Sleep (2020) - full transcript

Hello, I'm novelist and critic
Kim Newman, and I'm here with...

Author and filmmaker Sean hogan.

And what are we here to talk about?

We're here to talk about sleep,
the new German horror film.

I mean, I suppose it is a horror film,
but it's a number of other things as well.

Yeah, I think it's...

I mean, and I should footnote a bit

that it's rather unusual for us
to be doing a commentary on a new film.

It's also a new film
by a first-time feature filmmaker/director.

So we can't fall back on,

"and here's what they did
in their earlier work,"



and make connections
with the auteur vision.

It's a film in and of itself.

I think it does relate to some other films
in interesting ways we can talk about,

but we're working a bit in a vacuum

compared to our usual commentary.

We've got lots of cultural detail
to draw on.

So, in a way, we're on a journey
with the listener.

Yes!

We're not positioning ourselves,
I should say, as experts

in any way on this particular film or...

No, but it's an interesting film
that warrants discussion

and so, hopefully,
we can manage that.

I hope that we can elucidate a bit.

And it seems to be a film
that's not had a great deal of exposure



in this country previously.

No. I...

I had heard of it,
but I had not seen it before.

It came up as a possibility
we should do this.

You generally see, obviously,
more of the new releases than I do

so I wondered
whether you had seen it previously.

It had not quite crossed my radar.

I mean...

But then again,

don't you love it when you get a film
you've never heard of?

It does all kinds
of weird, surprising things.

And the next Michael Venus film
I'm now really looking foward to.

I hope he doesn't take as long about it

because, ahhough
he's a first-time filmmaker,

he's not a young filmmaker.

He's in his mid-40s.

He's directed a couple
of short films before.

And this is a very assured film formally.
It's a very controlled film.

It's also a grown-up film,
I have to say, which...

I don't think
that's a particularly risky strategy

in, as it were, continental horror,

but it's not what American horror
has tended to be,

aimed at teenagers.

I think that the European tradition...

And this film is steeped
in the brothers grimm

and all kinds of...
And e.T.A. Hoffmann

and other German gothic images,
as always.

Even though the brothers grimm,
in theory, wrote for children.

Yeah!

Yeah, it's interesting, in fact,
that there's almost a bit of a feint

in the opening.

We assume that the mother,
played by Sandra hiiller,

who is the most familiar actor
from her part in Toni erdmann,

which was an international hit,

is going to be the lead character,
but no, she goes to sleep!

And it's the daughter,
the younger woman,

who receives the sins
of several generations passed down,

which, again,
is a particularly German theme.

The director has talked about this

as being his dark version
of a heimat movie.

Do you want to explain a bit
what a heimat movie actually is?

So, I'm certainly not an expert
on heimat movies,

but, as I understand them,
they were a genre

that was very popular in the '50s

and presented kind of idyllic visions
of small German towns

and were very romanticized pictures
of the German rural life.

And it was something

that traditionally newer generations
of filmmakers have reacted against.

In new German cinema
there are several anti-heimat films.

In fact, the famous TV mini-series
heimat by Edgar reitz,

which is actually one of those
astonishingly influential works,

invented binge-watching
in the early 1980s.

Before there was a medium
that was suited to heimat,

heimat was disguised
as a TV series in Germany

and a film in britain.

And it had... there were
several follow-ups to that.

And I think that that meant
that outside Germany

we got a sense
of what heimat film was.

And Michael haneke has had a go
at heimat film as well.

The white ribbon is very much
an anti-heimat film.

But I think
what's interesting about this is...

A lot of those films
tend to be quite dour

in their rejection
of that image of Germany

whereas this is quite funny
in a creepy sort of way.

We'll obviously get to that point
later in the film, but...

It exposes the rot in the rural village,

but then proceeds to poke fun at it.

Yeah, it's...

In some ways it reminded me
of the British movie hot fuzz

by Edgar Wright,

which is much more parodic
than this is

but also has the idea that
what you need to be terrified of

is what ray Davies called

"the village green
preservation society".

- Those are your actual monsters.
- Yes!

We do get that in this.

There's a creepiness to small-town life.

I suppose Stephen King is
kind of a heimat writer in america

in the way that he reacts
to Thornton Wilder's our town

or grace metalious' Peyton place,

with Salem's lot or it,

which explicitly relate
to the earlier works.

I think this does explicitly relate
to a great German tradition,

something that I suspect
is common on German television.

It's... there's a sort
of soap-opera feel to it,

although we're in a particular slice of...

It's actually former east Germany
here, isn't it?

So it's got several layers
of totalitarianism to kick against.

Jessica hausner made a film
called hotel a few years back

that actually had
a slightly similar feel to this.

That's also about a hotel at the very edge
of the deep, dark teutonic woods.

That's a very German theme, isn't it?

Possibly even more enigmatic
than this is,

which does at least clear up
most of its mysteries in the end.

You have a mystery that is solved.

And this stretch of it
is almost Italian giallo

in terms of its setup, isn't it?

It's dreams rather than
something glimpsed or a clue,

but it's still...

Those children's pictures,
the sketchy visions,

and the thing that happened
that nobody has quite understood

and that our outsider protagonist realizes

is intimately involved
with their own origin.

Yes.

Actually, also underlying
the structure of all this

is h.P. Lovecraft's
the shadow over innsmouth,

where the outsider realizes
he's not an outsider.

Not an outsider. Yes, yeah.

That this is where he comes from.

And also, as you were saying,

in the way it seems
to position her as a protagonist,

it's almost a little bit of psycho

in that she goes to this strange hotel
and she doesn't die,

but she's basically sidelined
for most of the rest of the movie.

Which, I mean, the first time I saw it
I found very disorienting,

because I had assumed
that the younger girl,

who was not an actress
I was familiar with,

I assumed she was going
to be a secondary part

rather than, as it turns out, the character
that we spend all our time with.

And this moment, I think, signals
towards another big influence on this,

which would be lynch,
and specifically twin peaks.

Which also includes a motel
at the very edge of the deep, dark woods.

But no, yeah...

Hogs are the big...

The monster animal or the totemic animal,
the absurd animal here.

Yes.

Which, again, given that Germany
is famous for its sausages...

Strikes me as being a knowing...

There's also a lot of quite grotesque
sausage-eating in this film later on.

Yeah.

I don't... do Germans know
that sausage-eater is a demeaning term?

I think it goes back
to the first world war, but it's...

But it does seem to crop up here.
It's almost like... yeah.

But in terms of what you were saying
about this being a grown-up horror movie,

I suppose it makes sense
lynch being such an overt influence on it

in the sense that, you know,
both you and I share the opinion

that lynch is probably one
of the foremost horror directors

of the last 30 years or so,

but he's not often categorized as such.

He's certainly, I would say,
the most influential on horror.

And another...

It's not even a director,
but there is a single film

from...

From 2015

that, I think, has turned out to be

an all-pervasive influence
on subsequent horror

and Michael Venus cites it.

It's Rodney ascher's documentary
the nightmare about sleep paralysis

and the vision

that so many sleepers or half-sleepers
claim to have seen.

It's the inspiration
of a nightmare on elm street.

It's the man with the hat in the room.

But that particular film, which examines
that phenomenon all around the world

by interviewing a lot of sufferers,
or people who have had this experience,

this common...

It's not even a paranormal experience,

but it's something that seems
to pervade all culture...

A sort of shared unconscious.

And people have talked about it
in jungian terms

and come up with all kinds
of other rationalizations for it.

But that particular film seemed
to have crystallized so much material

that immediately there have been,
like, a dozen creepypasta-type movies.

Slender man, the bye bye man,
all these movies that tap into that.

And this doesn't go
quite as full-on into that theme

as some of the other movies
that played with it as an idea,

but it certainly seems to be floating
around in the background.

I mean, sleep is a strange title
for a horror film.

It's an Andy warhol title, isn't it?

Not that anybody has ever
actually watched that film.

It's one of those, as with a lot
of those Andy warhol films,

it's essentially a joke,
wallpaper that moves if you look at it,

not a narrative feature
you're supposed to sit there and absorb.

But... yeah.

Here we're back with giallo stuff.

Yes, now established
as our lead protagonist.

She's even wearing a yellowjacket.

The notion of the bad place
you see in dreams

and then find in reality,

that's almost one of the oldest
ghost stories or fairy tales.

There are precedents
in horror movies, aren't there?

Lucio fulci's the psychic
does that for instance.

But it's not something
that's done very often.

And here it's done
in a rather odd, naturalistic way

because she sees a place
that somebody else has seen in dreams

rather than she has.

She's really just trying to find out
what happened to her mother.

She is our detective,
our narrative hook, Mona.

Gro swantje kohlhof,
who's been in a couple of things,

but this is her first real lead.

I saw her in an earlier German film
called nothing bad can happen,

which is... she's much younger.
She was probably about 15 in that.

It was a supporting role.
She plays the daughter of this family,

but similarly has to bear witness

to a lot of strange, weird, bizarre things
going on in front of her.

Yeah. I think
she's very effective in this.

And I really like
the relationships she forms

with the other misfit or younger people
in this isolated community.

But again, because
they're all slightly oddballs,

she has to be the straight man,
but she does it very well.

And here...

Yes! It has to be a knowing moment
where the whole bar turns round.

Yeah...

It's like, it was done
in American werewolf in London

as a reference to the fact
that it happens.

It's usually westerns

where a stranger walks into the bar
and everybody shuts up.

But since American werewolf
it's become a trope,

I think, or a running joke.

It's like you can't even say
that it's a cliche.

It's just a signifier,
a thing that happens.

But, you know, again,
in that sort of lynchian way

this film isn't afraid to have
moments of bizarre humor

in amongst the weirdness.

And the fact that our villains
are sort of sitcom absurd as well.

I think that differentiates it
from some other films

that have had similar themes.

I think of the Polish film demon,

which is another
"don't mention the war" horror film.

That seems much more wrapped up
in the specific horrors

and injustices of the 20th century.

Here they're generalized horrors.

It's almost like... although
there are jokes about Nazis here.

Notably, there are no jokes
about communists,

which may be too recent
and too painful, I don't know.

But also, because
it's an ancient forest,

you have a feeling that whatever's
wrong here has been wrong well before.

And that's the notion
of an anti-heimat film, isn't it?

The notion of an heimat film is
there's something rich and good

and strong and powerful.

It's like "tomorrow belongs to me"
in cabaret.

That vision of the German countryside
as nurturing and friendly and folksy.

This is the German countryside as chilly
and unwelcoming and dangerous.

The lynch vision
of the insects under the lawn.

Yeah.

And it's another
empty-hotel story, isn't it?

Yeah. I mean, again,
another obvious influence on it

would be the shining
in that sense.

Another grown-up horror movie
that uses the bland eeriness

of these kind of transitional
empty spaces.

But so many urban legends
are about hotels.

Which, I mean...
Not so much the shining,

but in king's later one...
Was it room 1407?

I can never get the number right.

Which almost collects urban legends
about hotels and hotel rooms.

- Yes.
- Yeah.

It's an anthology of those.

And Stephen King, I would assume,
has probably stayed

in quite a lot of hotels in his life.

Yeah. It's a thing you learn
in the creative business when you're...

Particularly in america
where you have to go on the road.

I always like
these puzzling-together sequences.

Yeah, well, it's...

It's nice when you watch
characters figure things out

and yet you're not being spoon-fed
the plot along with it,

you have to sort of figure it out
along with them.

And now we're in a creepy supermarket.

I mean, again, it's a small town,
but it's weirdly empty.

Yeah.

The hotel is off season
so there's a reason why that's empty,

but you'd expect the town
to have some...

We saw a whole bunch of people
in a pub.

But that seems to...

I think that's the last time, until we get
the gathering later in the film,

that we actually see...

And, in fact, this is a film
that has no sense of community.

You never see
where these people live.

I mean, I assume
that the family live at the hotel.

I don't even know if they do,
because they've got that bar,

which seems to be separate
from the hotel.

- Mona.
- Hi, Mona. That's christoph.

We 7! See each other tomorrow.

Bye, you two.

- Are you staying at the hotel?
- Yes.

What do I owe you, then?

It's on the house.

Thanks.

I mean, one wonders
if it was a budgetary thing

that they had this hotel as a location
but couldn't afford to put guests in it.

Yeah. It feels more...

There's a nice bit of set-up there
with the two doors.

You know that's chekhovian.

But there's something quite unnerving
about the idea

of staying in this huge empty hotel
all on your own.

Yeah.

And yet, I mean, there are various places
around the world that that can happen.

I've had it happen to me.

And actually,
it's probably something that is...

It seems surreal,
but it's actually observed.

Because of various economic reversals
in the last couple of decades

you have a lot of places
that were built during the boom

and then come online during the bust.

I remember particularly going
to a film-related event in Dublin

and they'd had that.

They'd built a whole business area
that had not thrived.

And they put me
in one of those hotels.

Presumably it was dirt cheap,
but it was exactly like this.

You were in this big, modern,
not ultra-luxurious but comfortable place

with nobody else.

And you would go out
to get a cup of coffee

and find that,
instead of actually having coffee bars,

they had empty shops
with big pictures of coffee bars

as an advert to try and get people
to put their businesses there

that hadn't happened
because the recession had hit.

And so you have these places.

I found this one in Ireland,

but I am sure
they're all over the world.

I have stayed in large empty hotels
in the former east Germany as well.

But here we just got into...

It's not quite a dream sequence,

but it's a moment where it's a bit
more colorful and strange and surreal.

It is... is that a dream
or is that a vision?

I think... well, as the dreams
progress in the film,

it becomes clear
that they're a separate reality almost.

It's not quite...
They're not quite a dream.

And we get our first glimpse
of what we take to be the monster

and then it obviously turns out
to be something quite different.

One other film filmmakers talk
about being an influence

was kill, baby... kill!

Yes, which is an interesting one
because that's another film

that turns out to be amazingly influential
on all kinds of people,

like fellini and scorsese.

When the last temptation of Christ
came out,

I remember scorsese was interviewed
and someone said,

"in your depiction of the devil
as a little girl"

"were you thinking
of fellini's Toby dammit?"

He says, "no, I was thinking
of Mario bava's kill baby... kill!"

Which is where fellini got it from.

But, yeah...

And it's not so much just that...
I mean, the...

The weird figure of the child,
who's not quite a child here,

that also is big empty-spaces...

Although I think
that in kill baby... kill!

The gimmick that's used there
is the same gimmick

that Vincenzo natali used in cube,
which is that if you change the lighting,

you can just have one set
that represents almost everything.

And there, there's a chase
through identical rooms, isn't there?

Of doppelgangers, whatever.

That's a really disturbing thing about
the guy who's buckled in bed at night.

Yeah. Again, presented
in a very matter-of-fact way.

You sort of think,
"what's really going on here?"

But he's coping, actually,
with a supernatural curse,

but it sort of seems a bit like a kink
at first rather than...

It's in fact... and I don't know whether
we're supposed to admire this guy,

but after the other three people
on the monster's death list

have been checked off,

he has come up
with an effective strategy.

He's very practical
about dealing with the curse.

Resisting the curse.

If this were
a nightmare on elm street film

you'd admire him,
no matter how guilty he was.

And this struck me
as a very sort of twin peaks scene

with this eccentric hotel.

Yes. The weird maid.

She has to remain
completely stony-faced

while this other girl
is imitating a boar.

Yes.

And do you think
this woman is doing an act

or has she really dreamed of a boar?

Does everybody dream of a boar
in this place?

You know what, in that long shot

I think I can see kohlhof's face
just starting to corpse.

Just before the out
there's that little twitch.

And I suspect
there are several takes where...

Strangely, I think one of the reasons
that's a disturbing moment

is that you could see both faces.

It's a very underrated ability
as an actor,

not to laugh, to stay in the moment

while someone else
is doing something absolutely crazy.

I always admire the supporting cast
of Dr. Strangelove

for standing around while Peter sellers
is doing the funniest shtick in the world

as if it was really serious.

On the flip side of that,
Peter sellers always blamed

the fact that he didn't win
the best actor Oscar for being there

on the fact that they showed him
corpsing over the end credits

and he thought that meant
that people didn't take it seriously.

Oh, well...

But this kind of...

Although, as I say,
lynch was doing this 30 years ago,

this mixture of eccentric humor
and dreamlike horror

still feels quite distinctive.

There's not too many other films
that do it.

Yeah.

It may well be because
it's genuinely difficult to pull off.

I mean, I suspect this is not a film
that a director younger could have made.

I think you need to have
some life experiences, some maturity

and some control
to get away with this.

And we've seen other films
that have tried to do this.

Even this pan, it's sort of...
It's almost Addams family, isn't it?

We referred in another
commentary track recently to...

There's that character
in Disney's beauty and the beast

who uses antlers
in all his interior decoration,

and that's something
that is a signifier of wrongness.

Yes.

And... yet, I don't know whether...

In britain, the hunting issue
is something that is really divisive.

There are basically two armed camps
who will never reach any...

I don't know that even
the German Greens have any particular...

In Germany, and indeed in France,
boar hunting is just one of those things

that is absolutely central to country life.

And, yeah, woe betide any city slicker

who comes along
with animal rights leaflets or whatever.

Here, there is a sense that the people
who represent those sorts of country values

are the baddies.

But not in the way that they would be
in a British film or even an American film,

where you have
the Texas chainsaw massacre

where there's lots of bones and stuff
hanging around.

Here, there's still a closeness to nature.

Yeah. I mean, it's a way of life.

Yeah.

And it's almost like the reason
these people are sinners, as it were,

is that they fall away
from that way of life,

not that they embrace it too much.

I mean, it's not...

The thing you occasionally get in...

I suppose, British films do folk horror
and this isn't really that, is it?

It's almost like they accept.

And these really matter-of-fact visions

are very disturbing, but also...

They break up the notion
of what ghostliness is or what dreams are.

At this point, the film is beyond

the easy division
between waking and sleep.

And this creepy guy turning up...

We always wonder if he's going
to look to the guy hanging

and it's going to be a fake, a joke.

But no, it was an apparition.

I don't think we know whether
everybody else sees the apparitions.

Yeah, whether it's something
to do with her lineage

that she has some, you know...
Is able to discern this more clearly.

While she was upstairs,
they didn't hang that boar on the wall.

They just stood there.

But again, the ghosts in this
feel somewhat like the shining

in that they're presented
in these quite brightly lit tableaux.

And here we have the three boars' heads
linked to the three suicides.

Yeah.

And the survivor actually almost seems
to commemorate them.

And they've lived for years
with the dead guys on the wall

and they're now replacing them
with the dead animals.

And this is the backstory,
which is salted in very subtly.

I mean, I do quite like the way that,
by the end of this film,

we do know what has happened.

Without it being overexplained.

And here we have
the sort of ruins in the woods,

which are not really explored in this.
I suspect they're just on the location.

Yeah, I think there's mention of them
being the old armaments factory,

which again, sort of ties in

with the backstory
of the generations of women.

But it's there as a kind of signifier
of something

but isn't really, you know,
laid on too heavily.

Do you think there's a possibility that
the mother is dreaming this whole story?

There is also that, yeah!

It's like we're not going
to get closure on that.

There's a little
evil dead camera move there.

I should say...
It's sort of extraneous to the film

but maybe explains some of the way
we're thinking about it.

In this session we have just done
a commentary track

for pupi avati's film zeder,

which is not something you would have
thought of in connection with this film,

but we're seeing
all kinds of threads between them.

They are both what I think of
as "don't mention the war" horror films.

Zeder, an Italian film, is overshadowed
by this great abandoned fascist structure

and here it's the ruins
of totalitarian regimes

that people are living with.

I mean, you know,
it's almost a commonplace now

that people obsess over.

What about the villagers
who lived near death camps?

What did they think was going on

and how much did they know?

And this isn't as on the nose as that.

I mean, demon is, isn't it?

The sin at the heart of demon
is explicitly a world war two story.

This is almost like the rot
in the community or in the country

has expressed itself over the years
in many ways.

But the actual story we've got here,
although it is about a guest worker,

isn't it, the Polish worker, who's...

Yes, the so-called monster
is the daughter of the Polish worker,

who we assume was raped by a Nazi.

Yes.

Or probably more like
raped by a communist, isn't it?

- I mean, because of the dates.
- I think they say German.

Possibly, maybe. Yeah, maybe.

- I thought it dated back to the war...
- The war ended in 1945.

Yeah.

Yeah, I need to sit down
and work out the generations properly.

Yeah, but it's almost...

When I first saw this, I had a moment
of trying to work it out and thinking,

"is this actually set in, like, 1992
or whatever?"

But no, you see mobile phones
at some point, don't you?

There are a few signifiers
of the present day.

I think. I mean,
I may well be misreading the cues,

but I think we are...

Yeah, it's called "wellness".
That's a contemporary reference.

One of the things I liked about this scene
is he starts dropping in

contemporary references
like "wellness" and "co-working"

and all of a sudden
they sound quite sinister.

This is the scene where you start to get
a sense of him being not quite right.

Yeah.

I mean, it's not too much of a revelation
to say he's the big baddie in this film.

Yes.

"Homeland return.
I coined that phrase."

Yeah.

And then we have a shot of him
where it sinks in

that maybe that's a really bad thing.

Yeah.

But I'm wondering,
is the heroine a little too young

to pick up on how sinister that is?

Because part of the subtext of this story

is parents not telling their children
what's been going on.

She talks about how her mother has
been troubled and difficult all her life

and has not communicated.

And so, she's having to put together
a personal backstory.

But on the same level,

it's like the whole country has failed
to tell rising generations

what really happened.

Although, actually,
it's mandatory in German education

that they do recognize the country's past.

But it's... you know,
it's actually franzi, the other girl,

who sort of deals with the Nazis,
as it were,

because she has to live
with them every day,

whereas, you know,
Mona has no awareness of this.

Yeah.

We get the sense that she's seeing
something before we see it,

but, again, played very matter-of-factly.
She's not reacting.

The problem is, I mean...

From our point of view,

British homes or apartment complexes
don't have laundry rooms

so our only reference points
to laundry rooms are horror films,

because it's always
where bad things happen.

They're always dark
and in the basement.

Yeah, it's never a good
or a happy place.

Yeah. I'm sure there must be
some apartment-living sitcom

where the housewives get together
in the laundry room

and chat and have a good time,

but that's not the image of them
that I've taken away

from my lifetime
of watching horror pictures.

Yeah.

I notice Venus likes
these slow, creepy track-in shots,

which is very kubrickian.

But they're always...
It's a visual form of underlining,

but it also somehow
puts you on edge.

Oh, yeah, absolutely.

Do you think there's still a place

for the grown-up horror movie anymore?

Do you think it will ever come back
with the force that it...?

In recent years there's been
a kind of contrived artificial debate

about elevated horror,
which I think is a foolish term.

I mean, what it means is good horror.

And, yeah,
we've always liked good horror.

Yeah.

It's the val lewton approach to horror.

And it strikes me that it's something
that pretty much always works.

And certainly, I would say,
yeah, maybe...

We are talking in late 2021,

so after two very, very unusual years
in the cinema,

where, actually, for a period
it was almost like horror movies

were the only things
that were regularly coming out.

While the studios held back
their big-franchise tent Poles,

we were still getting the regular diet
of good creepy horror pictures.

And streaming services seem
to be doing a lot of adult-skewing horror.

Even slow-burning horror
seems to be something

that's made a bit of a comeback
in recent years.

I think what it is,
it's the kind of horror

that general audiences
can almost be seduced into watching.

People who wouldn't go and see
even, like, a conjuring sequel

will watch something
that's couched as a creepy thriller

with supernatural overtones.

I think if this were a British
or an American project,

it would be a four-part TV
or streaming show, wouldn't it?

I actually think that this particular story
is perfectly suited to its feature length.

- Oh, no, absolutely.
- It feels the right length to me.

And mostly because
it's the kind of mystery horror

that's so focused
on our central character, on Mona.

Yeah.

I think if it were conceived
as a streaming serial,

like, say, the German show dark,

which is another
deep-in-the-woods show,

it would be an ensemble piece.

You'd have much more about
everybody else in this community

and probably dramatized flashbacks.

I mean, we get those
but only in fragmentary form,

but not, as it were, an entire thread
of dramatized flashbacks

leading up to the tragedy
that by now we have worked out.

Yes.

There's still a lot to be said for telling
a compressed story in an hour and a half.

I worry that maybe because that's been
the default of cinema for so long,

it's one of the things we might lose.

It seems strange
that this kind of storytelling

is migrating to, as it were, other media.

And even theatrical horror films
are getting longer

or more franchised or it's like...

Every year you get something
like the night house, don't you?

Something comes along that is...

What I always think is "one and done".
It's not a franchise.

It tells its story, it gets it over with,
you come home terrified.

And that's...

Although this, as a German film,

it doesn't seem to feel obliged
to fit into a genre pigeonhole

the way even upscale
British or American horror...

Yeah. There are a couple
ofjump scares in this,

and there's one or two
really good ones,

but they feel earned, don't they,
rather than posed,

rather than a producer's note
saying, "yeah, we're 20 minutes in."

"We got to jump now."

And, you know, the so-called monster

or the woman that's being positioned
as the monster,

although eventually it's revealed,
there's more to the story than that.

But it never... she's presented
as being odd and unsettling, perhaps,

but never in a, like,
obviously scary kind of way.

She's not even Japanese ghost scary.

And actually, the basic narrative of this
is very like a grudge film, isn't it?

Yes, absolutely.

Something wrong was done
to a woman many years ago

and she's still here
and she's never gonna let it drop.

But that's also the basic
witch-in-the-woods story, isn't it?

Everybody forgets something
terribly wrong was done to medusa

before she became a monster.

Our icons of female monstrousness
usually have these tragic backstories,

almost invariably involving
a horrible betrayal by a man,

aflhough_.

And often with the compliance
of an older woman.

That's how we get
our female monsters.

What's interesting about this

is that it shows how the Nazis
appropriate that myth

and turn it into something...

You know, a scary story
about why you should be afraid of women.

It shows how
that sort of myth-making works.

And I always like it when horror films
address the underlying myths

and start asking the questions.

And the risk there is
you take away the scariness.

Yes.

Because here the threat does extend
to essentially innocent people,

but our major victims are people
that we would necessarily tag as bad.

Yeah.

And, in fact, they don't even try and make
the three guys who killed themselves

rounded, semi-sympathetic characters.

They're just people who did a bad thing
and they're dead.

But we're still having to deal
with the consequences of the bad thing.

Yes, and when you actually see them
in the flesh, as it were, in the movie,

they have got boar masks on,
they're these animals.

And here we've gone from...

It's another lynchian thing, isn't it,
the disturbing nightclub sequence

into the, "what?".

And this, I think, is something
that I first noticed in Japanese films,

the idea that female contortionists
are scary.

I know that the performers
who played these roles...

The actress is agata buzek,
who's got a clutch of things...

But I wonder if she was cast in this
because she could do that.

And, in fact, all of the actors do this,
it's not just...

Although she's the one that moves
most distinctively, but yeah.

There are actually some performers
who now specialize

in doing roles like this.

But we are, I don't know, 20 years
into the "contortionists are scary"...

So we have the...

Bonnie Aarons
is the American woman,

but there's also Javier botet,

who is kind of the master
of those roles.

And our good friend James swanton
is picking up...

Hopefully the new generation.

Yeah.

And grace ker, who we work with
on stage, does this stuff too.

Yeah, it's a very distinct set of skills.

Yes!

And somehow it's creepier
than the cg! Effects that they replaced.

Oh, yeah, absolutely.

Interesting how this appears
to be Mona's dream,

and yet we're cutting back and forth
with this and the mother.

There is the possibility
that the mother is...

I mean... and in fact,
that's also her grandmother.

Yes.

So it's a dream being passed
down the female line with a...

I suppose the eroticism
is a misdirection.

Although, even though
that's a full-contact nude scene,

it's not particularly sexy.

It's more like watching
those strange pieces of modern dance.

It's designed to disturb
rather than arouse.

And this poor woman.

Again, it's sort of interesting

that when that pair of characters
are introduced in the film,

she seems to be being presented
as this bitchy older woman

and he's the affable nice guy.

And then it turns out
she's lived this horrendous existence.

That's right.
She has been fuming all these years.

Yeah.

Yeah, and the actress
is Marion kracht,

who was in lady Dracula in 1977.

Which I'm sure you're familiar with!

It's an obscure vampire comedy
from the '70s with...

Evelyne kraft is the lead
and Stephen Boyd plays Dracula, but...

Marion kracht is...

I mean, actually,
she's very striking in it

and she's worked steadily ever since.

This, I have to say, is the film
I'm going to remember her for, actually.

There's this moment
where she's deciding

whether to let him
finally strangle himself.

Yes, that's right, yeah.

You kind of think, "what is she doing?",

and then obviously it becomes clear
why she hesitates.

Yeah.

She's been having to do this
every night for decades.

And then...

But I suppose we do think,
"she could have just let him kill himself."

It's like she has been
prevailed a lot on to delay this.

And this is another odd bit.

Yeah.

It's one of those sort of fakeouts,
which are fairly commonplace

in horror movies related to dreams,
but it's not a scare.

Yeah, it's... at first you think
that that's a real development.

Then it's just taken back.

It does make me wonder
whether Michael Venus' favorite film

is an American werewolf in London,

because that also has
a fake waking-up sequence.

Yeah.

And actually, this is a thing
that I've experienced in real hotels,

but I can't remember it being
in any hotel horror movie much,

the fact that people have access
to your room, your stuff.

And sometimes they can turn up
when you really aren't expecting them.

They're supposed to knock and say,
"room service", or whatever.

But guys like this who basically
think of this as their space

will not recognize the temporary space
that you have rented from them,

leased from them, as yours.

No, absolutely. I had a landlord
that would do that

back in the days when I used
to live in a bedsit in London,

who would just let himself into my bedsit.

No, it's a commonplace violation, isn't it?

Yeah.

And here we are
with the horror of German breakfast.

Yeah.

The thing is, that's probably delicious.

I was going to say.

It's just it rapidly is made to look
less than delicious

with what's happens in a few moments.

Just for the family.

Don't you like it?

I do. It's just a bit much
on an empty stomach.

Yes, the little carved pigs
and the "just for the family" line,

it's all tying together.

We've talked before
about our love of clues.

- Yes, yes.
- And plot points.

The way it all slowly comes together.

And even the camera move there
to remind us

he did that, those pigs are his.

And I wonder if it's a sort of storytelling
that you don't see as much these days.

There seems to be a constant fear,
certainly in mainstream cinema,

of the audience getting lost,
so things have to be underlined a lot.

I do think that that is a...

It's something that's an issue
with genre cinema

that is, I don't want to say
dumbed down,

but it's that sense
that they want everything explicable.

And I think that European culture

and France, Germany, Italy,
scandinavia, or whatever,

they produce plenty of horror and crime
and science-fiction, romcoms, whatever,

but they all tend to assume
that they're for grown-ups,

and they bend over backwards
not to insult the audience.

And the downside is sometimes
you do get films that are too obscure,

particularly if you don't pick up
on all the cultural references

because you're not part
of the culture.

We've seen films that are completely
understood by their audiences

but are impenetrable to us.

Yeah, the deadly sausage-eating.

You're never gonna look
at your fry-up the same way.

Yeah.

And this is kind of disturbing because
it's a betrayal of us, the audience.

We thought this was
the sensible character,

the character who was untouched
and untouchable within the story.

Somebody who might be endangered
but would never go off the rails like this.

I suppose we had her pegged by now
as a final girl,

which she is,

but this kind of stuff is not...

If you tried to sell this to an
American exec, you'd get notes! Yeah.

And that is a great shot, isn't it?

Although that dessert
looks great to me.

Don't make it even worse.

I like that.
"Don't make it even worse."

Yeah.

And now we see him,
you know, sort of revealed.

Yeah.

The compulsion to strangle seems
to have been the part of the curse he got.

And this guy, the kind of junior bad guy,
is so utterly feckless, isn't he?

And I think that, again, it's something
you see in dynastic evil, isn't it?

Where eventually you get a generation
who are raised in evil

but are also just useless.

And sometimes they can be
the scariest people.

- You know, Kim jong-UN is one.
- Right, yeah.

People who inherit a position
of power or authority

that they've done nothing to earn

and yet they're sometimes capable
of the worst atrocities

simply to prove that they're part of...
They're on side.

And obviously they've grown up

not really having to work too hard
for what they get.

You can see this guy is not going
to be able to lead a fascist movement.

Any future is not going to exist past him.

Christoph.

And is this the moment
we realize that it's the son?

Yeah. I think it's never really
made clear before that.

But because this community
only has one family...

Yes, who run everything!

But it's another... because, obviously,
he has gone in another direction from...

Yeah, he has a potential
to escape from the past,

almost because he seems unaware of it.

And yet, he's technically the heir
of all this, isn't he?

It also seems to be now being positioned
as he's the white knight

who's gonna come to the rescue
and yet doesn't really.

This is a film that only seems
to recognize female agency.

Yes.

Where all the men
are variously useless.

And even the women
who are in the wrong are stronger.

Yes.

That's fine.
Now put the tablecloths on them.

Yes, very good.

And this is what he's been actually
working on all along, isn't it?

It's his mayoral campaign,
which seems to be rooted

in a sort of resurgent fascist
or right-wing...

And actually, I mean,
all throughout Europe, including britain

and indeed america,
have had these sort of...

They can't call themselves Nazis,

but they're pretty close.

But I like how he positions it
in kind of a village-hall setting.

It's sort of like this is where
the Nazi uprising is going on,

in the local community center
and village hall.

Yeah, but...

If there's an issue I would take
with this film

it's that I don't think
it takes fascism seriously enough.

It was made a couple of years ago,
although it's a modern film.

I think one of the lessons
of the last two or three years

is that, yes, these people are ridiculous,
but they are so dangerous.

Yeah, perhaps.

I think that would be felt even more...

They also don't like being laughed at

and I think that can be
quite an effective weapon.

And I do kind of like
the way it positions...

Obviously, you know,
he is the main Nazi character

and it positions him as a threat

and then immediately proceeds
to undercut that

by making them all look ridiculous.

I do think that's kind of interesting.

There is a bit of "tomorrow belongs to me"
in that sort of music.

It's like, let's say,
the two greatest fascist anthems,

"tomorrow belongs to me"
and "springtime for Hitler",

both written by Jews.

Both absolutely skewer the...

And in very different ways.

Those two sequences
absolutely have made...

Have probably made actual, straight-up,
full-strength nazism impossible

for the rest of the century,
just because it's so absurd.

I think that this film at least...

This guy is loathsome and disgusting,

but it gives him some points.

There's the moment where's he sat there
listening to the choir

and he's visibly moved
but not going...

There has to be some sense

that he's not just a complete
self-serving bad guy.

Yeah.

There's a core of conviction.

It may be hateful,
but there is something there.

And again, I think that that's something
that quite often we overlook at our peril.

Yes.

The people are not just...

Bad guys don't think they're bad.

People are not just reviving
all these terrible attitudes as a joke.

They really mean it.

Here we have our dead guys
in the flesh, as it were, but...

Animal masks have been a big thing
in folk horror, haven't they?

It's almost... it's a signifier
that's perhaps overdone,

although it seems always to work.

Yeah, that's the thing. There is
something creepy about them still.

And I suppose it is at least woven
into the fabric of the film.

We have the imagery of the boar

and now we sort of understand why.

And we even saw him carving little ones.

So there's a kind of a feel to it.

I would have thought
that maybe this is an image

that has been used too often,
but it seems to be inexhaustible.

It's always scary.

And yet, here at the heart of it,

we find that the witch
who lives in the woods is actually good.

Yes! A wronged woman.

Yeah.

And it's this strange thing of the heroine
actually going back into a flashback

and being there and observing it.

I always associate it
as a stratagem with Annie hall

where it's used brilliantly
for comedy effect.

I was thinking more... it reminded me
of the dead zone a bit,

the way cronenberg has him
present in his own visions.

Yeah...

Whereas with this
she's interacting with her visions.

Isuppose_.
Yeah, there's a mobile phone.

So this is this year,
or, well, yeah, 2019.

I see we're before the great hiatus.

Do you think Sandra hiiller
got off easy in this?

Yeah. You basicallyjust have
to be asleep for half the movie!

The biggest-name performer in it.

Someone who's got a bit
of a tailwind behind her, although she's...

I doubt if she'd define herself
as a movie star,

but she's obviously
a substantial actress in Germany

and must have been a get
for this project.

What's interesting about this scene
where everything is revealed is

that the moment where we're told
that that baby is, in fact, her mother

is kind of thrown away almost.

And it's...

I know that Venus has talked
about grimm's fairy tales

and how much is taken from there,

but this is sleeping beauty, isn't it?

The woodcutter takes the baby
into the woods

and he's told to kill it but doesn't.

It's actually that moment
of soft-heartedness that makes the...

Although, as we see, it's actually his...

It's the wife
that saves the child in the end.

He is utterly ruthless
about it, isn't he?

I think she's very strong
in actually not a huge role.

Yeah.

I mean, she's obviously
very sort of striking-looking, but...

Doesn't overdo it either.

And the interaction
with the future granddaughter...

Yes.

And this, I think,
is the funniest moment in the film

and yet, it's actually quite disturbing.

She's like,
"I'm just closing the Nazis."

Yeah.

Yeah, and that long pause.

"Don't touch the white wine."

Yeah, that's right.

Because, obviously, this renders
our actual existential threat ridiculous.

And it's another moment of...

I mean, it parallels the flashback.

Again, we've been reaching
across the generations

and finding
a perhaps unexpected kinship.

Yeah.

I'm assuming that franzi
isn't related in some way,

because she seems to be positioned
as the girlfriend of christoph.

Oh, extra, extra big dose in the beer!

But I mean, she's... yeah,
presumably going to join the...

Yeah, it's the moment where it's revealed
that there's suddenly more to her.

It's before we see
that she actually saved the baby, but...

Otto!

Thanks.

I'm delighted to welcome...

The subtitles of
"the first big slaughter festival".

I think it's something
like schlachtfest, isn't it,

which probably isn't quite
as disturbing-sounding as...

Yeah.

I see that there are some women
among the Nazis.

But they're all wives and mothers
and tag-along rather than active.

And it is mostly these guys
who are too young

to have been around
in the second world war.

They are people who would have lived
through the communist period.

Although, of course, that ended
over 30 years ago now.

Yes! Fight!

Fight!

To stainbach!

To stainbach!

But, I mean, it is careful,
his speech, as you say.

It's not just, you know...
Wanton cartoon villainy.

He's making actual points
about their community

and making you understand
why this might appeal to people.

Yeah. And why it has appealed
to so many people across Europe

and certainly in britain
in the last couple of years

and definitely in america,
this kind of pitch.

The strange thing is
this guy's pitch is subtler

than the pitch extreme right-wingers
have used successfully,

because he doesn't talk much
about othering and the hatred,

which actually right-wing politicians
in the west have been doing just nakedly

in the last couple of years,

have nakedly picked on
any number of groups of people

to have a go at and, what they say,
"rally the base" or "own the libs" or...

It's odd, he's the villain of this film,
but he's a better person

than the leaders of many
right-wing parties across the world.

I suppose this particular cell or cabal
is founded on misogyny.

It's founded on the literal othering
of a Polish woman.

Yes, that they've now turned
into a scary fairytale.

And it's almost like
the film doesn't need to have him, say,

give a speech about
how feminism has ruined...

The spirit of Germany or whatever.

Although frankly, you do hear
those speeches from far-right politicians

doing all that "back to the kitchen" stuff.

Very good direction
of the extras here.

Because it only takes one to ruin this.

Yeah, and he starting
to do the gestures and the voice.

Yeah.

But interestingly,
because he's, you know...

Been closed.

Because he's tripping, yeah.

It's all coming out now that he's...

I suppose it's the idea

that people reveal themselves
when they put the masks on.

And it's a daring strategy

that now our main heroine is
as immobilized as our secondary heroine.

And that's the moment where we know
this guy is beyond redemption.

Any flicker of sympathy

or sense that we've had of him
as a ridiculous figure just goes.

Yeah.

Especially because we're not quite sure
whether she's in danger as well,

because it's unclear as to whether
this is a dream or a vision.

She's sort of transported back.
Yeah, she might die in a flashback

in the way that people say
that you can die in a dream

or die in your sleep.

And actually that's one of the things
about the nightmare,

that idea that sleep paralysis
is actually a dangerous condition

because, after all, if people die that way,
they can't tell you.

And actually, in post-mortem,
it's really difficult to identify,

but that may well be a factor.

They tend to give it...

An acronym
to make it sound like...

Sudden unexplained death
in sleep: Suds.

"We'll give it a name that basically admits
we don't know what it is."

And this is the thing, of course,
that politicians never do.

Of course, the terrifying thing is
he would probably win.

It's actually a very good display
of stoned acting,

which is, again, something
that people think is easy.

Yes.

I assume that there was a notice saying
this film contains flashing lights earlier.

But this is a rare instance
of flashing lights actually used

as an aggressive weapon.

The revelation that she's been
the heroine all along, really.

Yeah.

But there is a bit of suspense as well.

It's building that tension as to:
Is she's going to die in the dream?

Logically, in the past the danger is over.

Yeah.

I suppose she could still choke, but...

And here we've been exploded
into another level of reality.

Yes!

Now it's that sort of
Chinese box structure

where you don't really know
at what point you're in reality anymore.

And it's an impossible photograph.

Which is almost a convention
in horror cinema, isn't it?

Obviously the shining has one.

Burnt offerings
has impossible photographs.

I assume that it's a signifier
of this being a fantasy nethennorld

where she can tour the past.

You go further than your mother
ever dared to go.

And this is sort of a...

Whatever this particular
adjunct to reality is

seems to be warm and sisterly,

but actually trude's
kind of menacing still, isn't she?

There's still a bit of a...

A witchiness to her.

She essentially basically wants her
to be the instrument

by which she can finish
enacting her revenge.

Yeah. Just because the guy's been
strapping himself to his bed...

She's plan b.

Her bloodline will return.

Mona just wants to save her mother
and that's really all it's about.

But all this talk about, "it ends with him
and the bloodline is over", it's not!

Yeah.

Because certainly her bloodline endures,
and so does his, but in...

With the dominance
of the mother in the family

we presume that's an optimistic
or a healing notion,

that we can get past these awful guys

who've been holding Europe back
for so long.

I would like to think that that was true.

Let's hope.

A possibility, yeah.

In the short term we can take comfort
in how ridiculous they look.

And it's, of course, a risky strategy
to give Nazis a load of drugs.

And here, it underlines the fact
he's been relying on her all these years.

Yeah.

How can you talk to me like that?

Tie me up!

And her weapon is a meat tenderizer.

Well, it sort of...
He is made to look buffoonish,

but it does sort of restore him
as a threat by the end.

It does sort of walk that line.

Where's the girl?

In the laundry room.

Because it would be easy
to lose suspense and horror

and just go for absurdist comedy
or surrealism or whatever,

but it remains something that functions
as a suspense narrative,

a thriller narrative, mystery.

Strangely... I don't know
how you feel about this,

but it's always struck me that in a way
it's easier to make an art film

with subject matter like this,

because you don't have to worry

about the nuts and bolts
of plotting and backstory

and all that Agatha christie stuff,

that thriller stuff,
that murder-mystery element

where all the clues have to add up,
everything has to fit together.

You have to get a picture
that makes sense

and you can think about for days
aftennards and say, "oh, yeah."

If you just do, I suppose,
what David lynch does

and say, "none of that really matters",

you know what?
That saves you a couple of weeks.

It does, yeah!

Certainly in the development process.

It's so much easierjust to go weird.

- And say, "you figure it out."
- Yeah, that's right.

And let the audience...

And sometimes...
I mean, that effect or that approach

can also lead to stuff
that is so irrationally terrifying

it scars audiences for life.

And it's entirely valid,

but I think we should notice
it's also a shortcut sometimes.

Yes.

It's also a way of saying, "I couldn't
be bothered to work all this out, so..."

I think that's why it works with lynch,
because you do get the sense

that he is tapping into something
genuinely, you know,

that he's dredging up
from his subconscious.

Whereas, although it's a film I like a lot,
I think the shining cheats.

I think that kubrick couldn't be bothered

to make certain elements
of the backstory and the mystery cohere.

I think sometimes he skates over stuff,
like how Jack gets out of the fridge.

Right!

It's like, that was a question
that must have been debated on the set

and they never had an answer to it.

Yeah. There is no ambiguity.

Well, essentially, that's the scene
that confirms the ghosts have to be real.

Yeah. But I think that this is a film
that doesn't take that easy out.

- And I admire that.
- It does connect.

I admire that as a writer
because I know how difficult it is

and I know how frustrating those extra
three weeks of work on the script are

where... it's like whac-a-mole, isn't it?

You think you've knocked them all down,
but no, some other tab comes up

or some other loose end
and you think, "how does that fit in?"

"Is that just an awkward aside?"

"Do we hope people
won't remember that or notice it?"

Whereas there's a rigor to this
that I admire and appreciate.

And now the mother is coming back
into it as a character.

Yeah, and I kind of wonder
how we're meant to read this,

her walking very slowly to the hotel.

Is there an element
of black comedy in this?

Is she going to get there in time
to save the day?

And is christoph our hope
for the future of masculinity in Europe?

- He's still a young, blond German.
- He is.

But he seems to be
a kind of sensitive guy, doesn't he?

And he's got a sense of humor.

I mean, there isn't that much to him,

but his presence means

that this isn't a film
that could be accused of misandry.

A word that our politicians
don't seem aware of.

And although it sets it up

that you kind of want to see her,
you know, avenge the other women,

it also takes the time to go,
"it's not that easy",

and she can't quite bring herself
to do it at first.

It's not a natural thing.

I mean, it's a...

It's a hump that a lot of horror films
have to get over.

People don't go
from one to a hundred overnight

in terms of what they're willing to do,
even in extreme circumstances.

We do have one of those...

Again, it's a horror-movie hospital
with almost no staff or patients or...

It's as disembodied and empty
as the hotel.

Yeah.

But maybe that's...

Like the hotel, it was probably built
during an economic boom

when the community is expected
to be thriving.

That fits with the backstory
of the village and everything as well.

That all this stuff was going to be big
and then wasn't, and actually...

That's something
that's in dark as well,

the idea of how communities
are dependent on their economy,

which is a subtext
in some American and British horror,

but it's very rarely explicitly addressed.

How miserable a place is

can quite often just be down
to the factory closing

as opposed to the deep, dark sins
of Salem's lot or whatever.

And that's precisely the kind of soil
that fascism will spring up from.

And it does ask the question:
What do we want to see happen here?

Yeah. Obviously, as an audience
we want to see him die.

It's this thing that even if as a person
you're against capital punishment,

you want to see screen villains die.

And it's disappointing
if a film ducks out of it.

But here, there is a sense that
you don't really want to see her tainted.

She's got a chance
to get out of this cycle

and she ended it
in a very unusual way in the dream.

Although now we have the...

This reverts
to a slightly more conventional...

Heroine versus psycho baddie.

Well, you know,
I suppose the ultimate moral is

you can't cut a Nazi a break, basically.

Everything ok?

And again, this is
the kind of shining moment

of the guy that turns up to help
but then doesn't.

I always...
And actually, that's a thing

that I know Stephen King disagreed
with Stanley kubrick about

but always strikes me as being
the right decision in the film.

I'm sorry to see scatman crothers
go as well, but...

It's more horrifying to have
your expectations overturned like that.

Danny and Wendy have to save
themselves for the story to work.

And here...

Yeah, various people could possibly
come to her rescue.

Yes!

I do think we have a sense
this isn't one of those films

that's going to be so despairing
it's going to end with evil triumphant.

Yeah.

Yeah, I think there's a certain
good-naturedness to it.

Yeah, it's like, Michael haneke
would have killed him.

And made you feel bad
about it aftennards.

He would have ended it
with him saying, "it's your fault."

"Feel bad, you're supposed to."

Whereas here we do have
a rooting interest.

It gives us a positive way out
of a horrible situation.

Yeah.

Even if it's that all these awful people
are going to grow old and die.

Yeah.

Whereas, I mean, he does eventually
get his comeuppance,

but she has to be shown
that there's no...

That there's no being reasonable
with Nazis, ultimately.

And we have edged into grand guignol
for the finale, after having...

I suppose most of the film has fringed
on horror without really being there.

And I quite like the fact
that literally a lighting change

is what takes us into full-on...

Suspiria lighting, isn't it?

And the ghost girl coming out of the grave
like sadako coming out of the well.

Even that big hotel sign
has a kind of particular feel.

It's almost like it's advertising
that Jessica hausner film.

Which someone should really re-release.
It's very difficult to see these days.

It did have...
I mean that toured the festivals,

but I don't think
it actually particularly got anywhere.

I think it got a DVD release here,
but it's out of print now.

I mean, if you like this,
you should track that down.

Because it's a different story,
but it has a similar feel.

It's a hotel at the edge of the woods
with grimm's fairy tales stuff

and an interestingly obsessive
female protagonist.

I can't remember whether it was
pauline Kael or Susan sontag

who described
a certain type of European film

as "come as
the sick soul of Europe party".

- That was Kael.
- That's right.

That's it, isn't it?

There is a sort of sense of that.
And, hey, as an American, she can talk!

But if arrow want
to pick up the rights to hotel,

then we'll be back
to do the commentary for that one.

Because it's a film
that wasn't seen much,

you don't think
it could have been influential,

but a lot of subsequent films
have done stuff a lot like it.

Maybe this will have a similar impact

because this is its highest profile
outside Germany on this release.

And I think it'll impress a lot of people,
certainly a generation of filmmakers

who will find bits and pieces of it,

because, although in this track

we have quite often related it
to earlier films

or general trends
or underlying approaches,

it does so much stuff
that is fresh and unusual.

And it's hard sometimes to point that out
just because it is new.

It's more than the sum of its influences.

It's taking them
and it's doing something with them.

And it's got a real unusual feel.

Even this moment is, you know,
it's the heroine and the villain,

but it's also the woman and her dad.

Yeah.

That is there.

She's kind of grieving
for a lost father she never had.

Yeah.

- It's the feint at the haneke ending.
- Yes, that's right.

We might have gone with that.

And we have come
to scrabbling in a grave.

But all through, we've had
sort of moments or asides or feints

which have brought in
kind of a warmth and a humor

and a spikiness that...

As I say,
this is not a complete downer

in the way that so many horror films
on this subject are.

It's like... the director of demon
committed suicide at a film festival,

which suggests where his head was at.

This subject matter does not
provoke warm, happy thoughts often.

But this is a film
that does not absolutely depress me.

- I find it quite exhilarating.
- Yes, absolutely.

And it ends with love,
which is kind of what you want.

So any final thoughts on schlaf?

Well, I think it's interesting to...
As you say, you know,

it's unusual for us to take a new film
and discuss it,

but I think it's definitely been
interesting to kind of dissect it

and hopefully we've managed
to point out some interesting stuff

and draw links with the past

but also show why it's fresh and new
and a new voice worth looking at.

And I love the fact
it has a mid-credit sting as well,

which takes it
into a sort of another era.

I'm not quite sure
where we're going with this,

but there's a sort of...
A kind of limbo-like sitcom feel to this.

Yeah.

As if maybe we're going to get
a spinoff in a completely different genre,

which I think is sort of...
Again, it's kind of sweet.

Yeah.

Is that a particularly German game?

It's played
in lnglourious basterds as well.

Oh, yeah. I don't know.
I never would have thought of it as such.

It's not particularly common,

but I knew of it
before lnglourious basterds.

I think I'd been at parties
where people had played it.

It's a silly guessing game, but yeah...

And yes, here we have the pan
to the creepy corridor,

the possibility that...

What do we think
is coming out of the darkness?

What's coming out of there?

Yes.

It's a pig.

Which is almost
where we came in.

So, yes, I guess
what we take away from that

is that the pig
will always be there.

You can't just make sausages out of it.

I've just realized it's a joke.
It's a fascist pig.

Oh! Yeah, of course.

I don't know if that expression
is much used in Germany.

That might be a coincidence.

It's certainly something I heard a lot
on the left in the 1970s.