Written and directed by Julia Ostertag
Featuring: Kathryn Fischer, Suzy Rifle, Nicolas Isner, Sandro Piras, Juan de Chami
www.saila-film.de
Julia Ostertag has a history of making strange and experimental movies like her shorts gender X, Sex Junkie, and NO American Dream. Her feature debut, Saila, is just as weird and hard to watch. Shot entirely in modern ruins in Berlin, Saila follows the title character as she lives a depressing, angry violent and pointless existence among disgruntled and homeless youth. A pseudo-apocalyptic future is sometimes hinted at, but never confirmed, and there's not really a cohesive storyline of any kind.
Saila is played by Kathryn Fischer. The rabble of strange and unkempt people who fall in and out of Saila's life include a fey young man she forces into a sexual encounter; a group of black cloaked thugs that looks suspiciously like ninjas, and various dreadlocked, gothed out, death rocked, punk-ish denizens with little or no day-to-day agenda. There's hardly any dialogue to develop anyone's character very far, and all interactions between Saila and anyone else are shallow, disconnected, and unfulfilling to both the audience and Saila herself. The non-sequential plotlessness of the entire movie, along with the slow and deliberate experimental moments is truly agonizing. It's almost fascinating how painfully agonizing it is. I can't think of a better example of pretentious, yet low-effort, filmmaking. Ever.
Useful bits of information come in through the radio, where economic world collapse and global disaster is hinted at but never really confirmed. In the future, however, hair dye and makeup are two industries that will never go out of style! Taking a cue from Blade Runner and The Road Warrior, Ostertag makes sure her rabble all has manic panicked hair and severely uncomfortable clothing and jewelry. Everything is gritty and dirty and exactly the way a very young girl obsessed with death rock thinks the world should be.
This immature and pointless movie includes such wonderful imagery as bloodletting during sex and public urination. Now, I'm no prude, especially when it comes to my movies. But I need them to have a point. It's not enough to be a degreed filmmaker from some hoity toity school in Germany where all your friends have purple hair and you refuse to conform to society so you just make long, boring movies with blood and urination in them. Your films must have a point; something to say. Otherwise, you're just a sham. Saila doesn't say anything except that Julia Ostertag needs to get over herself and actually write a script that makes sense.
