Just take one small step each day

Continuing my trip up The Guardian's Top 50 Movies of 2020...

#30 : Der Boden unter den Füßen (The Ground Beneath My Feet)

Unsettling Austrian study of an ambitious corporate executive-type whose life begins to unravel after her mentally ill sister attempts to kill herself, resulting in a plethora of threatening phone calls

Our first Austrian film on the list and it's hard to know quite what to expect from the description above - "unsettling" is an odd word to use because things affect different people in such different ways, so I'll be interested to see how unsettled I am.

And we're quickly introduced to Lola who is definitely going places at work but she has a sister, Conny, who's not doing so well and needs a bit of attention - so obviously the answer is to try and hide this from work (and from her lover at work as well).  Sigh - do people not realise that never ends well and there are decent support mechanisms in place these days?  People care, you know!  It also somewhat stretches the limits of credulity when she excuses herself from a meeting and flies to another country to go and see her sister.

And then, basically, she gets a load of phone calls.  Apparently from her sister, but you know they're not really - but quite who they are coming from isn't clear.    And I'd have to say, the longer it went on, the more I found myself thinking "they're really going to have to go some to make this make any sense at all".  Some other stuff then happens which is not overly related, but it's obvious it's all getting a bit much for poor Lola.

And this continues on until I realised we were 15 minutes from the end of the film and I still had no idea what (if anything) was going to happen or be explained!  Oh - some reasonably graphic lesbian sex - that wasn't entirely what I was expecting.  And then something that I won't go into, but you'd have to say it doesn't strike you as the most implausible outcome given some of the dubious life choices that have been made up to this point.  And then there's just 5 minutes to go - it's not going to explain any of it, is it?!?  Nope - it doesn't.  So off to the internet we go to see exactly what I've missed - and a fat lot of use that was!  It's one of those films that just ends - you have to make your own mind up as to how much of it was "real" (and yes, I know it's not a documentary!)

It's an interesting concept to play the success of one sister off against the troubles of the other one and to draw on the guilt and frustration involved on both side.  The use of the "not believing the paranoid person" trope was a bit cliched, but it still worked reasonably effectively, although less so in hindsight since it turns out the paranoid person was, in fact, just paranoid   There's also an interesting theme running through the film where she wakes up suddenly and you're not entirely sure where she is - however it's never expanded any more than that.  For me, the addition of the phone calls detracts from the film rather than enhancing it, distracting you from what is an all-to-plausible situation with some ultimately disappointing intrigue.

The whole film has a very 80s feel to it - the sister even has a tiny telly and a VCR in her apartment, although I'm guessing this is to more to contrast their lives because they all have very un80s mobile phones.  It's also shot in a very "no frills" manner - the camera generally concentrates on the person/people of interest who are often doing very little that you'd consider particularly worthy of attention and the settings are very unglamorous being mostly hotels, offices, airports and hospitals.  In a lot of ways, this isn't a "good" film but in a lot of other ways it's a much better film that a lot of the "good" films we've had before - I'd struggle to say I was fully engaged throughout, but I was certainly intrigued.  However, I was expecting more of an ending than it provided - even the thing that I'm not talking about doesn't actually explain anything.  And going back to my first paragraph - was I unsettled by it?  Well, no, not really.

One final point that I did like - the slogan for the gym she spends an inordinate amount of time in (whilst being the only person in there) is "Fitter. Happier. More Productive".  A sly nod to all you Radiohead fans out there.

At the time of writing the film is available to rent on a lot of the various channels but I'd struggle to wholeheartedly recommend it since whilst I found it diverting, it was ultimately disappointing given its lack of even an attempt to provide a conclusion.

#31 - Another stylish load of old nonsense
#29 - A challenging watch with an incredible lead performance