It’s no coincidence that Daniel Clowes’ seminal work Ghost World surfaces throughout Frauke Finsterwalder’s multifaceted directorial debut. In taking the highly esteemed graphic novel’s unique brand of cynical Americana, and repurposing it from the other side, Finsterworld demonstrates more than just homage to traditional heimatfilm; it plainly mourns for it.

Finsterworld‘s youth ask for reason and cultural salience in a country where their largest and only apparent symbolic export is a toothbrush moustache; very much a heritage film without heritage, Finsterwalder’s dark world yearns for honesty, and a past that just isn’t there.

Taking inimical influence from Americana’s cultural excess, Finsterworld mournfully revises Germany’s deficient post-war heritage.

RATING: 4/5

INFORMATION

CAST: Christoph Bach, Margit Carstensen, Jakub Gierszal

DIRECTOR: Frauke Finsterwalder

WRITERS: Frauke Finsterwalder

SYNOPSIS: A pedicurist, a policeman, a student, and a filmmaker become loosely connected by a stream of unlikely events.