Sometimes my spies give me audience feedback. I thought I would share some from the recent theatrical screenings in Munich.
One viewer really liked that no people were ‘used’ as prototypes of good or bad guys or stereotypical protagonists and antagonists: there was no typical ‘love interest’ figure, only that hint of affection
towards that one guy, but thank God he did not turn out to be the knight in shiny armour coming to rescue his princess at the end! And there was no No. 1 bad guy, no single person to break Remedy with
abusive or inappropriate behaviour. Instead, one could really feel how different situations put stress on Remedy and built up tension inside her, until she was really struggling with herself. It was really refreshing for him to see such a depiction of character development in a movie.
While a genre like thriller might not be appropriate, something like “experimental film” would be equally wrong as right. Remedy does – fortunately – not look like it was made for a screenwriter seminar,
where each line *has* to advance the plot. There is no classic 3-act structure and at the end, there is no triumph for Remedy and no prince that rescues her from her underground dungeon. And life sometimes just
has some “dramaturgical weaknesses.” 🙂