Europe, She Loves

Offering a candid look into Europe of today and those trying to survive in it, Jan Gassmann’s Europe, She Loves focuses on the everyday lives of four couples based on its edges. Splitting time between couples in Dublin, Seville, Tallinn and Thessaloniki, it is frank depiction of the lives of twenty-somethings, and the changing climate around them in Europe.

Visiting each in turn, the film puts the individual stories of the four couples side by side. In Tallinn, Estonia a father struggles to connect with his stepchild and own estranged child and in Seville, Spain a young couple are attempting to carve out their lives together while battling the unforgiving job market. A pair is drifting apart in Thessaloniki, Greece, with one aspiring to move away to Italy, and a Dublin-based couple are battling drug addiction while still trying to keep their lives afloat.

Each story is compelling to watch, and all share the same sense of a crumbling Europe, with much more wrong than right in it. Performances are natural, realistic and faultless, even in intimate moments. Although they may not be well-known actors, Gassmann has recruited a stellar cast who really bring the movie to life.

With action between the couples always interrupted by news reports announcing real stories of distress and disaster (even the Costa Concordia is mentioned), in the light of the recent refugee crisis, as well as the Greek economic crisis, the film presents a Europe in tatters, with a cast of citizens doing their best to get by, numbing themselves with drugs and alcohol to remain indifferent to it.

An eerily realistic film, it is a melancholy look at modern day life that is both interesting and entertaining. Each young couple seems to shares real love between them, which in some way serves as hope for the future in this continent in crisis, but the world they are living in looks frighteningly bleak and empty.

 

Sarah Sutton

Europe, She Loves does not yet have a UK release date.

Read more of our reviews and interviews from the festival here.

For further information about Berlin Film Festival 2016 visit here.

Watch the trailer for Europe, She Loves here: