The Upcoming
  • Culture
    • Art
    • Cinema
      • Movie reviews
      • Film festivals
    • Food & Drinks
      • News & Features
      • Restaurant & bar reviews
      • Interviews & Recipes
    • Literature
    • Music
      • Live music
    • Theatre
    • Shows & On demand
  • Fashion & Lifestyle
    • Accessories
    • Beauty
    • News & Features
    • Shopping & Trends
    • Tips & How-tos
    • Fashion weeks
  • What’s On
    • Art exhibitions
    • Theatre shows
  • Tickets
  • Join us
    • Editorial unit
    • Our writers
    • Join the team
    • Join the mailing list
    • Support us
    • Contact us
  • Interviews
  • Competitions
  • Special events
    • Film festivals
      • Berlin
      • Tribeca
      • Sundance London
      • Cannes
      • Locarno
      • Venice
      • London
      • Toronto
    • Fashion weeks
      • London Fashion Week
      • New York Fashion Week
      • Milan Fashion Week
      • Paris Fashion Week
      • Haute Couture
      • London Fashion Week Men’s
  • Facebook

  • Twitter

  • Instagram

  • YouTube

  • Tumblr

  • RSS

Berlin Film Festival 2019

Monsters

Berlin Film Festival 2019: Monsters | Review
12 February 2019
Laura Jorden
Laura Jorden
Avatar
Laura Jorden
12 February 2019

Movie and show review

Laura Jorden

Monsters

★★★★★

Special event

Breaking Monsters into three chapters, award-winning Romanian writer/director Marius Olteanu gives us a brief window into the sombre despair of an expiring marriage in his debut feature. 

Told over a 24-hour period and shot in Bucharest, the film begins with a deeply unhappy woman, Dana (Judith State), staring out of a taxi cab window, hollow whilst the hectic world goes by around her. Following a strained phone conversation, she instructs the driver to take her to another destination, but seems reluctant to go inside, even offering to pay him to simply sit with her outside for the rest of the night.

The imagery of this chapter is dark and gloomy, the angles uncomplicated and the pace does hover on tedious. Yet enigmatic Dana and expressive driver Alex (Alexandru Potocean, delivering an immersing performance) manage to keep the narrative beating with their naturalistic interactions and everyday dialogue. They smoke together, finally sharing fragmented insights into the current sorry state of their worlds. These two strangers quickly form a knowing bond of comfort and one gets the sense that in another life they might have become a powerful combination.

Garish daylight and a frenetic gym class begins Andrei’s (Cristian Popa) chapter. This shot of adrenaline does draw boundaries, however, the imagery is still simple and distant. Our new protagonist is clearly a man in torment, wrestling with his inner demons. Night falls and after a deeply awkward and dismal sexual encounter with a fussy, obsessive older man (an outstanding Serban Pavlu), a desolate Andrei makes a soul-baring call where we hear the other half of Dana’s previously strained conversation, connecting these two parallel stories.

It’s the morning after and, as our couple reunite, Olteanu interestingly widens the screen ratio to expand their world. Witnessing how the couple cling to and then wound each other, the viewer sees them pulling apart their tattered relationship in private whilst playing the dutiful, pristine couple in public in a futile attempt to satisfy society’s strict conventions. This is utterly believable and testament to the impressive talent of the two leads as they subtly portray their characters’ internal heartbreak.

It’s here where the filmmaker delves deeply into the fabric of the self and coupledom. The residual tenderness of this pair makes this all the more painful as both grapple with secrets, needs, self acceptance, individual expression, social norms and messy subtext. However, the psychodrama never hurtles into excessive melodrama as their broken marriage crawls towards its inevitable if unresolved final moments among Olteanu’s now familiar trains.

Monsters thoughtfully examines the soul-destroying agony of holding on and the paralysing fear of letting go, as taking that leap into a solo unknown could yield deliverance or despair. The visual landscape is basic and the film’s overall tone is joyless and dispassionate, but the realistic and voyeuristic aspects of this two-hand tale will appeal to admirers of introverted one-track narratives and Olteanu’s emerging style and focus on private vs public.

★★★★★

Laura Jorden

Monsters does not have a UK release date yet.

Read more reviews from our Berlin Film Festival 2019 coverage here.

For further information about the event visit the Berlin Film Festival website here.

Related Itemsreview

More in Berlinale

“I’m only brave because I’m incredibly fearful”: Charlotte Rampling on receiving the Honorary Golden Bear for Lifetime Achievement at the 69th Berlin Film Festival

Sarah Bradbury
Read More

What She Said: The Art of Pauline Kael: An interview with director Rob Garver

Sarah Bradbury
Read More

An interview with Piranhas (La paranza dei bambini) director Claudio Giovannesi

Mary-Catherine Harvey
Read More

“I write my books and my articles to carry out my own revenge against those who try to silence me, to shut me out”: An interview with journalist and author of Piranhas (La paranza dei bambini) Roberto Saviano

Mary-Catherine Harvey
Read More

Berlin Film Festival 2019: Awards predictions and highlights from the festival

The editorial unit
Read More

“Frustration for creation is very good”: Director Teona Strugar Mitevska on the the local scandal that inspired God Exists, Her Name is Petrunya

Mary-Catherine Harvey
Read More

“As a director, I feel that there’s a dance where you examine social changes, and how you are to an extent sceptical or critical – that’s part of your fundamental mission”: An interview with So Long, My Son director Wang Xiaoshuai

Oliver Johnston
Read More

2040

★★★★★
Fenja Akinde-Hummel
Read More

Marighella

★★★★★
Mary-Catherine Harvey
Read More
Scroll for more
Tap

Movie and show review

Laura Jorden

Monsters

★★★★★

Special event

Tickets

Theatre tickets

  • Popular

  • Latest

  • TOP PICKS

  • Invasion Planet Earth
    ★★★★★
    Movie review
  • A Christmas Carol at the Old Vic
    ★★★★★
    Theatre
  • Sigrid charms audiences with exuberance and stunning vocals at Hammersmith Apollo
    ★★★★★
    Live music
  • Primal Scream at the Forum
    ★★★★★
    Live music
  • Midnight Movie at the Royal Court Theatre
    ★★★★★
    Theatre
  • Christmas Carol: A Fairy Tale at Wilton’s Music Hall
    ★★★★★
    Theatre
  • Omnino Steakhouse in the City: South American flavours with breathtaking intensity
    ★★★★★
    Food & Drinks
  • Fairview at the Young Vic
    ★★★★★
    Theatre
  • The Cave
    ★★★★★
    Movie review
  • Fun smartphone accessories to help you get the most from your mobile
    Tech & Sport
  • Christmas Carol: A Fairy Tale at Wilton’s Music Hall
    ★★★★★
    Theatre
  • Omnino Steakhouse in the City: South American flavours with breathtaking intensity
    ★★★★★
    Food & Drinks
  • Fairview at the Young Vic
    ★★★★★
    Theatre
  • The Cave
    ★★★★★
    Movie review
  • Bells and Spells at the Coronet Theatre
    ★★★★★
    Theatre
The Upcoming
Pages
  • Contact us
  • Join mailing list
  • Join us
  • Our London food map
  • Our writers
  • Support us
  • What, when, why

Copyright © 2018 FL Media Ltd

Berlin Film Festival 2019: I Was at Home, But (Ich War Zuhause, Aber) | Review
Berlin Film Festival 2019: Piranhas (La Paranza dei Bambini) | Review