English teacher, i.e., Max Riemelt in the former East Berlin. But their one-night tryst rotates into a nightmare when she found out the next morning that her ‘lover’ has locked up her in his soundproof apartment house. After various failed attempts at escape, the imprisoned steadily begins to restore feelings towards her tormentor. The action is basically confined to the single claustrophobic place, but the shifting alliance amid the unlucky victim and her psychotic abductor isn’t browbeaten as well as it could have been, as the characters grind down to its pathetically pat conclusion.
Director Cate Shortland demonstrates control although handling the scenes of sex and violence, several of her artsy accompaniments, counting repeated spurts of slow-motion, is very harsh.
Palmer fetches conviction to her role; as the dishonesty mild-mannered rival, German actor Riemelt fits the bill sufficiently. Movie Berlin Syndrome is worth a watch. The idea isn’t unique per se as a range of foreign indie films has played around the same theme, a film revolving around a trapped protagonist. On the other hand, Shortland’s nuanced explanation of her characters and their consciousness is what makes the variation. She makes you question how everything can be prejudiced; together with one’s awareness of ‘abnormal’. It is a kind of suspicious movie that will make you doubtful and confusing at times.
