SLIFF 2009 Review: CLOUD 9

Let me paint you a picture. You come home from work one day, tired, but happy to be alive. You spend a quiet evening with your spouse and children. You’ve worked hard for the life you have, but it’s all been worth it. Then the phone rings. It’s your 67-year old mother and she’s calling to tell you she’s been having an affair with a 76-year old man and is leaving your father. Shocked? I would be.

CLOUD 9 (Wolke Neun) is the story of Inge (Ursula Werner). She is a 67-year old woman, mother and wife of 30 years to Werner (Horst Rehberg). Quite unexpectedly, Inge finds herself fallen in love with an older man. She carries on an intimate affair with 76-year old Karl (Horst Westphal). Inge and Karl both are extremely passionate and rambunctious lovers, finding pure joy and bliss when with one another.

After a few weeks, Inge begins to feel guilty not only for having the affair, but more significantly for having kept this a secret from Werner. After confiding this secret to her daughter Petra (Steffi Kuhnert) she decides she can no longer face Werner without having him know the truth. Inge reveals her affair to Werner, and thus begins the downward spiral of their 30-year relationship with each other.

Initially, reaction to the very idea of this film may be one of disbelief or even disgust. Put all of that aside. Ask yourself, is any of this so foreign that we find it unbelievable or repulsive? What Inge goes through, and puts Werner through, can happen to anyone at any age. An innocent playground romance that ends after a week or two. A high school sweetheart that breaks your heart. A middle-aged marriage that just wasn’t meant to be. Who’s to say two grown adults in their golden years could not conceivably experience these very same life events? Once I began seeing CLOUD 9 in that light, the film became much more beautiful than what is seen on the surface.

To be frankly honest, the first quarter or more of the film can be a bit tough to sit through. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for senior citizens getting it on. Viva la Viagra! But, the uninhibited choice of director Andreas Dresen to put this highly sexual love affair right in our faces from the get go was both bold and poignant. When it comes down to it, this sort of thing does really happen in real life, but no one ever wants to discuss it or touch the subject with a ten-foot pole. Why is that? [rhetorical question]

Ursula Werner gives a heart-felt and personal performance as Inge, struggling with her mixed emotions and the fact that despite her youthful affair with Karl, she still deeply loves Werner. Inge has no intention of hurting Werner and repeatedly exclaims that she never wanted any of this. Ursula Werner’s performance exudes those many memories of youthful love, sexual confusion and broken hearts. Transplant the elderly characters of CLOUD 9 with a cast straight out of SIXTEEN CANDLES and you have essentially the same basic story of love and love lost. Why then, should we appreciate this story any less?

Karl is a playful and vibrant man at the ripe age of 76, but it’s difficult to feel any empathy for him in this tale. Westphal gives us a wonderful performance as a man simply trying to live out what years remain in his life with as much joy and fervor as he can muster, taking bike rides and skinny dips, but the audience will have difficulty connecting with him. Conversely, the slightly younger Werner appears more frail and content with his life as an older man. Horst Werner plays this role with a melancholy matched only by the resignation in his eyes.

CLOUD 9 is an extremely quiet film, allowing the characters and audience both to reflect on the situation presented. The few moments of excitement in the film comes from either ends of the spectrum of human feeling, whether it’s Inge’s ecstatic expression of pleasure during her many throws of passion with Karl, or the heated and emotional cries and arguments between her and Werner when she reveals the truth, the story is Inge’s to tell as she lives it.

The pace is a tad slow, but given the relatively short running time of the film it never really becomes unbearable. I found the ending to be anything but a surprise, given it’s visibility from a mile away, but this certainly doesn’t withdraw from the devastating effect it has on the viewer. Inge develops into a character that we often want to dislike but simply cannot. She embodies the desires and hopefulness and even the uncertainty we all have in life, regardless of our age. While the story of CLOUD 9 is not new to us, the perspective given the story by Dresen is one we will not soon forget, whether we want to or not.

CLOUD 9 will screen at the Frontenac on Saturday, November 14th at 9:30pm and on Sunday, November 15th at 3:00pm during the 18th Annual Whitaker Saint Louis International Film Festival.