Showtimes & Tickets Enter Zip Code:

SUMMER ‘04
Directed by: Stefan Krohmer.
Produced by: Frank Löprich & Katrin Schlösser.
Written by: Daniel Nocke.
Director of Photography: Patrick Orth.
Edited by: Gisela Zick.
Released by: The Cinema Guild.
Language: German with English subtitles.
Country of Origin: Germany. 97 min. Not Rated.
With: Martina Gedeck, Robert Seeliger, Peter Devor, Svea Lohde & Lucas Kotaranin.

This blunt and methodical chamber-piece thriller, filled with deceptively lazy afternoons, has the seductive and flinty heart of a Ruth Rendell novel – it’s unsettling, to say the least.

Maybe because Europeans flock to the country in droves every summer (France and Italy virtually shut down), the idyll-turned-nightmare tends to be more of a European than an American anxiety, as recently seen in François Ozon’s Swimming Pool, where trouble brews within, not without.

Close to the sea, a handsome professional couple, Miriam (The Lives of Others’ Martina Gedeck) and André (Peter Davor), have retreated to their summer cottage with their sullen 16-year-old son, Nils (Lucas Kotaranin). They read what appear to be academic papers around the kitchen table after each has routinely pitched in around the house during the day. Both are early-middle-aged and have more than one opportunity to disrobe and display their physical fitness in and out of the bedroom.

Nils’s coltish 12-year-old girlfriend, pouty and blond Livia (Svea Lohde), arrives for the summer holiday – her parents are overseas. Though physically yet to mature, she’s much more confident and upfront sexually than her boyfriend. The following day, the imperturbable Nils returns home from sailing alone – he left Livia on the family’s boat with a stranger, an older man.

She returns just in time for dinner, accompanied by the unshaven and boyishly handsome Bill (Robert Seeliger), who’s most likely three times her age. He’s summering nearby in between jobs. When Livia disappears the next day and hasn’t returned for dinner, Miriam assumes she has run off to see Bill.

Feeling responsible for the girl’s welfare, Miriam pays Bill a visit. From her viewpoint in the driver’s seat, the camera glides up the driveway to Bill’s run-down home, the beginning of director Stefan Krohmer’s gradual transformation of the self-assured Miriam, who finds Bill alone, Livia having stormed off in a tiff. What Miriam imagined would be a confrontation surprisingly turns into a leisurely chat over wine. Later, as her subsequent actions shift from inexplicable to alarming, Krohmer and screenwriter Daniel Nocke never furl red flags, but offer hints and insinuations instead.

Miriam rarely reveals vulnerability. She remains for the most part cool and collected, her impenetrability adding to the intrigue. Yet Gedeck’s subtle performance, in one of the year’s most layered roles, can hardly be called low-key. The up-for-grabs conclusion rests on her final emotionally charged close-up.

Unlike many thrillers that promise more than they deliver, Summer ’04 tantalizes up to the end, pushing many disconcerting buttons. Underlying the film’s tension is the older woman vs. nubile ingénue friction and the friendship/attachment between the affable and seemingly honorable Bill and Livia. But like the best mysteries, you can never be sure of what you’re seeing. Kent Turner
August 1, 2007