Turkish-born, Berlin-based filmmaker Asli Özge has built up a reputation as an astute observer of society and how individuals function within it, particularly in her stellar docu-fiction debut, Men on the Bridge [+lire aussi :
critique
bande-annonce
interview : Asli Özge
fiche film], and the 2016 Berlinale-screened thriller All of a Sudden [+lire aussi :
critique
bande-annonce
interview : Asli Özge
fiche film]. Her new film, Black Box [+lire aussi :
bande-annonce
fiche film], which has opened the New German Cinema section of Filmfest München, synthesises these somewhat disparate strands of her interests into a complex, puzzle-like microcosm of society.

The whole film is set in a Berlin apartment building and centres on proceedings taking place in its courtyard. As the film opens, we see a large glass-and-metal container being lowered into it by crane. This will be the office of investor Johannes Horn (Felix Kramer), who is buying flats in the building. Throughout the film, he will try to act as a kind of a general for the community, especially when the police suddenly, and without any explanation, close off the building and stop anyone from entering or leaving.

Besides a lady in need of dialysis, this arguably causes the biggest problem for Henrike (Luise Heyer), who has just headed off for her first job interview in six years. She and her husband Daniel, with their little son Leo, want to buy their flat, but credit will be hard to come by with only Daniel being employed. Henrike is the closest we get to a lead protagonist in the film, which features a large number of characters and points of view.

Among them is Dr Behr (Christian Berkel), who keeps rallying his neighbours for support to make Horn remove the rubbish bins placed under his window, and is in the habit of spouting conspiracy theories and generally sticking his nose into everything concerning the building. A Lebanese woman (who the tenants think is Iranian) and a Dagestani man (who they think is Afghan) in a secret relationship – even if Henrike saw them making love from her window – are the prime suspects to many of the tenants for the undisclosed reason for the police intervention. The idea of three apartments being owned by a Turk, which Horn keeps repeating is a problem because "people just come and go there", further stokes their fears, having just gone through a pandemic and witnessed an acceleration of frightening global issues. When they are crowded around the main gate being blocked by the police, the young co-owner of the bakery that is part of the building, Eli, has a panic attack and spits at an officer, which prompts the cops to throw him against their van and handcuff him.

Gossip and prejudice, along with the characters' personal peeves and antagonisms, dominate proceedings until the police finally start taking action, bluntly introducing the aspect of state repression. But rather than cleanly resolving the mystery, Özge uses this heightened emotional situation to highlight the interpersonal dynamics that define a society on the micro-level. Her eye for detail is key in building a claustrophobic atmosphere: every little glimpse through the window threatens to start the paranoid snowball rolling.

Without a musical score, but with Paul Heymans and Thomas Gauder's ever-present and detailed sound design, and through perceptive, classical cinematography by Özge's regular DoP, Emre Erkmen, the director builds a complex film that touches upon numerous topics relevant to the present day. From the perils of gentrification to class inequalities and racial prejudice, what happens in the movie is certainly representative of the particularities of German society, but is also easily relatable to audiences in any European country, and probably in most of the Western world.

Black Box is a co-production by Germany's Zeitsprung Pictures and Belgium's Les Films du Fleuve. Beta Cinema has the international rights.