Gisela (tbc)
- Run time: 1 hour 27 mins
- Language: German
- Genre: Drama
- Release date: 1st January 2005
- Starring: Anne Weinknecht, Carlo Ljubek, Stefan Rudolph
- Directed by: Isabelle Stever
Plot Synopsis
Gisela, a young married mother of one, is a supermarket cashier. When Georg, a local lout she's known since her teenage years, and his pal Paul turn up at her check-out and invite her to a party they're giving that evening, she impulsively decides to go along. Soon, without giving it much thought, she's seeing Paul for regular sessions of enthusiastic and - at least from his perspective - emotionally non-committal sex, which not only sets tongues wagging but inspires jealousy in the sociopathic Georg, who's always harboured an ill-concealed longing for Gisela. Isabelle Stever's admirably matter of fact account of the development of this decidedly unromantic triangle paints a worryingly persuasive portrait of the lives of lower-middle-class, twenty-and-thirtysomethings in today's Europe. Without resorting to melodramatic cliché or easy moral judgements, Stever subtly suggests that her characters are caught in a world circumscribed by feelings of powerlessness, passivity, conformism, frustration and boredom. The naturalistic, largely taciturn performances ring as true as the low-key realism informing both the visuals and the narrative, at times lending the film an authenticity and integrity reminiscent of the Fassbinder of Katzelmacher and Wild Game.