Berlinale Competition Highlights: Reviews of Queen at Sea and Rose by David Katz

It’s either a sign of honesty, or something especially pessimistic about our era, that dementia has become such a familiar topic in cinema, often depicted with a fair balance of compassion and mercilessness. Lance Hammer’s long-awaited Queen at Sea, after his last Berlinale competition entry Ballast almost two decades ago, is unique for emphasising that latter quality, especially the stress and pain caused to the family and loved ones caring for the sufferer. And in light of Hammer’s Californian background, he continues his special knack of making authentic work in places far from home, after Ballast’s Mississippi Delta setting, with this film being one of the most vibrant, and atmospheric depictions of London (especially its leafy, privileged Northern parts) in years.

Presumably cast to evoke his earlier role in 45 Years, Tom Courtenay plays Martin, the supportive, yet headstrong, husband of Leslie (Anna Calder-Marshall), who’s in the advanced throes of the illness. The film’s particular slant on this subject becomes clear when Leslie’s daughter Amanda (Juliette Binoche), who counts Martin as her stepfather, arrives at their home, and finds him attempting to have sex with his wife - a major point of contention, given she is deemed unable to give consent. Shocked and vindictive, Amanda calls the police, and amidst a situation so challenging to make legal conclusions on, a criminal investigation into Martin begins, with a revised plan sought for Leslie’s end-of-life care.

As we discover the more nuanced reasons for Martin’s choices, and his devotion to his former domestic happiness, each narrative turn in Queen at Sea further problematises the automatic assurance and empathy we might carry the neurodegenerative disease. Whilst Hammer’s continuous upping of tension can make the film feel overly calculated, it provides an absolute punch of a message: that we can have no illusions about dementia, and attempting to salvage the afflicted person we once knew is usually in vain. However, Amanda’s sixth form-age daughter Sara (Florence Hunt), uprooted from her life in Newcastle where her mother was a respected university academic, is film’s bright spark of optimism. Her subplot where she finds her feet, romancing a new classmate interesting in architecture, is a flash of life amidst all this portent of death.

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Another consensus favourite here is Markus Schleinzer’s period drama Rose, with Sandra Hüller being hailed for a powerhouse performance in the title role, a veteran of the Thirty Years’ War who decides to live in disguise as a man for the security and better opportunities it affords her. Hüller is undoubtedly very impressive, and one hopes she’ll continue selecting these kinds of roles, as her Hollywood career ramps up this year with appearances in hyped new films by Alejandro González Iñárritu, and Phil Lord and Chris Miller, yet the themes and ideas account more for the film’s strength.

With her cropped hair, pulled-up trousers, and haunted, scarred face, Rose convinces as “male”, when she arrives at a small village bordered by woodlands, claiming an apparent family inheritance of a small farmhouse. Yet of course, further complications arise: she’s married off to the deceptively naive Suzanna (Caro Braun), and wielding the patriarchal dominance she now carries, initially prevents her from sharing a bed. Then, there’s the expectation a child will eventually arrive, and Suzanna mysteriously finds herself pregnant; Schleinzer craftily leaves the father’s identity an ellipsis. Whilst having the formal clarity and severity of many Austrian films, with its crystalline black-and-white lensing, we can feel the director subtly winking at us, as Rose and Suzanna have built this mirage of an honourable, Christian life.

It’s unsurprising that Rose’s identity is discovered, and the civic authorities must decide the best course for “justice”; her trial’s sad outcome is also no less affecting for being so preordained. Whilst the filmmakers have stated Rose always saw herself as a woman pretending to be a man, and not transgender, her treatment is a swipe at how societies deal with non-conformist identities to this very day.