Losing Balance (Fuchssteiner, 2009): Germany

Reviewed by Skylar Harrison. Viewed at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival, Metro 4 Theatre.

Losing Balance, directed and co-written by Felix Fuchssteiner, is a German film that centers around a once happy family drowning in self-destruction. This film was one of the highlights at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival with its dark themes that could potentially affect any family, characters that are so human it hurts at times, and intense plot filled with intrigue and detail. The barely teenage Jessika, played by Elisa Schlott, brilliantly portrays a once innocent daddy’s girl turned angsty teenager with such believability that you feel like you are reliving an alternate coming of age.

Loosing Balance starts actually where the film ends. We hear a young girl on the phone talking to the police asking that they check out a certain lake. We see shots of all the family members, and it is clear they are family no more, just struggling individuals. The film then picks up with its linear plot with Jessika’s voice-over leading the way and the audience’s emotions. It picks back up with what Jessika explains as the perfect family, complete with two beautiful blonde sisters, a mother, a father, and the perfect dog. Jessika is a free spirited and intelligent girl who has a special bond with her father and an obsession with scientific and trivial facts

Once Jessika’s father, Ernst (Michael Lott) loses his job, the family begins to unravel. He sinks into a deep depression and spell of laziness as all his “breadwinner” qualities are stripped from him, having a negative effect on his relationship with his wife. She is now the sole breadwinner, working at a kindergarten. Jessika is the only family member aware that her family is disintegrating and desperately tries to pull them back together. Before you know it, the parents have no relationship at all, yet it is being hinted at that the mother may be pregnant or simply gaining weight.

When Jessika comes home the find a bloody trail from her mother’s bedroom to the front door, the family is broken forever. No one will inform Jesskia of the family secret, and Jessika, who can no longer baby-sit her family, goes off the deep end into a teenage depression.

What really stands out in this fill is the cohesion between Jessika’s inner thoughts centering around facts and the themes of the film. At first we think Jessika’s plethora of facts is just a quirky character trait; however, as the plot progresses her facts focus the audience on the themes of the film. Many of her bits of information center around placentas, which not only make the viewer suspicious of her mother but also make them question life and death. At one point Jessika reflects on how some cultures kill their newly born children in order for the first child to have a better chance of surviving, which actually makes Jessika question her own life. Is it worth living?

All the random facts and still shots of science images, along with the question of life and death come together in one of the most poetic scenes you will ever view in a film. Jessika, at her lowest point, collects all her fact baring post-its from her closet and then lines her jacket with a blanket of the vibrant sticky notes. Then, as she gathers speed on her bike, she closes her eyes, and lets go of the handlebars. As she rushes toward either death or feeling alive, the wind opens her jacket and all her facts and thoughts are picked up by the wind, and she leaves them behind. Every theme and emotion from the film is tied together in this scene, making the viewer also question what would happen if they, too, left all their thoughts and worries behind.

This is not the average family drama, as you trust the teenage girl more than the parents. It accurately raises the question: why are parents the trustworthy ones? As a film that heavily deals with morals, coming of age, and the pursuit of happiness even at the cost of losing your family, you will leave the theatre shaken and hopeful at the same time—a rare feeling that this film has accomplished.