Review: Cicadas
by Olivia Popp
- BERLINALE 2025: Ina Weisse picks apart an intersection of social milieus in small-town Germany, revealing the shared turbulence that hides in the cracks between all parties
Reuniting with powerhouse lead Nina Hoss – who also serves as executive producer – after The Audition [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Ina Weisse
interview: Ina Weisse
film profile], German actor-turned-writer-director Ina Weisse returns with Cicadas [+see also:
interview: Ina Weisse
film profile], a measured German- and French-language entry that cements Weisse's storytelling abilities. World-premiering in the 75th Berlinale’s Panorama sidebar, Cicadas showcases the filmmaker’s strengths also as a writer; a much more subdued entry than her previous film, it is nevertheless dead-set on being tightly woven.
Working as a realtor for high-end homes, 48-year-old Isabell’s (Hoss) life is financially set but instead heavily burdened by personal conflict. Her ageing mother and ailing father rotate through carers like wildfire in light of the latter’s personality and needs, while Isabell must also tend to her increasingly disintegrating marriage with her French engineer husband, Philippe (Vincent Macaigne). Young single mother Anja (Saskia Rosendahl) deals with the opposite: she moves from service job to service job to earn enough money for herself and her school-aged daughter Greta, whom she is forced to leave alone in the village to play. Between the two grows an unusual relationship born of a quiet yearning for meaningful connection based on admiration and a sense of intrigue. In a semi-autobiographical move, Weisse casts her own parents as the protagonist's, crediting them each by their first name.
Living in a small Brandenburg village, each woman is battling a different series of intersecting struggles. Anja sees Isabell differently than the others in the latter’s life, but whether it’s a product of the older woman’s privileged social conditions or a genuine expression of interest is one of the film's greatest lingering questions for the viewer to decide the answer to. During their first true interaction, Isabell can’t hide her disdain for the younger woman – it's unbelievable that she enjoys reading crime novels, of all things – but at the same time, she’s curious as to how Anja gets by with her child. “Who’d want kids? You birth them, they grow up, they hate you, then you die,” says a woman that Anja works with – but Isabell might just disagree.
Notably, distinctive and diverging habituses are revealed not just through character choices, but also further through production design by Petra Ringleb and Susanne Hopf. The family home of Isabell’s parents is full of items collected over the years in a sleek, brightly lit and open-floor-planned home as designed by Isabell’s architect father Rolf, while we only need to catch a glimpse of Anja’s dark, cramped flat. DoP Judith Kaufmann leverages focus on Isabell as the central character, where we often find the frame focused just over a hazy shoulder, allowing us to nearly see the social realist world through her eyes.
In Weisse’s extraordinarily well-paced interrogation of socioeconomic class – not just conflict, but also the difficulties that arise while trying to find solidarity – one might expect the film to rise to a higher fever pitch before its end. The movie would have benefited from a deeper examination of several of its component parts that are hinted at, as its secrets mostly lie beneath the surface. However, the ending of Cicadas is, perhaps, simply just very true to life, refusing to stoop to dramatics that would pit our protagonists against each other too harshly.
Cicadas is a German-French production by Lupa Film in co-production with 10:15! Productions. Beta Cinema is steering the film’s international sales.
Photogallery 17/02/2025: Berlinale 2025 - Cicadas
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