I’d be surprised if there were to be a better film than Kreuzweg (Stations Of The Cross) in this year’s International Competition in Berlin. German films have an unfortunate tendency to be neglected come awards time, but I would certainly suggest its young actress Lea Van Acken be at least rewarded for her delicately precise and touching performance as the eldest daughter of a strict Catholic family. Dietrich Brüggemann’s film is one of extreme formal rigor, its construction as a series of fourteen single shots made to reflect the various stages of crucifixion of Jesus Christ. In his place we find Maria, a young girl torn between the joys of a modern world she has been told is satanic and a desire to do right by her faith.
In its fiercely economical and highly amusing first scene, Father Weber (the dryly funny Florian Stettler) is giving a final Sunday school lesson to Maria and a handful of other kids before they receive the holy sacrament of Confirmation, the Catholic religion’s version of reaching adulthood. The scene operates on the simplest of set-ups, in which Father Weber poses a series of questions on the particularities of their faith, one that reveals itself exceptionally focused on the virtues of austerity, sacrifice and a disciplined resistance to earthly pleasures. The priest’s emphatic enthusiasm and jolly mood combined with the ominous sobriety of his grandiose claims (‘we are the warriors of Jesus”) offer Kreuzweg its most genuinely humorous moments. The gradual degradation of Maria’s state as she tries to navigate an impossible line between the Church’s teachings and the harmless pleasures of the world is promptly revealed to be no laughing matter.
Maria’s only wish is for her four year-old brother, whom she nurtures like a mother, to be cured of his muteness. Her resolute faith in a higher entity leads her to believe in the healing powers of personal sacrifice, an activity that progressively (and visibly) saps the energy out of the well-intentioned girl. Not only is she drained physically, but her mental well being is persistently endangered by the caustic unpredictability of her stern mother whose angry outbursts result in the systematic humiliation of the child. Maria’s only respite comes in an early scene in which she meets a boy in the school library, leaving full of hope at having made a new friend. For the most part, however, Kreuzweg is the tale of a young girl’s undeserved punishment for being educated according to a literal interpretation of the Bible (though it could just as easily be about Islam or Judaism).
The static long-take tactic is something of a staple of teutonic cinema but Kreuzweg’s application of it exhibits a coherent harmonizing of form and content, and also happens to be quite beautifully orchestrated. Indeed the camera’s rigorous immobility only serves to further underline the imprisoned state the family’s forbidding beliefs condemn them to, and its final deliverance from its paralysis is truly a moment of cathartic brilliance.
Elsewhere, Brüggemann mercifully avoids the temptation to lazily add “realism” by embracing the opportunity to compose satisfyingly precise set-ups that make the most of the available screen (at its best in scenes where the deep focus really brings everything to life). Despite their considerable length, the scenes are refreshingly economical in nature and consistently display a clear purpose, the sum of which contains not a single bit of disposable fat.
Though it may justifiably be criticized for levelling its critique at something of an easy target, it shouldn’t distract from the fact that Kreuzweg is a genuinely stirring and exquisitely executed high-concept drama. In fact, prospective viewers might find themselves surprised by the level of ambiguity Brüggemann is willing to instil into it. Here’s to hoping it finds a way to enrapture (pun intended) audiences outside of Germany.
