Film review: Hysteria

With echoes of other behind-the-scenes making-of-a-movie epics like François Truffaut’s Day For Night, this details the production of a historical drama depicting the events surrounding a real tragedy that took place in Solingen in 1993.

With much bad feeling already surrounding the making of any film about a racist terrorist attack that led to the deaths of three girls and two women, all part of a Turkish family, we’re introduced to the cast of characters during an elaborate recreation of the fire.

A group of Muslim men from a local refuge are brought in as extras, and in what might or might not be an accident they find a burnt copy of the Koran, something that greatly offends Majid (Nazmi Kirik), no matter how much Mustafa (Aziz Çapkurt) tries to calm him down. Director Yigit (Serkan Kaya) and producer Lilith (Nicolette Krebitz) supposedly seem uneasy at the potential controversy, while first-time second assistant director Elif (Devrim Lingnau), a uni student, becomes the chief protagonist, revealing herself to be knowing, fearless and occasionally foolish. But always sympathetic.

When Elif is assigned the responsibility of looking after the day’s rushes (they’re not shooting digitally, somewhat improbably), the cans naturally go missing, and a sometimes Hitchcock-ian plot kicks in where she must try to determine who’s lying. And everyone has reasons to twist the truth, including young Said (Mehdi Meskar), who might be sweetly flirting with her – or cruelly manipulating her.

Although the underplaying Lingnau makes Elif very likeable, Büyükatalay’s screenplay does require her to make, perhaps, one too many risky decisions, and yet such problems can surely be excused due to the character’s naivete, and the fact that, in some ways, she’s just a kid.

And none of that really matters as we build, and build, and build to a final act that no one will see coming.