The Wall (2012) (5 Stars)

Dancer's Top Films #9

Usually when I watch one of my favourite films, I tell my friends and readers that they must watch it. I tell them that it's a masterpiece that will knock them off their feet. I'm hesitant to do that with "The Wall". Yes, it's a masterpiece, but it's not a film for everyone. Many will find it boring, especially those who prefer action films. "The Wall" runs for two hours, and it just shows one woman walking around by herself, accompanied only by her collection of animals: a dog, two cats, a cow and a calf. There's no dialogue; the whole film is in voiceover. There's only one action scene, in which the woman finally meets a man, but the action is filmed very abstractly, so that we need the voiceover to know for certain what happens.

The only film that has any similarity to "The Wall" is "The Life of Pi". Both films show a person alone with animals, but the similarity is only on the surface. "The Life of Pi" is about a young man who's alone with God. The woman in "The Wall", who's never named, doesn't have God on her side. Maybe God has deserted her. Maybe God is dead. Whatever the truth, she's alone.

She's alone and she survives. No man and no God at her side.

I can relate to the woman. She's a writer, like me. She spends many hours sitting alone writing her journal. The difference is that I'm writing for my readers. The woman doesn't know if her words will ever be read.

The woman is powerful. She survives. At the end of the film she's lived alone for almost three years. I couldn't do that. I would be incapable of fending for myself in a harsh, lonely environment. I might even break down and kill myself. My fate would be like the man that she meets on the mountain pasture: I'd be lying dead, face down in the grass.

If you dare to watch something different to anything you've ever seen before, try "The Wall". There's nothing wrong with the dubbed English version. Voiceover is easy to dub, and in this case the lead actress, Martina Gedeck, has dubbed the dialogue herself. Maybe you won't like the film, but if you like it you'll want to watch it again and again. It's a glorious film about the supremacy of Woman. Woman doesn't need Man in order to survive. Man is a brute, less than an animal, so she kills him in order to continue her life in peace.

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