THE CITY BELOW | CHRISTOPH HOCHHÄUSLER

It is pure coincidence, says director Christoph Hochhäusler that the film Sous toi, la ville is so frighteningly current in today’s world economic crisis. But this is not a film about the crisis, he says, rather a film whose metaphoric wants to make people reflect about the crisis. Like Hochhäusler’s two previous films, Milchwald (The Very Moment) and Falscher Bekenner, his new frosty drama centres around love and loneliness, emotions and passion in a world of eroding values, ice-cold and callous. Svenja und her husband Oliver, a banker in charge of mergers and acquisitions, have recently moved to Frankfurt. By serendipity, Svenja meets Roland Cordes, her husband’s boss. Both feel inexplicably drawn to each other and begin an affair that takes on more a life on its own and becomes increasingly self-destructive.

By: Christoph Hochhäusler, 2010, 110 min., 35mm, colour With: Nicolette Krebitz, Robert Hunger-Bühler German with French Subtitles