Customer Reviews

Falling

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This Austrian film presents a day in the life of five 30-something women (plus a sullen teenager), all it seems on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Each of them is single, and one of them is pregnant. Former schoolgirl friends, they gather for the funeral of a teacher, who it turns out has had romantic attachments to two or more of them. A wedding celebration provides diversion from grieving - grieving chiefly over how the freedom they once felt as school girls has left them bereft emotionally, as they leave youth behind.

There are flashbacks to their youthful voices singing American folk ballads and songs ("We Shall Overcome") and flash-forwards to still images of plot turns still to come. An evening at a dance club called "Brooklyn" becomes an occasion for heavy drinking and topless dancing, plus brief intimate interludes with the bridegroom, who has all the charm of a pony-tailed viper. There's a lot of talk, but much that might reveal the private hell each of them seems to be enduring goes unsaid.

The many references to American pop culture suggest a political reading, as one explains that her long-held wish to go to the US has been thwarted by what the US has become - read the European lack of enthusiasm for the Bush Administration. Then, for a moment in the film, they are not "falling" but lifted by an updraft of wind as they stand high on a hillside (see the DVD cover). The scene signals release from the dilemma in which each finds herself, but the ending of their story offers little in the way of escape for them. One, we last see, is in fact in a prison cell. But as another breaks off with what seems to be a loser of a boyfriend, there is some hope that a reestablished friendship among the women will draw them together again, to face an uncertain future.