DVD: Yella (2007)

January 1, 2013 | By Mark R. Hasan

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Film: Good/ DVD Transfer: Very Good/ DVD Extras: Good

Label: New Yorker Video/ Region: 1 (NTSC) / Released: March 17, 2009

Genre: Drama / Mystery

Synopsis: After fleeing from her abusive ex-husband, a young woman forges a strange alliance as she enters the cut and dry world of venture capitalism.

Special Features: Harun Farocki’s documentary Nothing Ventured (Nicht ohne Risiko) (52:09) / Theatrical trailer

Review:

Warning: Total plot spoilers!

Christian Petzold’s Yella (2007) consists of a shell of a surreal film noir thriller that’s been filled in with the director’s own dream-like imagery and emotionally numbed characters, and once in a while the remains of genre conventions pop up, like titular character Yella (Petzold regular Nina Hoss) paying off abusive ex-husband/perpetual stalker Ben (Hinnerk Schönemann) using bribery funds taken from duplicitous business mentor/lover Philipp (Devid Stresow).

And then there’s the film’s twist finale that’s an unsubtle riff on Carnival of Souls (except with interactive venture capitalists) and Ambrose Bierce’s classic short story “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge.” Throughout the film, Yella hears murky river sounds and a persistent crow – sonic vestiges from the car accident with nutbar Ben that ignites the film’s eerie first act – and it’s hardly surprising when the final scene brings Yella to a brook, and she’s hit with a bright memory flash that drops her back in the car with Ben, moments before he turns the wheel and drives the car over the bridge.

The trick finale is old hat, and one assumes Petzold’s usage is more perfunctory; as intriguing as the surreal midsection is, he doesn’t drive it to some amusing conclusion (much in the way Carl Colpaert played with the noir/crime genre in Delusion with its doubly amusing finales). Yella could’ve been a memorable surreal experience much in the way Buffet froid / Cold Cuts or After Hours messed with our expectations by propelling characters towards increasingly weird adventures, but in settling for a quick wrap-up, he’s cheated us by shutting the door on whatever social, urban, and business statements he was setting up for almost an hour.

In the opening crash, Yella grabs the wheel in a moment of urgent self-preservation, but in the finale, she sits in bizarre resignation, as though her dream/nightmare was so traumatic that there was no hope of survival. And yet if what we’re watching for the first 70 minutes is Yella’s flash-forward of the future, which includes Yella waking up on the river’s edge beside an unconscious Ben, then it doesn’t matter whether she grabs the steering wheel, because the car still goes over the bridge; and if that’s part of her future, then she and Ben shouldn’t end up as cadavers in the film’s final shot.

Petzold is aiming for some irony, and a bit of poetry about colliding alternate futures, but it’s all muddy and vague, and the ambiguous nature of the bookend car-crashes means the director was more interested in the film’s midsection, wherein he applies some distinct personal style.

There’s an emphasis on unnerving quiet and sterile office sounds (very little source and score music is used); the visual focus is on fringe material – the ends of roads and edges of highways, the front entrances of offices and hotels – as well as banal interiors that convey neither luxury, poverty, nor a sense of history. While it’s clear Yella is travelling from a former East German industrial town to a west German economic hub (Hanover), we’re never shown any unique architecture, monuments or aerial shots of either locale. Petzold denies the viewer of any past or future history, and keeps the camera’s eye on almost generic locales and interiors.

Yella herself is a compelling character: she’s a young woman hurrying to Hanover to prove her mettle in the business world, help her impoverished father (Tattoo’s Christian Redl), and avoid further harassment from Ben. She starts off and remains sympathetic; she’s repeatedly victimized by men, and her blackmail scheme at the end is part of the hazing routine she instigates to ensure she will continue to progress in the harsh world of venture capitalism.

Yella is worth a peek, but by filling in the cadaver of a hollowed out genre with his own chilly fetishes and heavy focus on venture capital negotiations, Petzold lost the opportunity to craft a more original and dramatically satisfying tale.

Marco Abel’s lengthy film essay in the DVD booklet provides an excellent (if not too florid) background on the Berlin School of city-based or city-trained filmmakers whose views on Germany are primarily focused on contemporary issues and theur current affect on society.

Abel singles out the nuances and fetishes that distinguish Petzold from his colleagues, but the author’s claim that Yella is a masterpiece might be too rich to digest; Abel clarifies the film’s weird mood and visual emphasis on clean but banal architecture, but perhaps to side with Abel’s admiration for Petzold mandates viewing the director’s prior work, little of which currently exists on Region 1 DVDs (although Petzold’s recent spin on James M. Cain’s The Postman Always Rings Twice – Jerichow (2008) – will surely be intriguing.

Another worthwhile bonus is Harun Farocki’s hour-long documentary, Nothing Ventured / Nicht ohne Risiko, which initially seems like an odd choice. Farocki served as Yella’s script supervisor, and Petzold drew extensively from the behaviour and language in Farocki’s film which covers actual negotiation sessions between a small but emerging firm in need of venture capital after unsuccessful efforts to negotiate lending from local banks.

The negotiations have their own dramatic high points in spite of the players maintaining formal business demeanours, and perhaps the most engaging aspects are the efforts in which both parties maintain professional business décor and supplant volatile, gut-level frustrations .

Christian Petzold’s work includes Das Warme geld (1992), Pilotinnen (1995), Cuba Libre (1996), Die beischlafdiebin (1998), Die Innere Sicherheit / The State I Am In (2000), Toter Mann / Something to Remind Me (2001), Wolfburg [M] (2003), Gespenster / Ghosts [M] (2005) Yella (2007), Jerichow (2008), Etwas Besseres als den Tod / Beats Being Dead (2011), and Barbara [M] (2012).