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| Images Courtesy Heartwake Films |
Original films can be challenging to digest, leaving us looking for ways to familiar ways to describe them. If a film is similar to some well-known director but from a different country, it could be helpful to say, ‘This is like a French version of a Michael Bay film.’
We Might As Well Be Dead is a German-Romanian film from first-time director Natalia Sinelnkova that could be called a German version of a Yorgos Lanthimos film. This comparison could help to explain the dry humor and awkward humanity of the film, but it could also flatten the film and prevent it from being its own thing.
The film follows security guard Anna Wilczynska (Ioana Iacob) as she tries to maintain order and decorum in a secluded apartment building that remains civilized after some possible fall of society. The post-apocalypse here is low-key, with the only signs of it being references to living ‘out there on your own’ and people walking outside the apartment complex with crude weapons.
Anna shows vacant apartments to potential visitors, interviews them, and then makes recommendations to a building committee. She also tries to de-escalate situations and remind residents to avoid being ‘unsocial, immoral, or inconsiderate.’ The utopia of the apartment building creates some humor in the film, which is where comparisons to Lanthimos films come from.
But Dead does its own thing by focusing less on intentionally awkward moments and more on satire and bursting this utopia’s bubble. In spite of its brief runtime, it will be too slow-paced and not quite funny enough for some. But this is a treat for anyone who enjoys seeing societal foundations crack under the weight of reality and humanity.
One ‘native’ resident (one who has lived there for longer than 15 years) loses his dog, panics, makes flyers, and disrupts an annual concert and dance performance put on by other residents. His outburst of trying to get help incurs a punishment of having to sleep outside of the building somewhere on the grounds of the complex for a night. And thus begins the unraveling of the community in the building.
All residents try to be useful in some way in order to not be evicted, though most people have secrets they try to hide. Security guard Anna, who is Polish and Jewish, tries to keep secret that her daughter Iris locked herself in their bathroom. Iris feels responsible for the missing dog after convincing herself that she has ‘the evil eye’ and can make things happen from inside the bathroom.
Events escalate as the viewer would expect, but they’re elevated by stellar cinematography that highlights the slightly antiquated and antiseptic apartment building. The paranoia, mob mentality, and authoritarian building committee all purposefully heighten the tension and unease as Anna struggles to not get evicted.
The metaphors and satire are pretty straightforward here, but they’re also precise. We Might As Well Be Dead is an artful and controlled dystopian film that uses elements from familiar genres to do its own thing.
We Might As Well Be Dead is streaming on Kanopy.
- Eric Beach