“The Light is a profound cautionary tale about how we are going astray and what we should be doing to repair the damage. To ourselves, to our world, and to each other.”

The Engels are a perfectly dysfunctional, modern German family. Dad Tim (played by the phenomenal Lars Eidinger) is constantly running late, biking around Berlin in the pouring rain. He works for a dubious corporation, helping to write inspirational quotes and slogans that end up on bus stops and on TV. Mom Milena (German actress and director Nicolette Krebitz, in a performance which gives Eidinger a run for his money) freelances for an NGO within the German government, which aims to look good by doing good work in Eastern Africa. She constantly travels back and forth between the continents, stuck in cheap middle seats, listening to self-help podcasts. Twins Frieda (Elke Biesendorfer, amazingly in her first acting role) and Jon (Julius Gause channeling an early Timothée Chalamet in looks and talent) are typical teenagers, rebelling against their parents’ liberalism. Frieda does so by staying out all night dancing and dropping acid with her friends, while Jon stays locked in his room for days playing an online VR game, all the while aspiring to become world champion. There is also little Dio (an adorable Elyas Eldridge), who we believe to be the result of Milena’s tryst with a Kenyan man, though that is never explained in so many words. Dio is a sprightly boy who runs around singing verses from Queen’s ‘Bohemian Rapsody’. “I’m just a poor boy, I need no sympathy,” he sometimes whispers under his breath; sometimes he sings out loud for all to hear, “Because I’m easy come, easy go. Little high, little low…” It doesn’t hurt that his name is ‘Dio’, the Italian word for ‘God’.   

The story takes place in a contemporary Berlin, right here, right now, complete with a constant, heavy downpour, a deluge which almost suggests an apocalypse to come. And an hourglass dripping water instead of sand, shown intermittently throughout the film, indicates something ominous – though in our wildest dreams we could never guess what. Into this mix steps Farrah (Iraqi-German actress Tala Al Deen), the family’s new Syrian housekeeper, who appears to be on a mission to save the Engels. And perhaps herself. She substitutes for the family’s previous housekeeper who dies at work of a heart attack, though it takes the family an entire afternoon and night to discover her body laid out in their kitchen.  

Director and writer Tom Tykwer, the man behind Berlinale opener The Light, is good at reading the room. In his highly successful, long-running series Babylon Berlin he showed us a pre-Nazi Germany in tones of noir and with a promise of things to come. In Run Lola Run, the film which immediately got him placed on international cinematic radar and launched the career of actress Franka Potente, Tykwer showed the reverberating cause and effect of someone’s actions and how those can change through their interactions with others, all mixed with a dash of karma and timing. In the Tom Hanks starrer A Hologram for the King, the director adapted Dave Eggers’ novel and took the audience to the heart of the matter of doing business within Saudi Arabia – and in the process shined a mirror on the absurdity of Western-Arab trade relationships.  

The Light is also that rare work of the cinematic art that can be enjoyed at face value, as the entertaining, perfectly watchable story of a family rediscovering their bond through the help of an outside force. It features high-speed bicycle chases in the rain, a little throwback to Run Lola Run in the long opening sequence – what happens when everything comes together to create the perfect storm, pardon the pun – and lavish musical segments. And they are done here the right way, not as people breaking into song and dance on a ramp of the Los Angeles freeway or in a sex reassignment clinic, as we’ve witnessed in recent awards-nominated films. In The Light songs and dances occur as dreamlike hallucinations that are quickly revealed once the scene is over. Each character has one, with my favorites being Eidinger’s ‘Body Check’ segment and Krebitz’s musical wondering about who she really is, complete with costume changes from punk rocker, to hippie, to an all-white wedding dress straight out of Madonna’s ‘Like a Virgin’ period. Extra credit here goes to the film’s choreographer Eike von Stuckenbrok and costume designer Pierre-Yves Gayraud, the latter a repeat collaborator who worked with Tykwer on Cloud Atlas, Perfume: The Story of a Murderer, and Tykwer’s long-running TV series.   

Add in the cool cinematography by Christian Almesberger and the extraordinary performances, in which Eidinger’s nakedness in form and essence is matched by the vulnerability and ability of his co-stars for an ensemble piece which also features the city of Berlin as an absolute movie star. But beyond this, The Light is also a profound cautionary tale about how we are going astray – “We are the reason our world is f***ed, not others” the argumentative Frieda tells her dad, a quote which Tim then swipes and turns into one of his campaigns, “#WIR” (#Us, in English) – and what we should be doing to repair the damage. To ourselves, to our world, and to each other.  

In his Director’s Statement Tom Tykwer writes, “I’ve tried to make a mad, beautiful film.” I’m here to tell you, he succeeded completely. The Light is a big story, with life-changing undertones and the ability to help us save the world around us. And in the process, maybe even #Us, ourselves.  

Image copyright: Frederic Batier / X Verleih