Vivere (2007)
On Christmas Eve, Francesca sets out for Rotterdam in order to find her little sister, who has run off with her musician boyfriend. On the way, she picks up Gerlinde, a heartbroken older woman at the end of her rope.
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The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.
A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.
The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.
I saw this last month at the Palm Springs International Film Festival. Director/writer Angelina Maccarone seems to include a lesbian theme in all her films as she does here in this tale of three women on the run and in a strange city on Christmas Day. Francesca (Esther Zimmering) is a taxi driver who is acting as the mother to her teenage sister Antoineta (Kim Schnitzer) as they share an apartment with their Italian born father Enrico (Aykut Kayack) in the absence of their German born mother who apparently has run off and abandoned the family. Francesca likes the freedom and Independence of being a taxi driver and being in charge and behind the wheel but feels stifled in her home life and has no social life. Antoinetta is a typical rebellious teenager who has an older boyfriend in a popular local rock band on the brink of making it big. On Christmas Eve Antoinetta runs off to Rotterdam to join up with her boyfriend Snickers (Egbert Jan Weeber). Francesca finds out about her sister's plans and takes her cab to Rotterdam to bring her back. Francesca picks up a confused older woman on her way there and we learn Gerlinde (Hannelore Elsner) has been in a car accident and wrecked her car after an emotional Christmas Eve confrontation with her married lesbian lover. The story is told from three different narrative viewpoints that overlap and retell certain scenes that bring the overall story together. It's an art-house film and is at times confusing because of the many directions you think the film is going to take. As a result the story becomes a little implausible. Nice cinematography from Judith Kaufman. Veteran German film and television actress Elsner is excellent and it's hard to imagine that this woman in her mid 60's has had a film career spanning almost 50 years. Simmering and Schnitzer deliver solid performances. I would give this a 6.5 out of 10.