Superwelt
- long
- 120'
- English subtitles
Gabi suffers from the domestic blues. Work, clean, cook, work. How could that ever make you happy? No wonder Gabi suddenly starts hearing voices and abandons her humdrum life.
Karl Markovics’ Superwelt has an excessive amount of wide shots, filmed from above. They provide a kind of god’s-eye-view on the small Austrian village where Gabi performs her daily routines. It’s a godless life, really; the daily rut is about as linear as the conveyor belt of the cash register she sits behind at the supermarket. Meanwhile, the washing machine is also giving her grief. It’s enough to drive a person crazy.
No wonder she starts hearing voices. We don’t get to hear them, but as she casually describes them to her friend, they sound rather grim. “Why do you exist?”, they ask, or they warn her: “Go away”, or even: “Kill your neighbours.”
And suddenly Gabi finds herself paying too much attention to these voices. She pours an entire pot of tea over the table, while observantly staring into the beyond. Or she completely ignores the people around her, while mumbling vague words. More and more often she sneaks away. “Short walk”, she stammers, as she abandons her domestic chores and secludes herself in nature. What do the voices have planned for her? That’s a question no-one can answer for her, even though it becomes increasingly important. Because no-one can live like this.
Film fans may recognize director Karl Markovics’ name: he was one of Harvey Keitel’s cellmates in Wes Anderson’s The Grand Budapest Hotel and played Ernst Stockinger in Commissaris Rex for years. With Superwelt he delivers his second film, as funny as it is strange, as sincere as it is light-hearted. The domestic blues has rarely been better adapted to film.
Hugo Emmerzael
Translation: Marjan Westbroek