The Trouble With Being Born * * * *

Emil considers the trouble with asking a psychiatrist about a film.

Whew! That was a close call. According to a couple of psychiatrists if I saw this Austrian/German film, directed by Sandra Wollner there is some chance I could become a pedophile. 

For this reason The Melbourne International Film Festival banned it from the Festival last year.  I have since read that one of the two advisory psychiatrists didn't actually see the film and the other saw a tiny bit of it. But, hey, best not take any chances.  

Anyway, the local Art House has decided to take a chance, so you can go see it now if you want. I took a chance today and no, I didn't come out of the cinema as a pedophile, but I did come out rather confused.

Seemingly set in an undetermined future it's a science fiction film (sort of). Or is it  telling a story in todays world, but pretending that android's are now available?

Georg lives in a beautiful rural home with what appears to be his eleven year old daughter Emil.  They are sweet together, chatting, and swimming in the pool.  But then we catch on that she is not actually human at all. She is a highly sophisticated robot.  We also begin to notice that occasionally Georg has a closeness with Emil that a Dad and Daughter shouldn't really have in a healthy parent child relationship.  

Emil says strange things and makes strange observations. It has a memory that does not belong to it.  The memory belongs to a real human - Georg's actual daughter, but she went missing ten years ago.  Hence Emil the "replacement model".  Then the real daughter comes home and the robot/child Emil goes wandering off into the woods.  

She is collected by a man who gives it to his mother, gives it a gender change, and reprograms it to be the little brother the old lady lost years ago.  In contrast to her previous owner Emil now lives in a housing commission flat with a boring old woman, a television that never gets switched off and overwhelming traffic noise. Emil  now has a jumbled memory of it's previous owner and current owner with dire consequences for poor little Emil (remember she's not really human).

At least that's the way I figured it.  This film invites you to fill in the enormous gaps and make what you will of the ambiguity in the story.  Like a fable, the fact that the whole thing is inconclusive didn't bother me at all. 

It has a unique atmosphere and ambience, especially in regard to the woods that surround the home, so that even though it's science fiction, at times it nudges the supernatural. Overall it's a fascinating experience.

I dare say many of you have seen films with scenes of murder, assault, theft, suicide, madness, cruelty and God knows what other dramatic devices, without walking out the cinema and doing the same thing yourself.  So if you think you can trust yourself not to become a pedophile I'd recommend The Trouble With Being Born.