Though it's
been likened to the early Roman Polanski classic Knife In The Water, presumably because they both involve sailboats, Summer
'04 isn't really a thriller per se, but it
has the unnerving tension of one. If comparisons must be made, it's actually
more like a European version of The Ice Storm: Both are morality tales about the limits of
permissiveness, and both build to an accident of stunning consequence. But Summer
'04 is subtler and more insinuating, and
less burdened by a puritanical urge to judge. German director Stefan Krohmer
does seem to view some of the film's relationships as inappropriate or
hypocritical, but he isn't given to generalizing too far beyond the five
characters in immediate focus. His film is about people first, and social
statements a distant second.
Projecting an
earthy sexiness that's just right for a woman torn between temptation and
maternal responsibility, Martina Gedeck stars as a bourgeois wife and mother
vacationing with her family in their summer home. She's allowed her mopey son
(Lucas Kotaranin) to bring along his girlfriend, a precocious, sexually brazen
almost-13-year-old played by Svea Lohde. When Lohde begins spending an inordinate
amount of time sailing around with Robert Seeliger, a handsome, mysterious
bachelor roughly three times her age, Gedeck sees it as a cause for concern,
even though her son and cold-fish husband (Peter Davor) think it's no big deal.
Things get more complicated, however, when Gedeck is drawn to Seeliger's charms,
and enters into a love triangle with disturbing implications.
It's odd to say
that Summer '04 crackles with tension,
because it doesn't aim for suspense in any traditional sense, and includes only
one scene in which harm might be intentionally visited upon a character. But
the chemistry between the three leads is complex and quietly edgy, with Gedeck
and Lohde alternating roles as surrogate mother-daughter and romantic rivals,
and the caddish Seeliger encouraging the confusion. Only in the very last scene
does Krohmer stub his toe with an ending that's a bit too neatly ironic, and
conveniently wriggles the film out of a moral quandary. Up to that point, Summer
'04 was content to simmer in disturbing
ambiguity.
Key features: A disjointed making-of featurette that includes some
good raw footage of the shoot, and eight minutes of deleted scenes.