If you expect a voyeuristic documentary about female wetlands you are in for a surprise. One part is about gross phantasies with similar appeal like splatter movies, but the other part is an interesting portrait of a divorce-child with dysfunctional parents. Those bits not only explain the psychological motivations very well, together with the fun parts of her weird doings wrapping this movie, it is a light approach to such a heavy topic.
I really liked the subtle affects the movie played with. It was able to develop some erotic just to destroy it immediately. And I wasn't always sure if she was to be considered a sane persona. But again, all very playful and light.
All in all a relevant piece of contemporary cinema, with outstanding action and production values.
Wetlands
2013 [GERMAN]
Action / Comedy / Drama
Plot summary
Helen is a nonconformist teenage girl who maintains a conflictual relationship with her parents. Hanging out most of her time with her friend Corinna, with whom she breaks one social taboo after another, she uses sex as a way to rebel and break the conventional bourgeois ethic. After an intimate shaving accident, Helen ends up in the hospital where it doesn’t take long before she makes waves. But there she finds Robin, a male nurse who will sweep her off her feet...
Uploaded by: FREEMAN
December 06, 2020 at 08:43 PM
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worth seeing
A Gross-Out Rom Com With A Surprising Amount of Heart
Wetlands is the kind of movie where things like jizz-covered pizzas, anal tearings, vegetable-based masturbation, purposeful vaginal dirtying, and other taboos are thrown into our face and someone, most likely David Wnendt, wants us to accept the graphic vulgarity like we accepted There's Something About Mary or one of those eye-roll inducing Hangover films. Wetlands dares to call itself a romantic comedy, a coming-of-age story, a family drama, and a gross-out assembly line, and if it were written by someone like Seth Rogen then maybe, just maybe, it would have turned into a sh*t covered disaster. But under Wnendt's authority, it's likable, even if much of it is frustrating. It goes through stretches where it's earnest, legitimately touching, but it also has a tendency to turn around the next minute and tell us about another bodily dysfunction that we'd rather not hear about when we're eating. Part of me wishes it was dirty like a 1960s sex comedy, provocative but not overtly so. But Wetlands can be so appallingly gross that any form of realness seem to be covered in some STDs you caught from a smelly hippie down the street.
At the center of the filth is Helen Memel (Carla Juri), a sexually rambunctious 18-year-old who spends her free time exploring her body in the most disgusting ways imaginable. In the opening alone, a barefoot Helen attends an underground public bathroom so repulsive that it makes a backwoods 7-11 restroom seem pristine. And, as if things couldn't get any more nauseating, she decides to rub herself around the
oh, never mind. Just discussing it makes me shudder.
The film continues in a series of revolting events that seem more NC-17 than cutely edgy, climaxing when Helen accidentally tears her anus (yes, her anus) while hastily shaving. When she finds herself in the hospital for surgery, she cooks up a foolproof plot: as the daughter of divorced parents, she wants nothing more than to get them back together, so why not stage a reconciliation during visiting hours? To Helen, it's ingenious. To us, the thought is depressing, to say the least. But a blossoming romance with a male nurse (Christoph Letkowski) promises better things to come in a world where sexual experimentation is the only source of feeling.
Wetlands is kinda sorta scatterbrained; who knew a movie could transform from a gross-out comedy into a melancholic drama? The best parts of the film, which are (1) the last thirty-minutes and (2) the melancholic drama components, are really, really good; finally, the gags end and deal with Helen as a human instead of an icky caricature. We're given an explanation as to why she is the way she is, and what we find out is gut- punchingly sad — yet it doesn't fit. I can understand her position (ex.: does horrifying things to her body to numb the pains of reality), but I don't understand why the film has to show what she does and what she fantasizes about with such explicit detail. I guess it's meant to shock, but the film is far too well-made to merely act as an exploitation movie. Wetlands covers several genres, and they all work wonderfully; problem is, there's always a slutty cousin wandering about in the background haunting any hint of authenticity. For many films, the level of wildness in a dirty joke can be a calling card (a la American Pie's pie, There's Something About Mary's "hair gel"), but in Wetlands, a dirty joke — scratch that, a dirty image, is a major weakness.
But if you can stomach the vileness of it all, the film is more sweet than it is sickening. There are truly funny moments, and there are affecting moments too. As a coming-of-age drama, its ballsiness is refreshing. And Juri, a combination of Greta Gerwig, Run Lola Run era Franka Potente, and a young Cécile de France, may as well already be a star. With my last impression of Wetlands being that of the earlier mentioned "melancholic drama", though, it must have done something right, despite being one of the most disgusting films I've ever seen. And that's saying something, considering it travels through the microscopic world of a pubic hair within its first few minutes like it's a roller coaster ride.
Repelling yet Riveting!
There is nothing that could concise David Wnendt's Feuchtgebiete aka Wetlands in a single word. Well if one's given the liberty to express what they'd seen or rather witnessed in a plethora of words, it'd most likely be something close to obscene, disgusting, repulsive and most of all shocking. If you've seen its red band previews, you can figure out instantly whether the movie is for you or not. On the other hand if you thought this'd be a usual sex- comedy with some gross factor, believe me when I tell ya what you saw in the preview is nothing compared to the movie. Nothing will prepare you for Wetlands' odd 105 minutes.
Greeted initially with a splendid shot of a skater girl, it quickly goes downhill before you can say "ugh". Wetlands follows the sexual and unhygienic adventures of Helen Memel, a girl who is hellbent on making her life as unhygienic as possible and labeling it as her 'experiments'. Helen played charmingly by Carla Juri, is on an experiment with her own genitals and whatnot as she initially states in the movie. Its kind of a parallel she draws with how she feels for her parents and their divorce. While light at heart, the seemingly damaged 18 year old as Helen may seem it also brings out how bad she needed to be loved.
Beneath the layers of her weird habits and unimaginable sexual fantasies, lies the conflict with herself and an intense yearning for her parents' reconciliation. And Carla Juri does justice to the role. Her performance was inexplicably good, shuffling from cute and sexy to crude and repelling seemed like an easy feat for her. Right from the CG titles, her narration reminded me sorely of David Fincher's Fight Club.
I for one consider myself hardened, watching movies like A Serbian Film, The Human Centipede, Martyrs, Inside, Hostel or even Salo but there were scenes in Wetlands that truly deserved to be called cringe worthy. I wouldn't suggest Wetlands for the faint of heart/stomach or the more perverse either. As evident from the trailers this was marketed as a over the top raunchy comedy but if you overlook all those gross and perverse segments (which is hard I know), there is a sensibly written story about the perils a late- adolescent girl goes though be it physical or emotional. This movie does a decent or rather an indecent job of blending the aversion with a story of someone who aches for some love. I wonder if the same would work had it been a male lead, and of course an immediate reminiscence was Qaushiq Mukherjee's Gandu.