Berlin Syndrome: Usual with an unusual twist

Cast: Teresa Palmer, Max Riemelt

Rated: 6/10

Hollywood has had many episodes of predator-prey, naive girl held-hostage stories but Berlin Syndrome is a slow, tenacious thriller that keeps you in the suspense for adequate amount of time for the film to race to an intense but expected climax.

Adapted from a 2011 suspense thriller jotted down by Melanie Joosten, this film by Cate Shortland pegs itself in an eerily deserted apartment building in a mostly snowclad Berlin with proceedings so icy that they run a chill down your spine.

An Australian photographer on a bag-packing tour of Germany ditches the group for a romantic dalliance with a dishy, young teacher in Berlin who looks and sounds normal. It is not till he draws her into his apartment and holds her hostage there as his sex slave that the film takes off.

Mostly a staccato picturisation with slow motion sequences and eerie music in the background, Berlin Syndrome may be the usual but tries to get unusual by exploring the growing relationship between the captor and his captive. Not that she does not long to be out over the months that he holds her, and often deserts her there, but she also makes a kind of a life for herself in this dingy apartment by listening to music, reading books, cooking and also spending time with the guy over Christmas gifts, flowers and personal bereavement.

All the time round, she looks for escape routes and cries herself to sleep after, of course, performing for the man in raunchy undergarments and other such mores. Why Andy was the twisted man he was is not explored or explained in the film which has patches of a strange relationship Andy has with his aged father.

We all know that in the end there will be an inevitable escape, but the director’s acumen to make you wait for the inevitable makes the film somewhat of a standout for this week.

Published in Sunday Pioneer, 30 July, 2017