TRIBECA FILM FESTIVAL 2015 // A FILM REVEW OF "WE ARE YOUNG, WE ARE STRONG"
The 2015 Tribeca Film Festival, presented by AT&T, runs April 15th-26th and features hundreds of features, documentaries, short films, and special events all throughout downtown New York City. The ArtsWire Weekly's three featured reviewers Mateo, Derek, & Chrisena are hitting the festival and bringing the reviews right to you! What you should see and what you should skip...
This film starts slowly. Very slowly.
The first thirty to forty five minutes of WE ARE YOUNG, WE ARE STRONG is focused on political dialogue that seems to move in circles. Then finally, the conflict picks up and the film grabs its traction. Honestly, the story itself is an interesting one. The film is set in post-Berlin Wall Germany, where a local Neo-Nazi movement has firmly planted itself, and is terrorizing the new migrant workers. It was an interesting and terrifyingly angry time in Germany, and one that seems frighteningly familiar to the anger that is present nowadays in regards to migrant workers in our own country.
As relevant as it was, I felt the film missed the mark. The entire story follows a teenage boy and his group of friends. They go to the beach, they have parties where they sneak beers and cigarettes and listen to crappy music. They seem like the typical bunch of punky kids, until they start talking about how much they miss Hitler’s reign, and begin to join in on burning down the housing complex where the migrant workers live. It felt almost like the subtitle should have read “Neo-Nazi’s are people too”.
The film does scratch the surface of the issue from the other side of things with the character of Lien, boldly played by Trang Le Hong. She is a tough legal Vietnamese migrant worker, who loves Germany and is determined to stay right where she is. She is courageous inside her burning home, loyal to her co-worker who is unworthy of that loyalty, and is determined to seek fair treatment. Hers is the story that I want to hear. Hers is the story I wish the film focused on, allowing the Neo-Nazi point of view to exist only on the periphery.
VERDICT: SKIP IT
WRITTEN BY Martin Behnke, Burhan Qurbani DIRECTED BY Burhan Qurbani STARRING Jonas Nay, Trang Le Hong, Devid Striesow, Saskia Rosendahl, Joel Basman
Playing as part of The 2015 Tribeca International Film Festival. For tickets & schedules: http://www.tribecafilm.com
CHRISENA RICCI once went to a costume party dressed in an all black dress and black wig. No one there could guess who she was. So she shouted out, "I'm Christina Ricci, without the T or I and add an E!" Everyone stood there confused, she was annoyed, so she stormed off. She never returned to that apartment ever again. Which is fine, because she later realized she was at the wrong party. She now lives in New York City.