Hoo boy, where to start with Yella. Well, what I had found intriguing was the film's use of traditional horror tropes and techniques to convey the emotion of the scene. Early on in the film, the audience is make to feel like Yella is vulnerable by the use of voyeurism, especially with the character of Ben, whose gaze constantly lingers of Yella whenever he's around her. The use of the gaze as a tool in horror isn't anything new, but I would surmise that much of the influence in Yella is not just taken from Carnival of Souls, but also Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho in several ways. It's no wonder that Petzold was inspired from horror films for Yella, as Fisher describes the horror genre's influence on Petzold's as "formative" (Fisher, 104). A quotation from Professor Abel's interview with Petzold reveals his influence from the popular slasher film Halloween, it's no wonder that Petzold would also be familiar with one of Alfred Hitchcock's seminal horror films.
Psycho had a great focus on eyes, whether on the gaze toward or from the audience, or also at a character, from Ben's point-of-view in the car from the beginning, or later on in the film where he gazes out through a window at Yella. This draws many parallels to Norman and Marion of Psycho. Even in the beginning of the film as Yella changes in the train, she closes the window, as if she is being watched, instilling the fear of the gaze in the audience.
Another horror trope they share is the theme of spaces, which is been in each of Petzold's films we've viewed. Having scenes take place in a hotel allow for characters to establish space, only to have it violated by the antagonist, be it Norman Bates or Ben. However, Ben literally violates her space in the hotel the first time by claiming it as his own, as evidenced by the way he left the room with food and drink and the T.V. running. This action shows that Ben attempted to take what was Yella's for his own, much like how he tried to claim her for himself whenever they've spoken before. Overall, Yella's use of the hotel room signifies her desperation (Fisher, 108), which makes Ben's violation that much more intimidating. Other moments of space violation occur, including the second train scene after the car wreck where a figure attempts to open the curtain, only to leave.
Although, to be honest I'm not sure how this all connects in the end. I see a beginning to these themes, but the ending has left me in the dark. What do you all think?
We have learned that Petzold’s work is a part of what is known as “The Berlin School” films. We read in German Desire in the Age of Venture Capitalism that “the Berlin School films are thus quite literally directed at a people still missing-and hence at a people that is yet to come-rather than at a community, imagined or real, that has coherence across time and space, that is, across the ups and downs of 20th and 21st century German history/histories” (Abel). Petzold’s Yella truly embodies this idea of the “still missing” people that reflects the effect of Germany’s history on its present state.
Yella, herself, undergoes a process throughout the film where she is “missing.” The film isn’t necessarily so much about the business deals that go down during her dream state, but the fact that her dream state reflects her true desires -- love and money. We might recognize that Yella truly “cannot love without money,” which is her reason for separating from Ben, and this idea becomes more solidified once we see how she falls in love with Philipp, who is very much money oriented himself.
We see a constant repetition of sounds and sights that bring Yella closer to no longer being missing. During her dream state, certain things trigger her to hear a loud sound of a jet (I’m not sure it’s necessarily a jet, but that is what I’ve perceived it to be), the sound of rushing water (as if she is in a car sinking under the water), the sound of the wind through the trees, and finally, the loud cawing of the bird. It seems as though these sights/sounds intensify as she comes closer to the end of her dreamlike journey, and finally concludes with her death.
For the first 99% of Yella I firmly believed that this was going to be the best of the Petzold film we’d viewed. Then the last 1% went and ruined it for me. I was enchanted by this odd, possibly supernatural tale, but I really have trouble with movies that use the “it was all a dream” plot twist. I felt a bit cheated that all this development was taken away by that simple story choice. This isn’t to say that the film didn’t do an amazing job of blurring the lines between reality and the “supernatural” but I felt the ending simplified the story. The ending is very fitting to the theme of ‘ghosts’ that Petzold’s trilogy delves into, both in the metaphorical ghosts of economic failures and in the more literal as the “dying wishes of its protagonist express themselves primarily economically” (Fisher 98). The desires of Yella to have the perfect “American dream” are made clear even before her demise as she interacts with her estranged husband and through her longing look at the happy, economically stable household that she observes early on in the film. A powerful twist of the plot shows that even this perfect family has to struggle, with Yella’s extortion being the final nail in the coffin of the businessman who she’d earlier idolized. The question of what is real and what is fantasy made a strong focal point for the film, one which kept me guessing till the end. Early on, in Yella’s father’s house, there was a sign on the wall with the latin word Veritas (truth) written on it. This acted as both a foreshadowing of the events that followed and also a marker that this was true reality. After the accident transpires the idea of truth is flung out the window as increasingly strange events play out. Questions such as “how does Phillip know Yella so well?” and “Did Ben really survive the crash?” were always on my mind. I was always suspicious that certain parts of the film were dream sequences because Yella would often wake up without ever going to sleep or vice versa. My suspicions were obviously (and dissatisfyingly) realized by the end of the film. Though it is a bit selfish, I wish that it hadn’t all been a dream or, if it was, that it was taking place after the crash. Yet, the fact that her dream of finding the perfect, economically savvy man ended in the same ruination that her real relationship did was fitting. That hopelessness about the future seems to be a key piece of each of the films we’ve watched.
I was also feeling cheated that this entire film turned out to be just a dream/fantasy/whatever the hell it was and not a real series of events. But then I got to thinking and I wondered - were her jobs, the people she met, and the things she did just her creations in her imagination? Or were they something a little more? I have two theories - that what she saw was her potential future or a slightly altered retelling of her past.
“...Petzold’s Yella does not realize that she has been fatally injured, and so most of all three narratives unfold as a final fantasy of the expiring.” (Fisher, 98) I think it is important to distinguish between fantasies that we create and the visions or mental experiences that we do not control. While Fisher seems to take the stance that Yella made up the events of the film, I have to disagree. It seems to me like the film felt like a giant “what could have been”. That, if Yella had managed to survive the crash, she would have gone to the city, found out that her job was a bust, met Phillip, began working for him, fall in love, and eventually get herself in trouble trying to blackmail their business associate. Yella, both in reality and her dream, was trapped in a never-ending cycle of disappointment and failure brought about by others and herself as she struggled to improve her economic status. Her business didn’t work. Her marriage didn’t work. Her new job wasn’t real. And although her business and romance with Phillip had a rocky start, it looked like things were finally going in a positive direction...until they found the drowned body.
What I’m trying to get across here is that whether Yella died in the crash or whether she survived, her luck and situation was as such that she wouldn’t have been successful and happy either way. Disaster would find her one way or another, and it just so happened that she got the potential demise that occurred sooner rather than later.
Also, a less likely theory that I have revolves mainly around the physical and relationship dynamic similarities between Phillip and Yella and Ben and Yella. Perhaps what we saw was Yella’s life flashing before her eyes, slightly altered, but with elements from the present circumstances seeping through. This idea is far more convoluted and way less likely, though, so I won’t try to wade through the muddy details much further. Basically, she was reliving how her and Ben’s marriage fell apart, but Ben, loving and likeable in the past, was represented by Phillip and Ben, broken and frantic now was represented by himself.
This is mainly just my attempt to explain the ending of the film in a less infuriatingly lazy, trope-y way than the film itself did and salvage what was also looking like it was going to be my favorite Petzold film so far. We are definitely in the same boat right now.
Going off that dilemma of final fantasy or reality, Kenna Smith brings up the exact feeling I got when leaving class today. The film was about the ‘what ifs’, what if Yella survived? How would her life turn out, would it be all that she had hoped it would be, or not? It was never a full fantasy lived out, it was just a glance at what her life was going to look like. Like the statement “my life flashed before my eyes.” In a similar way, Yella’s future flashed before her eyes. Fisher claims that, “Yella’s reinvention of herself is built on the ruble of a past failure” (105). What is exposed as her life pans out is that the past failure will continue to keep her as this “ghost” or stuck. Fate has a funny way of working itself out regardless of fear, preparation, and prevention. Bauman says while talking about fate, “strikes without warning and is indifferent to what its victims might do or might abstain from doing in order to escape its blows” (10).
Over all, Petzold makes some pretty bold statements with his idea of ghosts and how it all works, but with Yella, the horror lies within the fate that even if opportunity arises, no matter the circumstance, only fate can decide whether one can become unstuck.
What I'm intrigued by is all of your seeming surprise at the "discovery" that the better part of the film is not "real" but something else (maybe a dream). It seems to me that is pretty clearly marked by the film itself through a range of formal devices and the genre elements it mobilizes. In other words, I don't think Yella works like The Sixth Sense of similar movies; those do try to deceive/mislead the audience to get to the surprise "pay-off" (which makes these films problematic if one figures out the one clue one is given, of which the film at the end invevitably reminds us, as is the case in Sixth Sense, for example). But Yella (the film) marks the switch from her real life to her dying stages rather clearly, no? So, then, it seems to me the question to ask is about the nature of her waning consciousness/dream/fantasy: what desires do manifest themselves there? Why? What does it tell us about us or the environment we are living in if even in our dreams we give in to corruption? Or, why does she fail EVEN in her dream? And recognize it so that she resigns herself to her fate in a way she did not in reality: in the first crash scene she fights Ben, but she doesn't in the "repeat" scene.
For this blog, I would like to mostly focus on the character of Phillip and his role within the film. He is not introduced into the film until after Yella and Ben drive off of a bridge, and as the ending suggests that the events which occurred since they drove off are actually just Yella's fantasy, then Phillip's existence itself is just part of this fantasy as well. So, if he is just part of Yella's fantasy, why is Phillip Phillip? Why is he there, have the job he has, look the way he looks?
First off, one must notice a bit of a resemblance he has to Ben. They are both blonde, German, near Yella's age, fit. They both care very deeply about making money. This is about as far as their similarities go, however. Ben is from East Germany, involved with an old industrial type of business in a country which no longer has industry. Because of this, he is broke. Phillip on the other hand is from West Germany, involved with venture capitalism in an increasingly neoliberal country. Because of this he is rich. His voice is deeper and not as high pitched as Ben's. And as we only see Ben as a creepy, homocidal/suicidal monster, Phillip appears quite calm, peaceful, and collected. In essence, Phillip is everything that Ben is not.
In the beginning of the film, before we meet Phillip, there is no indication that she in search for a new man to be with. The only desires which are apparent are her desire to leave her old life and get a new job in the west. This could easily have been possible in a before-death-fantasy. She could have fantasized about getting the job she originally set out for. But instead, in the fantasy we see, this job is no longer available. Instead, she meets and falls in love with Phillip. What interests me about this is that she could not have the job, the economic prospects by itself. She needed romance and sex to be a part of this economic fantasy. As her previous relationship with Ben suggests, Yella's deepest fantasy is to find love and money in the same place.
This is good. If we acceot the idea that we are exposed to something like a dream one needs to take dreams seriously, how they work. Arguably, what we witness is Yella's dream-WORK: how in her dream she reboots a few times, taking elements from reality and earlier dream moments to revise in her dream ,her dream.... So yes, P might very well be seen as a dream-revised version of B....
As the imagery of Yella (2007) shifts back and forth between natural spaces, building, outsides, and insides, the colors resonated with their hues of red, blues, greys, and blacks. The presence of open spaces, forested areas, and trees added green into the mixture, but since Yella is present in those shots, the red overtakes the scenes. Additionally, a remark was made earlier this week when analyzing Jerichow (2008) about the predominance of green in Petzold’s films and its relationship with money and the importance of context. Its lack of association with money is exemplified in this film, particularly. When Yella walks away from the drowned businessman, for instance, she is surrounded by greenery. Nevertheless, the eye is driven to her red shirt, black skirt, pale skin, and black shoes. Those colors are the associations to capitalism and money. The interaction of colors, therefore, seems to give a way to observe the relationships not just of individual characters, but the system.
My viewing of the movie was affected by part of a question from the interview with Petzold, “…in a last-ditch effort to get his wife back, [Ben] even promises her again to become what he thinks Yella wanted him to be all along: a regular blue-collar worker…” (Abel 12). The wording kept resonating in my mind for the mentioning of color and the association of it with the adjective “regular.” This positioning of the worked as unimportant and unworthy of notice, in relation to monetary value, has been present in Petzold’s films before—Laura and Toni. This, added to the moment when the camera frames a close-up of Yella’s hand as she pulls out the roll of blue money, neatly tied together with a red rubber band, solidified the importance of the color scheme.
After this, it proved easy to observe the association of the color with the idea of the blue-collar worker and how it upheld throughout the film. For example, the artwork above Yella’s hotel bed is a mixture of different blues, as are the adjacent curtains. Interestingly, during one of Ben’s visits to her room, right before hitting her, the camera creates an eye-level shot of Yella with the blue canvas behind the top of her head, the white wall between that and her red shirt, which is at the bottom, and Ben’s suit creating a black blur on the left side. The proceeding cut displays Ben, completely surrounded by the blue curtain and Yella’s blurred figure creating the only color disruption. Through this, the threat of blue-collar level work hangs above Yella’s head, while it has engulfed Ben through the loss of money. The water, another significant subject in the film and which looks blue, further reinforces this by, literally, engulfing Ben and Yella, as well as engulfing the business man who could not live up to monetary expectations of white-collar labor.
The blues just like with the roll of money, contrast with reds: Yella’s shirt, both of the cars—Ben’s and Phillip’s—and the ending titles. The traditional associations of red with positive symbols: love and passion, take on a more sinister tone, and as Andrew observed on his blog about the horror film tropes usage, here it takes on the symbolic blood. Is this, then, a denunciation of blood money? Is it associating capitalism’s money as tainted by murder? Showing the death of the businessman, and his ghost, along with Ben’s, hunting Yella puts some evidence into that. Yella’s restless consciousness, first for feeling guilty of abandoning Ben after his economic collapse, and then for having pushed a man to his death by presenting the possibility of economic failure, display a level of it. Ultimately, both the blue-collar worker (Ben) and the white-collar worker (the businessman) seem to get smashed under capitalism (Yella) and its effects on individuals.
What might be worthwhile thinking thru is the murder, or rather: suicide, itself. He kills himself because of Yella threatening blackmail. Blackmail is a film noir trope, something associated with an old school form of capitalism. If you will, Yella has recourse to an action that does not have any place anymore in the age of finance capitalism. In a sense she relapses to an outdated, nostalgic view of business, where blackmail still had a place. Even tho she is great at venture capitalist negotiations her desire overrides this--desire for quick money to allow her and P to have a life together--& tries to speed the process of accumulation up instead of allowing the negotiation to play its course. So we are facing two different economic logics that are clashing at this moment....
I have so many questions after watching this film. Regardless, I knew after seeing the extreme close up of the car lighter in Jerichow, the extreme close up of Yella’s father peeling the orange would be extremely significant as well—especially when Petzold seems to use close up shots sparingly.
Towards the beginning of the film (before we knew Yella was dreaming) Yella’s father peels an orange for her, and later we see it again, when Philipp brings her breakfast in their hotel room—the pattern is repeated. It’s very reasonable to agree with Fisher when he writes that Petzold uses these elements from what Freud called Tagesrete, or “fragmentary remains from the day”. (Page 104) In other words, from what I understand, these are waking conscious, seemingly innocent memories that later show up in our dreams unconsciously.
This idea could also explain while in Yella’s dream state, she continues to be interrupted by the sight of water, like for example Philipp’s screen saver in the hotel lobby and the sound of a bird chirping, wind, and trees. These are reoccurring elements throughout the film that definitely seem to fit this puzzle.
This isn't how I interpreted those images and sounds while watching the film, but after the ending was revealed I agree with what you said. During the film, I would say that the way Phillipp peels the orange was more of a sign that he was a safe person. I felt this way because the only safe man we had seen in the film was her father, and that's the way he peeled the orange. After finishing the movie and reading your comment, I would have to say you have the right thought track on this one.
"Compared to Carnival, the horror is Yella is the degree to which contemporary capitalism infiltrates the individual such that his or her most intimate desires, dreams, and fantasies are consistently interwoven with the economic". (Fisher 98) I think that this quote is so important in the way I watched the film. As we learn in the end, that Yella's business and love affair with Phillip is not real and actually a fantasy she experienced in her final dying moments, we see an undeniable connection between love and money once again.
There were two scenes in this film that I think demonstrate this the most. The first is when Yella tells Phillip that she slept with someone to get the job. This is one of those circumstances that someone might lose attraction to a potential partner and love interest. Yella obviously has little problem sleeping her way to the top and didn't seem ashamed at all. Also it surprised me when Phillip just didn't care and continued working with her anyway.
The other scene was when Yella finds out that Phillip keeping some of the money that he makes for the company, and not for the future of a family or anything, but in order to broker a deal that just makes him more money. Once again, my gut reaction is that Yella will be appalled at his selfishness, but she doesn't. Instead she joins him in that financial dream and pushes another human so far that he kills himself (I'm speculating).
So in all I think that what makes this film so interesting, and so scary is that Yella's romantic fantasy is so focused on money and financial success, and also the fact that she would do anything to reach it.
Actually, Yella did NOT sleep her way to the top. In the scene you reference, she suggests that P assumed that she had sex with the man who hired her. She did not, however. She is actually just a good accountant and was hired for that purpose, before that company went out of business due to shady dealings by the guy who hired her and whom P knew (of)--as if to suggest that all these shady capitalists know (of) each other, are all players in the same game etc
Today in class we briefly touched on film being a technology. Although I'd been considering the technical aspects of the previous two films, the discussion helped me watch the film a particular way today.
Music is an important interest of mine. I listen to no less than a couple of hours of it every single day. As such, I've been paying especially close attention to the sound design of Petzold's films.
We've discussed how his movies are very slow-paced and quiet. As such, I think every time there is a notable sound, there's some sort of meaning to take from the scene.
One minor thing has been bothering me regularly – the sound of footsteps. They seem awfully loud, maybe even louder than they should be. I remember a shot from "Ghosts" yesterday when Toni was walking away from the camera. She was at least 50 feet away from the camera, and yet you could hear her footsteps far more clearly than an actual person standing that distance from her would be able to.
In "Jerichow," this was the same case with the sounds of car doors closing. Again, it was far clearer than it should have been. Maybe Petzold decided to overdub the original footage with recordings.
In any case, there are special details and ideas to pick up from these scenes. I didn't particularly care for the textures, so at first I simply disregarded these scenes. Returning to them, I think the decisions Petzold made here are audible reminders of themes already present in the film. We've read how transportation is a major overarching theme in Petzold's work, and the sound of walking and shutting of car doors certainly reminds viewers of mobility, as if they couldn't already pick up on it by watching it happen.
In today's film, the sounds of rushing water and the crow (or whatever sort of bird) were two obvious motifs. They were introduced naturally during the events of the plot, when Ben drove himself and Yella off of the bridge. This event was clearly a dramatic shift in the plot.
Before getting into what these sounds could mean symbolically, their function for viewers is apparent. When repeated, they signaled an important plot event. Their first repetition was a good example. The viewer hears those sounds repeated when Yella felt disoriented at her first business meeting with Philipp. As soon as things settle down, she demonstrates her value to Philipp as a savvy accountant. This too is an important shift for the plot.
As it turned out, she was able to be so helpful at that first meeting because of her firsthand knowledge of that tech trade. Ben was involved with that too, just like the first time those sounds are used in the film.
At the moment, I'm not sure what these sounds could mean on a symbolic level. What do you guys think?
A big head scratcher or WTF moment in Yella (2007) is, of course, the film’s ending. Understandably, Petzold reels the viewers into the depths of Yella’s mind, which cannot be measured in meters or fathoms, but indeed, it can only be measured with her proximity to her desires. One may notice the main theme of desire and economy intersecting each other in the film. Moreover, the fantasies or dreams of wealth for Yella have a difficult time becoming her reality. If one dives into Yella’s psyche, she can be a loving, but dangerous woman, as she threatens the executive with revealing details about his patents, which speaks greatly for just how strong this drive is. A case can be made that Phillip is Yella’s agency to achieve a life of wealth in a neoliberal world, and her brain has manifested this agency or desire into a man that resembles Ben, but one who is much more attractive for Yella.
To start with a line from the Fisher reading, “dying wishes of its protagonist express themselves primarily economically” (Fisher 98). One may view this notion as Yella’s dream state before she wakes up in the film. Yella’s dream state is filled with her and Phillip’s success in the business world. They resemble a twisted Bonnie and Clyde duo owning the economy, with a capitalist venture style. However, a key point that Petzold always anchors the viewer in is that invisible crow. Every time Yella hears it or feels it in her head, Ben is there and something undesirable happens. It is as if that crow noise is trying to wake Yella up, perhaps it can be argued that the external sounds of the car ride to the bridge is causing Yella to wake, but she refuses. If she wakes ups her fantasy cannot be fulfilled because of an economic wall. Thus, the viewers also receives hints throughout the film such as the investment price for Phillip’s oil rig venture of 200,000 Euros, just like the price for Ben’s software investments.
Of course, Yella rejects anything to do with Ben. One student brilliantly pointed out that it is this rejection towards Ben, which reveals her desire of a wealthy romantic life. Because Ben now has nothing, he has become undesirable and Yella even states that this is why she has a bad conscience. One can see this also in Yella’s dream state when the camera focuses on Yella’s stare towards that executive’s family. In reality, Yella’s fantasy cannot be fulfilled because she is stuck in that car with Ben heading towards her death. Her dreams of money and romance is so powerful that it prevents her from waking up until a key moment, but Ben is still haunting her even in her dreams. The unconscious part of her mind is always lurking in the form of Ben, and telling her that these dreams of wealth can never be possible. So, one receives an end to her dream with her riding in the back of a cop car, perhaps to a “dead” end in her dream life. Thus, it is only when even in her dream state that her fantasies cannot be fulfilled, her agency dies and she wakes up to the ultimate death.
I find the idea touched on by Kyle, Taryn, and you, briefly, about Yella's focus on desire/love as an economic duality interesting because there is one scene to directly contradict it. The mentions thus far have been focused on Yella and her inseparable desire to experience the economic and romantic simultaneously, and consequently, her inability to experience one with out the other. However, Phillip telling Yella that the business deal they will seal will be his last one, followed by her blackmail, followed by their motel scene contradicts the idea that Yella is after wealthy love. Phillip says: "l thought you wouldn't be coming back. You should find someone else. Not even a small-time shit bank would hire me now." To which Yella answers: "I love you." His seemingly imminent financial decline, if the earlier argument upheld, would mark the start of Yella's disinterest in Phillip. Instead, she verbalizes her love. Where does this leave her then? It could be argued, of course, that she only goes back because she feels certain the business deal is closed, and she has that financial backing, but since it isn't a tangible reality , with real cash, could this mark a rupture from the model of money as a prerequisite to love? Just some thoughts to complicate the reading.
Jess, brilliant argument! I completely forgot about that scene, and it does pose some complications. I do find that it creates a crack in her "final fantasy", but a quote from Dr. Abel's essay could illuminate some points on Yella's desire/love as an economic duality:
Crucially, however, what really 'sells' Yella on Philipp is not the fact that he opens up to her, as if he allowed her to see his 'beautiful soul', his innermost self; rather, what 'sells' Yella on Philipp is the fact that his desires are desires for the game of venture capitalism itself, for the ability to participate in it at a higher, more intense level than he has been able to do as a mere employee of a firm whose business it is to negotiate cut-throat deals with companies that have a potentially marketable business idea but are unable to secure a sufficient line of credit from regular banks. (Abel)
Perhaps, in her dream state, the high risk taking Phillip is just enough for her to love him, which would fulfill your point of money not being a prerequisite to love because the scene does imply that she is capable of loving him for who he is without that economy aspect. But, overall, I think that this notion is an operation that Yella is incapable of overcoming in dream or reality. The sad part about Yella's situation is that when she thinks she can escape the ideology of industry through venture capitalism, she is again within an ideology that she cannot escape, which as we saw, is her downfall. If we examine that blackmailing scene I mentioned, this is where her ideology of capitalism fails. We see her dream state essentially break because her mode of operation with capitalism does not coincide with contemporary society's operation. So I think that in Yella's case, she will always struggle with her desires conflicting with economy.
I agree! I think that is the brilliancy of Petzold's films--the sense of inescapability--comes from giving a feeling of constant ambiguity and disorienting approaches. Just like discourse, there are limits to how we interpret and act out and upon our desires. Living in a world driven by money, where the main exchange is bills, and where "everything has a price," it only makes sense that everything is tinted by economy. One just has to look at Valentine's Day, for example. It is suppose to be a celebration of love, but what is at its core, it's a display of capitalisms influence into the most private feelings. After all, love is regarded as an emotion separate from economy, but in reality it revolves around economy.
I'm thinking of the other scene where Phillip tells Yella he doesn't want the house, the family, or the green Jaguar. He doesn't seek out the traditional goods that form the base of a stable marriage. Yella's confusion as to what he needs the money for, if not that goal, supports your point that in Yella's world, and ours too, money is love and love is money because economic stability is prioritized.
Something that really bothered me in both Jerichow and Ghosts was the small moments that today were defined as the “cracks” in the realism. In Jerichow I couldn’t help question the unrealistic relationship between Thomas and Laura. A real relationship cannot be founded when neither character really attempted to get to know each other. In Ghosts, the cracks came forth in Nina and her ability to let other people’s narratives control her. After discussing how the cracks are placed to underscore the ghost quality of the films I realized their importance in allowing the films to go in that “inbetween” zone.
With Peztold’s obsession with the repercussions of the ghost figures I see how important it was for those cracks to be in place. Fisher says, “Given his abiding interest in afterness—in remnants, ruins, and ghosts—it is fitting that he turned to these topics over a decade after they transpired” (Fisher 99). The years of misuse and wear on an object will lead to cracks. These cracks are the physical proof that an outside force has on the object. In Yella, the cracks more visibly represent what the physical world is having on the unconscious body of Yella. She starts to recall the same line of action before the crash whenever she is around water. It is a mental cue to her that something else is happening that she can’t fully comprehend at the time.
After Yella realizes that she is the “monster” (Fisher 114) from seeing the drowned body of Dr. Gunthen she has the flashback of the events that lead her to her ultimate death. While she was in real time there was no way for her to reflect on how her decisions were going to effect her, and that is the same reason that Peztold created the films about these topics years after it happened. They both, in their own ways, needed the cracks to lead them to the answers (or ambiguity) of the original conflict. Unfortunately, for Yella, the conclusion of her relationship with Ben and future resulted in a concrete termination.
Going through the film the viewer is much like Yella: confused about the cracks but unable to completely decide if they are the “real” moments happening, or if Yella as a ghost is somehow adding them to the “real” world. As Yella sits in her first meeting she knocks over the glass cup onto the floor resulting in the onset of one of the moments. Now, she is the only person in the room to notice the glass falling over so it begs the question under which category it is: the real impeding on the imaginary or the imaginary created during the real. This is not answered in the scene, and even brought more into question, as Yella is able to use facts she heard from Ben in the conversation.
Again, the audience is not sure what is real or not when Yella runs down the hotel corridor away from Ben to Phillip’s room and Ben disappears. Phillip and Yella’s relationship leans towards the real after that and Peztold leads the viewer into believe that the story we are following is the real one. So much so is this back and forth that the ending, when it is revealed that Yella is constructing this whole story in her unconsciousness until she dies, comes as a shock. Even after having all of the cracks along the way I was unprepared to find that her “ghost” was actually her life and how it “haunted” her as she was dying.
The main question I had after the film was why did Yella's dad let her go with Ben? He seemed like at least a good father, by giving her money for the new room, the way the two interacted and the embrace in the beginning was very drawn out. I know that's not a ton to go off of, but for what we have it seems like enough. The long, drawn out hug came after Yella told her dad that Ben had followed her. The father shares his disliking of Ben, but he let's Ben take her to the train station instead of waiting for the taxi that was on its way. I feel like he cared enough about his daughter's safety that he would've at least put up some sort of opposition. I felt like there would've at least been a difficult conversation between the father and Ben.
There is a distinct difference in the two scenes of Ben and Yella driving off the bridge. At the beginning of the film, Yella attempts to fight Ben and take the wheel, and at the end, she sits dejectedly in the passenger seat. What was it that happened in her dream state to cause this change in Yella?
As Kyle astutely stated in his post above, "Yella's deepest fantasy is to find love and money in the same place." I think towards the end of her dream, Yella realizes that seeking to possess both at once has turned her into the person she hated most: Ben.
We know that Ben seeks the love of Yella and money and his desperation for both drive him to stalk Yella before murdering her and committing suicide. We see Yella begin to do the same to the executive/father and his perfect family. At first, she watches them from afar shortly after arriving in Hanover; she does this again much later. She then crassly tells the executive that his patents will not hold unless he comes up with 200,000 euros, which he says he cannot obtain because the only thing he has that is worth more than that is his life insurance policy. Yella basically tells him to figure something out.
In essence, Yella left him no choice but to kill himself. Fischer touches on this saying, "The close-up on her wide-open, emotionless eyes as she watches him leave is the first indication that she is assuming the role of the monster: she is watching and planning something both highly calculated and disturbingly sinister" (114). We can tell she feels guilt because she sees his corpse before anyone else has even realized he is missing. This is when she realizes that her desire for simultaneous wealth and love has turned her into Ben, as she has mirrored his actions.
Yella does not want to become Ben. That, plus the fact that she has no other desires in life that we know of, could be the reason why she allows Ben to drive them off the bridge, putting up no fight.
Among the other two movies that we’ve watched, Jerichow and Ghost, I find that the movie, Yella, was much easier to follow in terms of its storyline and flow. Just like the other two movies, Yella also starts off “in the middle of things”. There was a long take at the beginning of the movie as though it is trying to brace the viewers for what’s to come. However, I’ve noticed that there was not much long takes throughout the movie, only at the beginning, which was unusual to me because the other two films had plenty. This indirectly tells us that the movie was straight-forward enough for us to interpret as compared to the other two films.
I noticed that the whole movie plays with the element of guilt. Hence, after reading through the article “German Desire in the Age of Venture Capitalism”, these particular statements stood out to me, “Her dream, her desire, is not opposed to the desires produced by venture capitalism; it is not a dream for a more 'authentic' state of being that she could find only outside of its logic: she is not nostalgic for a time prior to 1990, which is why neither her former husband, Ben, nor her beloved father embody viable alternatives to what Philipp has to offer her.”
Yella obviously feels guilty for the death of her late husband, Ben. She was also supposed to die with him but instead, she lived. So, because of the guilt she felt, her husband continues to haunt/stalk her life. The sound of crows and water was obvious triggers of her guilt because it reminded her of the accident which made me realize that the wine glass filled with water that spilled and broke was also a part of her imagination and guilt because no one else in the office seemed to notice it. Philipp gave her a sense of escape from the guilt which was why she ran to him when her husband was chasing her down the hallways of the hotel. The reason Philipp manage to give her that sense of escape was probably because of how he does not feel guilty stealing money from his own company. She then learned his ways and embrace her guilt in the wrong way by deceiving people (Dr. Gunthen) which then led to his death. So, no matter how much security Philipp could offer her, it wasn’t enough which explained why she decided to suicide with Ben.
Does she really "decide" to "suicide with Ben"? Yella isn't any more alife than Ben is after the initial crash. neither of them actually crawls out of the water...
Yella, where do I even begin with this movie? This, out of all the movies we have watched this week has had me scratching my head and confused all day long. The main thing I noticed in this movie and am comfortable enough to articulate (because the rest of the movie confused me so much I wouldn’t want to make assertions I am unsure of) was the costuming of Yella in the dream sequence. In the very first scene on the train we see Yella changing her red shirt while gazing out at the lake as the train passes by. Shortly after that we see Yella drying that red shirt on the line foreshadowing what will happen to her in the lake. Later on after the crash and what turns out to be the first scene of the dream sequence we see Yella attempting to change her shirt but she never seems to manage putting a different shirt on despite looking through her whole suitcase. Throughout the rest of the movie the only outfit she seems to be able to wear day in and day out is that red shirt. This is an obvious clue to the audience that these scenes are not based in reality and simply a creation in her own mind. To be quite honest this movie was very confusing for me and I don’t even quite understand my own take on this rather interesting movie. However, Yella’s personality teamed up with Nina’s and Laura’s from the previous three films to seem to have similarities something I will draw upon for the paper over the weekend.
The red shirt was a great observation! I thought the movie would end by revisiting the car crash, and that she maybe didn't survive, but had I noticed her wearing the red dress throughout the movie I would have spent less time wondering if this was a fantasy or reality and focused more on everything else that was occurring.
Yes, I'm glad you (finally) bring up the red shirt--no one else had done so. That is indeed a key sign that strongly suggests that she is not living in "reality" anymore after the initial crash....
Yella felt like a cycle. As the other two movies this one starts you out 'right in the middle of things'. It is only towards the end that I got the feeling that Ben and Yella had either been on one end of the deal before the movie starts. Yella could be seeing her situation with Ben from the other side with Phillip. Where she likes it gets engrossed in it, and then realizes the harm it really does.
The cycle continues with her panic attacks. After her initial crash in Ben's car, she hears the trees, water, wind, and a crow. In following scenes, it seems when she sees Ben, she hears these sounds. The crow acted as an awakening call.
While the film is a cycle, you could also see Yella as a Ghost. Where she is stuck in this cycle til she figures out what she did wrong, or moves past it.
Also, I found it funny that I didn't put to much importance on the crow cawing while watching the movie. The sound of a crow definitely has been used in movies before; signifying death. It didn't seem important because she had lived through the initial crash. At the end, the big payoff definitely makes you feel like a dork for not paying attention to it.
Yella is about a woman who is being stalked by her ex-husband but also the role of Germany’s economy and capitalism. Yella, who is smart but self-conscious; ends up having a dream and sees the path that she can take, pursuing a career. What I found interesting is, in the beginning of the film, I got the impression that Yella was living in fear, while she was hanging up her clothes and after being followed by her ex-husband, Ben. Also, during this scene and throughout the film, the sound of crows in the background leaves a dark feeling to the film.
Though the film focuses on the fact that Yella doesn’t love Ben anymore, as explained in the reading; “Ben insists on driving her to the train, but this ostensible kindness turns quickly cruel. The failure of a business they had started together has led her to leave him.” (Fisher, 105) What was odd to me that Yella decided to go into the car? Both Yella and her father knew that Ben was stalking Yella, what Yella should have done was waited for the taxi. The film was about her transformation and her future but yet, Yella decides at the end of the film that she doesn’t want to grab the steering wheel from Ben. After Yella dreams about her future and seeing what the consequences of capitalism she decides she doesn’t want to pursue her dream because no one could give her what she wanted. If she would have stayed at home, she would have been stuck with Ben. If she would have followed her path, she would be unsatisfied, which puts fear in the idea of capitalism.
I like that you call some attention to how the film comments on the relationship between East and West Germany, which in this film of course is post unification. But the promise of a better life in capitalist west Germany seems to be rendered as horror....
As we have previously seen in Petzold’s films, chance encounters lead the film’s main character to a noir-like alliance centered on economic power. A large portion of the film takes place in a hotel, which in itself is a temporary living arrangement – not a home. When Yella lands a job in West Germany, she’s ready to leave her old life in the East including her estranged, emotionally unstable ex-husband, and her father whom she is very close to. The film says a lot about gender roles, Yella’s father is the only male character she is completely comfortable with. Even when she is happy and in love with Philipp he has a history of snapping at her and being unpredictable. When Philipp peals the orange, it’s a safety blanket, a reminder of her father.
Although it’s hard to call this a horror film, the fear is found in “the body of a soon-to-be-victimized woman, frequently depicted in the convulsive throes of terror, that anticipates horror.” This privileging of the female body intersects horror’s normally male-gendered monsters.” (Fischer 104). The disorienting nature of Yella’s recollection of the accident – hearing the bubbles of the water, the crow, the wind – and not knowing what is real is the horror in the film. Outside of the people that Yella directly interacts with, there are no extras in the film. Nobody else is on the train or outside of the train station; no one else is in the hotel. Yella has no home or place to belong, which is a common theme in Petozld’s films. As compared to by Fischer, being isolated in a hotel is a familiar horror scene that we’ve seen in classics such as Psycho and The Shining. Also similarly, this isolation provides the chance for Yella to live out a fantasy or a nightmare in a new place and a new identity.
While I didn’t really enjoy the end of Yella I did like role that water played in the movie and how the song “Road to Cairo” fit in to the movie. After the scene of Yella getting driven off the bridge in to the water with Ben behind the wheel, Yella has some sort of PTSD moment when she is in the negation meeting and knocks her water glass off the table. The glass shatters on the floor, Yella glances down and see the water swaying back and forth and sees the pieces of broken glass lying around her chair. This event sends her in to a state where she can’t hear anything that the people in the room are saying and instead hears sounds of wind blowing, birds chirping and water rushing.
This episode brings her back to the moment of the car wreck. The fact that she can’t hear anything people are saying is Petzold’s way of simulating Yella being under water or drowning, the birds being overhead and the trees blowing revive the scene of the crash. Aside from water being some sort of PTSD trigger I found the lyrics to the song “Road to Cairo” by Julie Driscoll used in Yella to be very fitting. Lyrics include.
I been traveling Gone a long long time Don't know what I'll find Scared of what I'll find But I just got to see them again
Hey thanks for stopping Are you headed down to Cairo? I wrecked my Lincoln in Saint Jo Why to little old Cairo? No special reason Look up some folks I used to know
“Don’t know what I’ll find” and “Scared of what I’ll find” relates to the flash-forward moment Yella has moments before the wreck where she sees her future and is scared of the uncertainty it holds. “I wrecked my Lincoln” and “Looking up some folks I used to know” relates to the accident on the bridge and Yella truly knowing herself.
Lastly, one thing that stuck out to me of Abel’s Essay of Yella was the line: “rather than obsessively returning to the violent event itself and actually depicting it, Godard's camera tends to focus on the effects the event had on the subjects that it affected.”
I think this really lends to how we view the climax of the crash or any horrific moment in the film. The scene does not show gore and violence, but rather the vehicle slowly sinking to the depth, this leaves a lot of open interpretation to the viewer and if the first two films we have watched. Jerichow, and Ghosts have taught us anything. That is something that Petzold loves to do.
There are many ways to interpret this film but I find it most interesting to view it as a glimpse Yella has before she is killed in the car crash. Some people believe one sees their life flash before their eyes at the moment of death, and I view this film as that moment to Yella. What we see throughout the film is a fantasy of what she wanted in life blended with elements of what she experienced. I feel this idea opens the film up to more discussion as opposed to having a cliche ending where Yella realizes her future may not be as bright as her past and simply allows Ben to jerk the wheel of the car which leads to both of their deaths.
I think in Yella's vision she is coming to terms with her relationship with Ben by creating Philipp. I thought of Philipp as a young version of Ben in Yella's fantasy. He had business savvy and was driven to be successful. Yella seemed to be impressed with nearly everything he said and did. I viewed this as an embellished recollection of how Yella and Ben's relationship began. This explained the character of Philipp for me but then I questioned why Ben continued to pop up throughout the movie.
I find it interesting to view Ben as her subconscious pulling her back to reality. He occurred multiple times saying "we need to go now." Essentially, Ben was acting as an entity to pull Yella out of her fantasy. Ben would come and go at random throughout the movie and it was stated earlier in the film that Yella was moving 2 hours away from home so I found it hard to believe he was stalking her. I believe his character served more of a purpose than to be the jealous ex-boyfriend in her fantasy.
This film touched on reoccurring Petzold themes of love, money, and home. Yella needed money in order to gain love. And she needed both money and love to feel a sense of worth and belonging. The character Philipp and the vision of Ben echoed Yella's insecurities throughout her fantasy.
"Petzold's films are almost always concerned with characters who are on the move - usually against their will" (Abel, 2). This has been seen most prominently thus far in "Yella." Furthermore, The motive behind the movement of the characters is almost always economic.
For instance, near the beginning of the film, Yella tells her father that she has found a new job, which is "only two hours away." Thus, this employment opportunity requires her to move away from her father, highlighting how "interhuman bonds" can "become increasingly frail" in the individualism of capitalism (Bauman, 2).
The general sense of being "on the move" is of course strengthened by the numerous car and train scenes. Perhaps the most symbolically significant of these scenes is the long take of the scenery outside of the train as Yella travels to Hanover. Of course, the train is moving so fast, that the images distort into horizontal blurred lines. It is an image that evokes feeling of discomfort and anxiety, thus indicating to the audience that this trip is not a fun getaway, but an unpleasant pilgrimage.
Yella is not quite done moving yet, though. Her job with Alpha Wings in Hanover falls through and Dr. Schmitt-Ott plans to take her to Hamburg to work. However, Yella seems quite frustrated with this prospective move. Thus, she opts to work as a negotiator with Phillip instead.
Of course, she is still required to be mobile to some extent for economic reasons when working with Phillip. They travel from company to company negotiating business arrangements and although they mostly stay in Hamburg, they have to leave there eventually. The purpose of their travels is reinforced in the minds of the viewers by the fact that they discuss business in the car. This, in turn, reinforces the idea of the indispensability of mobility to capitalism in that even while Phillip and Yella are in the midst of movement, the occupy themselves with financial matters.
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ReplyDeleteHoo boy, where to start with Yella. Well, what I had found intriguing was the film's use of traditional horror tropes and techniques to convey the emotion of the scene. Early on in the film, the audience is make to feel like Yella is vulnerable by the use of voyeurism, especially with the character of Ben, whose gaze constantly lingers of Yella whenever he's around her. The use of the gaze as a tool in horror isn't anything new, but I would surmise that much of the influence in Yella is not just taken from Carnival of Souls, but also Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho in several ways. It's no wonder that Petzold was inspired from horror films for Yella, as Fisher describes the horror genre's influence on Petzold's as "formative" (Fisher, 104). A quotation from Professor Abel's interview with Petzold reveals his influence from the popular slasher film Halloween, it's no wonder that Petzold would also be familiar with one of Alfred Hitchcock's seminal horror films.
DeletePsycho had a great focus on eyes, whether on the gaze toward or from the audience, or also at a character, from Ben's point-of-view in the car from the beginning, or later on in the film where he gazes out through a window at Yella. This draws many parallels to Norman and Marion of Psycho. Even in the beginning of the film as Yella changes in the train, she closes the window, as if she is being watched, instilling the fear of the gaze in the audience.
Another horror trope they share is the theme of spaces, which is been in each of Petzold's films we've viewed. Having scenes take place in a hotel allow for characters to establish space, only to have it violated by the antagonist, be it Norman Bates or Ben. However, Ben literally violates her space in the hotel the first time by claiming it as his own, as evidenced by the way he left the room with food and drink and the T.V. running. This action shows that Ben attempted to take what was Yella's for his own, much like how he tried to claim her for himself whenever they've spoken before. Overall, Yella's use of the hotel room signifies her desperation (Fisher, 108), which makes Ben's violation that much more intimidating. Other moments of space violation occur, including the second train scene after the car wreck where a figure attempts to open the curtain, only to leave.
Although, to be honest I'm not sure how this all connects in the end. I see a beginning to these themes, but the ending has left me in the dark. What do you all think?
We have learned that Petzold’s work is a part of what is known as “The Berlin School” films. We read in German Desire in the Age of Venture Capitalism that “the Berlin School films are thus quite literally directed at a people still missing-and hence at a people that is yet to come-rather than at a community, imagined or real, that has coherence across time and space, that is, across the ups and downs of 20th and 21st century German history/histories” (Abel). Petzold’s Yella truly embodies this idea of the “still missing” people that reflects the effect of Germany’s history on its present state.
ReplyDeleteYella, herself, undergoes a process throughout the film where she is “missing.” The film isn’t necessarily so much about the business deals that go down during her dream state, but the fact that her dream state reflects her true desires -- love and money. We might recognize that Yella truly “cannot love without money,” which is her reason for separating from Ben, and this idea becomes more solidified once we see how she falls in love with Philipp, who is very much money oriented himself.
We see a constant repetition of sounds and sights that bring Yella closer to no longer being missing. During her dream state, certain things trigger her to hear a loud sound of a jet (I’m not sure it’s necessarily a jet, but that is what I’ve perceived it to be), the sound of rushing water (as if she is in a car sinking under the water), the sound of the wind through the trees, and finally, the loud cawing of the bird. It seems as though these sights/sounds intensify as she comes closer to the end of her dreamlike journey, and finally concludes with her death.
For the first 99% of Yella I firmly believed that this was going to be the best of the Petzold film we’d viewed. Then the last 1% went and ruined it for me. I was enchanted by this odd, possibly supernatural tale, but I really have trouble with movies that use the “it was all a dream” plot twist. I felt a bit cheated that all this development was taken away by that simple story choice. This isn’t to say that the film didn’t do an amazing job of blurring the lines between reality and the “supernatural” but I felt the ending simplified the story. The ending is very fitting to the theme of ‘ghosts’ that Petzold’s trilogy delves into, both in the metaphorical ghosts of economic failures and in the more literal as the “dying wishes of its protagonist express themselves primarily economically” (Fisher 98). The desires of Yella to have the perfect “American dream” are made clear even before her demise as she interacts with her estranged husband and through her longing look at the happy, economically stable household that she observes early on in the film. A powerful twist of the plot shows that even this perfect family has to struggle, with Yella’s extortion being the final nail in the coffin of the businessman who she’d earlier idolized.
ReplyDeleteThe question of what is real and what is fantasy made a strong focal point for the film, one which kept me guessing till the end. Early on, in Yella’s father’s house, there was a sign on the wall with the latin word Veritas (truth) written on it. This acted as both a foreshadowing of the events that followed and also a marker that this was true reality. After the accident transpires the idea of truth is flung out the window as increasingly strange events play out. Questions such as “how does Phillip know Yella so well?” and “Did Ben really survive the crash?” were always on my mind. I was always suspicious that certain parts of the film were dream sequences because Yella would often wake up without ever going to sleep or vice versa. My suspicions were obviously (and dissatisfyingly) realized by the end of the film. Though it is a bit selfish, I wish that it hadn’t all been a dream or, if it was, that it was taking place after the crash. Yet, the fact that her dream of finding the perfect, economically savvy man ended in the same ruination that her real relationship did was fitting. That hopelessness about the future seems to be a key piece of each of the films we’ve watched.
I was also feeling cheated that this entire film turned out to be just a dream/fantasy/whatever the hell it was and not a real series of events. But then I got to thinking and I wondered - were her jobs, the people she met, and the things she did just her creations in her imagination? Or were they something a little more? I have two theories - that what she saw was her potential future or a slightly altered retelling of her past.
Delete“...Petzold’s Yella does not realize that she has been fatally injured, and so most of all three narratives unfold as a final fantasy of the expiring.” (Fisher, 98) I think it is important to distinguish between fantasies that we create and the visions or mental experiences that we do not control. While Fisher seems to take the stance that Yella made up the events of the film, I have to disagree. It seems to me like the film felt like a giant “what could have been”. That, if Yella had managed to survive the crash, she would have gone to the city, found out that her job was a bust, met Phillip, began working for him, fall in love, and eventually get herself in trouble trying to blackmail their business associate. Yella, both in reality and her dream, was trapped in a never-ending cycle of disappointment and failure brought about by others and herself as she struggled to improve her economic status. Her business didn’t work. Her marriage didn’t work. Her new job wasn’t real. And although her business and romance with Phillip had a rocky start, it looked like things were finally going in a positive direction...until they found the drowned body.
What I’m trying to get across here is that whether Yella died in the crash or whether she survived, her luck and situation was as such that she wouldn’t have been successful and happy either way. Disaster would find her one way or another, and it just so happened that she got the potential demise that occurred sooner rather than later.
Also, a less likely theory that I have revolves mainly around the physical and relationship dynamic similarities between Phillip and Yella and Ben and Yella. Perhaps what we saw was Yella’s life flashing before her eyes, slightly altered, but with elements from the present circumstances seeping through. This idea is far more convoluted and way less likely, though, so I won’t try to wade through the muddy details much further. Basically, she was reliving how her and Ben’s marriage fell apart, but Ben, loving and likeable in the past, was represented by Phillip and Ben, broken and frantic now was represented by himself.
This is mainly just my attempt to explain the ending of the film in a less infuriatingly lazy, trope-y way than the film itself did and salvage what was also looking like it was going to be my favorite Petzold film so far. We are definitely in the same boat right now.
I completely agree in the fact that I was disappointed with the cliché "it was all a dream" ending. Interestingly enough, her dream revolved around the same things she was trying to escape from. Maybe escape isn't necessarily the right word, but the moving on from the "ghost" feeling of being stuck. Stuck in what Bauman calls, "an Age of Uncertainty." Constantly having to look over ones shoulder and the idea of fear controlling her life was prominent even in her fantasy. Bauman also brings up money and capitalism, which are major qualities of both Yella’s lovers, Ben and Philip. What is confusing and genius is that by creating the fear and the overwhelming need for money in both reality and fantasy it allows for them to blur completely. Because of this, I get the impression of uncertainty for what it is real and not. And after viewing the entire film my ultimate question is whether it Yella’s final fantasy of how her life would turn out or just a fantasy of what she thought it could be.
DeleteGoing off that dilemma of final fantasy or reality, Kenna Smith brings up the exact feeling I got when leaving class today. The film was about the ‘what ifs’, what if Yella survived? How would her life turn out, would it be all that she had hoped it would be, or not? It was never a full fantasy lived out, it was just a glance at what her life was going to look like. Like the statement “my life flashed before my eyes.” In a similar way, Yella’s future flashed before her eyes. Fisher claims that, “Yella’s reinvention of herself is built on the ruble of a past failure” (105). What is exposed as her life pans out is that the past failure will continue to keep her as this “ghost” or stuck. Fate has a funny way of working itself out regardless of fear, preparation, and prevention. Bauman says while talking about fate, “strikes without warning and is indifferent to what its victims might do or might abstain from doing in order to escape its blows” (10).
Over all, Petzold makes some pretty bold statements with his idea of ghosts and how it all works, but with Yella, the horror lies within the fate that even if opportunity arises, no matter the circumstance, only fate can decide whether one can become unstuck.
What I'm intrigued by is all of your seeming surprise at the "discovery" that the better part of the film is not "real" but something else (maybe a dream). It seems to me that is pretty clearly marked by the film itself through a range of formal devices and the genre elements it mobilizes. In other words, I don't think Yella works like The Sixth Sense of similar movies; those do try to deceive/mislead the audience to get to the surprise "pay-off" (which makes these films problematic if one figures out the one clue one is given, of which the film at the end invevitably reminds us, as is the case in Sixth Sense, for example). But Yella (the film) marks the switch from her real life to her dying stages rather clearly, no? So, then, it seems to me the question to ask is about the nature of her waning consciousness/dream/fantasy: what desires do manifest themselves there? Why? What does it tell us about us or the environment we are living in if even in our dreams we give in to corruption? Or, why does she fail EVEN in her dream? And recognize it so that she resigns herself to her fate in a way she did not in reality: in the first crash scene she fights Ben, but she doesn't in the "repeat" scene.
DeleteFor this blog, I would like to mostly focus on the character of Phillip and his role within the film. He is not introduced into the film until after Yella and Ben drive off of a bridge, and as the ending suggests that the events which occurred since they drove off are actually just Yella's fantasy, then Phillip's existence itself is just part of this fantasy as well. So, if he is just part of Yella's fantasy, why is Phillip Phillip? Why is he there, have the job he has, look the way he looks?
ReplyDeleteFirst off, one must notice a bit of a resemblance he has to Ben. They are both blonde, German, near Yella's age, fit. They both care very deeply about making money. This is about as far as their similarities go, however. Ben is from East Germany, involved with an old industrial type of business in a country which no longer has industry. Because of this, he is broke. Phillip on the other hand is from West Germany, involved with venture capitalism in an increasingly neoliberal country. Because of this he is rich. His voice is deeper and not as high pitched as Ben's. And as we only see Ben as a creepy, homocidal/suicidal monster, Phillip appears quite calm, peaceful, and collected. In essence, Phillip is everything that Ben is not.
In the beginning of the film, before we meet Phillip, there is no indication that she in search for a new man to be with. The only desires which are apparent are her desire to leave her old life and get a new job in the west. This could easily have been possible in a before-death-fantasy. She could have fantasized about getting the job she originally set out for. But instead, in the fantasy we see, this job is no longer available. Instead, she meets and falls in love with Phillip. What interests me about this is that she could not have the job, the economic prospects by itself. She needed romance and sex to be a part of this economic fantasy. As her previous relationship with Ben suggests, Yella's deepest fantasy is to find love and money in the same place.
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DeleteThis is good. If we acceot the idea that we are exposed to something like a dream one needs to take dreams seriously, how they work. Arguably, what we witness is Yella's dream-WORK: how in her dream she reboots a few times, taking elements from reality and earlier dream moments to revise in her dream ,her dream.... So yes, P might very well be seen as a dream-revised version of B....
DeleteAs the imagery of Yella (2007) shifts back and forth between natural spaces, building, outsides, and insides, the colors resonated with their hues of red, blues, greys, and blacks. The presence of open spaces, forested areas, and trees added green into the mixture, but since Yella is present in those shots, the red overtakes the scenes. Additionally, a remark was made earlier this week when analyzing Jerichow (2008) about the predominance of green in Petzold’s films and its relationship with money and the importance of context. Its lack of association with money is exemplified in this film, particularly. When Yella walks away from the drowned businessman, for instance, she is surrounded by greenery. Nevertheless, the eye is driven to her red shirt, black skirt, pale skin, and black shoes. Those colors are the associations to capitalism and money. The interaction of colors, therefore, seems to give a way to observe the relationships not just of individual characters, but the system.
ReplyDeleteMy viewing of the movie was affected by part of a question from the interview with Petzold, “…in a last-ditch effort to get his wife back, [Ben] even promises her again to become what he thinks Yella wanted him to be all along: a regular blue-collar worker…” (Abel 12). The wording kept resonating in my mind for the mentioning of color and the association of it with the adjective “regular.” This positioning of the worked as unimportant and unworthy of notice, in relation to monetary value, has been present in Petzold’s films before—Laura and Toni. This, added to the moment when the camera frames a close-up of Yella’s hand as she pulls out the roll of blue money, neatly tied together with a red rubber band, solidified the importance of the color scheme.
After this, it proved easy to observe the association of the color with the idea of the blue-collar worker and how it upheld throughout the film. For example, the artwork above Yella’s hotel bed is a mixture of different blues, as are the adjacent curtains. Interestingly, during one of Ben’s visits to her room, right before hitting her, the camera creates an eye-level shot of Yella with the blue canvas behind the top of her head, the white wall between that and her red shirt, which is at the bottom, and Ben’s suit creating a black blur on the left side. The proceeding cut displays Ben, completely surrounded by the blue curtain and Yella’s blurred figure creating the only color disruption. Through this, the threat of blue-collar level work hangs above Yella’s head, while it has engulfed Ben through the loss of money. The water, another significant subject in the film and which looks blue, further reinforces this by, literally, engulfing Ben and Yella, as well as engulfing the business man who could not live up to monetary expectations of white-collar labor.
The blues just like with the roll of money, contrast with reds: Yella’s shirt, both of the cars—Ben’s and Phillip’s—and the ending titles. The traditional associations of red with positive symbols: love and passion, take on a more sinister tone, and as Andrew observed on his blog about the horror film tropes usage, here it takes on the symbolic blood. Is this, then, a denunciation of blood money? Is it associating capitalism’s money as tainted by murder? Showing the death of the businessman, and his ghost, along with Ben’s, hunting Yella puts some evidence into that. Yella’s restless consciousness, first for feeling guilty of abandoning Ben after his economic collapse, and then for having pushed a man to his death by presenting the possibility of economic failure, display a level of it. Ultimately, both the blue-collar worker (Ben) and the white-collar worker (the businessman) seem to get smashed under capitalism (Yella) and its effects on individuals.
What might be worthwhile thinking thru is the murder, or rather: suicide, itself. He kills himself because of Yella threatening blackmail. Blackmail is a film noir trope, something associated with an old school form of capitalism. If you will, Yella has recourse to an action that does not have any place anymore in the age of finance capitalism. In a sense she relapses to an outdated, nostalgic view of business, where blackmail still had a place. Even tho she is great at venture capitalist negotiations her desire overrides this--desire for quick money to allow her and P to have a life together--& tries to speed the process of accumulation up instead of allowing the negotiation to play its course. So we are facing two different economic logics that are clashing at this moment....
DeleteI have so many questions after watching this film. Regardless, I knew after seeing the extreme close up of the car lighter in Jerichow, the extreme close up of Yella’s father peeling the orange would be extremely significant as well—especially when Petzold seems to use close up shots sparingly.
ReplyDeleteTowards the beginning of the film (before we knew Yella was dreaming) Yella’s father peels an orange for her, and later we see it again, when Philipp brings her breakfast in their hotel room—the pattern is repeated. It’s very reasonable to agree with Fisher when he writes that Petzold uses these elements from what Freud called Tagesrete, or “fragmentary remains from the day”. (Page 104) In other words, from what I understand, these are waking conscious, seemingly innocent memories that later show up in our dreams unconsciously.
This idea could also explain while in Yella’s dream state, she continues to be interrupted by the sight of water, like for example Philipp’s screen saver in the hotel lobby and the sound of a bird chirping, wind, and trees. These are reoccurring elements throughout the film that definitely seem to fit this puzzle.
This isn't how I interpreted those images and sounds while watching the film, but after the ending was revealed I agree with what you said. During the film, I would say that the way Phillipp peels the orange was more of a sign that he was a safe person. I felt this way because the only safe man we had seen in the film was her father, and that's the way he peeled the orange. After finishing the movie and reading your comment, I would have to say you have the right thought track on this one.
Delete"Compared to Carnival, the horror is Yella is the degree to which contemporary capitalism infiltrates the individual such that his or her most intimate desires, dreams, and fantasies are consistently interwoven with the economic". (Fisher 98) I think that this quote is so important in the way I watched the film. As we learn in the end, that Yella's business and love affair with Phillip is not real and actually a fantasy she experienced in her final dying moments, we see an undeniable connection between love and money once again.
ReplyDeleteThere were two scenes in this film that I think demonstrate this the most. The first is when Yella tells Phillip that she slept with someone to get the job. This is one of those circumstances that someone might lose attraction to a potential partner and love interest. Yella obviously has little problem sleeping her way to the top and didn't seem ashamed at all. Also it surprised me when Phillip just didn't care and continued working with her anyway.
The other scene was when Yella finds out that Phillip keeping some of the money that he makes for the company, and not for the future of a family or anything, but in order to broker a deal that just makes him more money. Once again, my gut reaction is that Yella will be appalled at his selfishness, but she doesn't. Instead she joins him in that financial dream and pushes another human so far that he kills himself (I'm speculating).
So in all I think that what makes this film so interesting, and so scary is that Yella's romantic fantasy is so focused on money and financial success, and also the fact that she would do anything to reach it.
Actually, Yella did NOT sleep her way to the top. In the scene you reference, she suggests that P assumed that she had sex with the man who hired her. She did not, however. She is actually just a good accountant and was hired for that purpose, before that company went out of business due to shady dealings by the guy who hired her and whom P knew (of)--as if to suggest that all these shady capitalists know (of) each other, are all players in the same game etc
DeleteToday in class we briefly touched on film being a technology. Although I'd been considering the technical aspects of the previous two films, the discussion helped me watch the film a particular way today.
ReplyDeleteMusic is an important interest of mine. I listen to no less than a couple of hours of it every single day. As such, I've been paying especially close attention to the sound design of Petzold's films.
We've discussed how his movies are very slow-paced and quiet. As such, I think every time there is a notable sound, there's some sort of meaning to take from the scene.
One minor thing has been bothering me regularly – the sound of footsteps. They seem awfully loud, maybe even louder than they should be. I remember a shot from "Ghosts" yesterday when Toni was walking away from the camera. She was at least 50 feet away from the camera, and yet you could hear her footsteps far more clearly than an actual person standing that distance from her would be able to.
In "Jerichow," this was the same case with the sounds of car doors closing. Again, it was far clearer than it should have been. Maybe Petzold decided to overdub the original footage with recordings.
In any case, there are special details and ideas to pick up from these scenes. I didn't particularly care for the textures, so at first I simply disregarded these scenes. Returning to them, I think the decisions Petzold made here are audible reminders of themes already present in the film. We've read how transportation is a major overarching theme in Petzold's work, and the sound of walking and shutting of car doors certainly reminds viewers of mobility, as if they couldn't already pick up on it by watching it happen.
In today's film, the sounds of rushing water and the crow (or whatever sort of bird) were two obvious motifs. They were introduced naturally during the events of the plot, when Ben drove himself and Yella off of the bridge. This event was clearly a dramatic shift in the plot.
Before getting into what these sounds could mean symbolically, their function for viewers is apparent. When repeated, they signaled an important plot event. Their first repetition was a good example. The viewer hears those sounds repeated when Yella felt disoriented at her first business meeting with Philipp. As soon as things settle down, she demonstrates her value to Philipp as a savvy accountant. This too is an important shift for the plot.
As it turned out, she was able to be so helpful at that first meeting because of her firsthand knowledge of that tech trade. Ben was involved with that too, just like the first time those sounds are used in the film.
At the moment, I'm not sure what these sounds could mean on a symbolic level. What do you guys think?
A big head scratcher or WTF moment in Yella (2007) is, of course, the film’s ending. Understandably, Petzold reels the viewers into the depths of Yella’s mind, which cannot be measured in meters or fathoms, but indeed, it can only be measured with her proximity to her desires. One may notice the main theme of desire and economy intersecting each other in the film. Moreover, the fantasies or dreams of wealth for Yella have a difficult time becoming her reality. If one dives into Yella’s psyche, she can be a loving, but dangerous woman, as she threatens the executive with revealing details about his patents, which speaks greatly for just how strong this drive is. A case can be made that Phillip is Yella’s agency to achieve a life of wealth in a neoliberal world, and her brain has manifested this agency or desire into a man that resembles Ben, but one who is much more attractive for Yella.
ReplyDeleteTo start with a line from the Fisher reading, “dying wishes of its protagonist express themselves primarily economically” (Fisher 98). One may view this notion as Yella’s dream state before she wakes up in the film. Yella’s dream state is filled with her and Phillip’s success in the business world. They resemble a twisted Bonnie and Clyde duo owning the economy, with a capitalist venture style. However, a key point that Petzold always anchors the viewer in is that invisible crow. Every time Yella hears it or feels it in her head, Ben is there and something undesirable happens. It is as if that crow noise is trying to wake Yella up, perhaps it can be argued that the external sounds of the car ride to the bridge is causing Yella to wake, but she refuses. If she wakes ups her fantasy cannot be fulfilled because of an economic wall. Thus, the viewers also receives hints throughout the film such as the investment price for Phillip’s oil rig venture of 200,000 Euros, just like the price for Ben’s software investments.
Of course, Yella rejects anything to do with Ben. One student brilliantly pointed out that it is this rejection towards Ben, which reveals her desire of a wealthy romantic life. Because Ben now has nothing, he has become undesirable and Yella even states that this is why she has a bad conscience. One can see this also in Yella’s dream state when the camera focuses on Yella’s stare towards that executive’s family. In reality, Yella’s fantasy cannot be fulfilled because she is stuck in that car with Ben heading towards her death. Her dreams of money and romance is so powerful that it prevents her from waking up until a key moment, but Ben is still haunting her even in her dreams. The unconscious part of her mind is always lurking in the form of Ben, and telling her that these dreams of wealth can never be possible. So, one receives an end to her dream with her riding in the back of a cop car, perhaps to a “dead” end in her dream life. Thus, it is only when even in her dream state that her fantasies cannot be fulfilled, her agency dies and she wakes up to the ultimate death.
I find the idea touched on by Kyle, Taryn, and you, briefly, about Yella's focus on desire/love as an economic duality interesting because there is one scene to directly contradict it. The mentions thus far have been focused on Yella and her inseparable desire to experience the economic and romantic simultaneously, and consequently, her inability to experience one with out the other. However, Phillip telling Yella that the business deal they will seal will be his last one, followed by her blackmail, followed by their motel scene contradicts the idea that Yella is after wealthy love. Phillip says:
Delete"l thought you wouldn't be coming back. You should find someone else. Not even a small-time shit bank would hire me now."
To which Yella answers:
"I love you."
His seemingly imminent financial decline, if the earlier argument upheld, would mark the start of Yella's disinterest in Phillip. Instead, she verbalizes her love. Where does this leave her then? It could be argued, of course, that she only goes back because she feels certain the business deal is closed, and she has that financial backing, but since it isn't a tangible reality , with real cash, could this mark a rupture from the model of money as a prerequisite to love? Just some thoughts to complicate the reading.
Jess, brilliant argument! I completely forgot about that scene, and it does pose some complications. I do find that it creates a crack in her "final fantasy", but a quote from Dr. Abel's essay could illuminate some points on Yella's desire/love as an economic duality:
DeleteCrucially, however, what really 'sells' Yella on Philipp is not the fact that he opens up to her, as if he allowed her to see his 'beautiful soul', his innermost self; rather, what 'sells' Yella on Philipp is the fact that his desires are desires for the game of venture capitalism itself, for the ability to participate in it at a higher, more intense level than he has been able to do as a mere employee of a firm whose business it is to negotiate cut-throat deals with companies that have a potentially marketable business idea but are unable to secure a sufficient line of credit from regular banks. (Abel)
Perhaps, in her dream state, the high risk taking Phillip is just enough for her to love him, which would fulfill your point of money not being a prerequisite to love because the scene does imply that she is capable of loving him for who he is without that economy aspect. But, overall, I think that this notion is an operation that Yella is incapable of overcoming in dream or reality. The sad part about Yella's situation is that when she thinks she can escape the ideology of industry through venture capitalism, she is again within an ideology that she cannot escape, which as we saw, is her downfall. If we examine that blackmailing scene I mentioned, this is where her ideology of capitalism fails. We see her dream state essentially break because her mode of operation with capitalism does not coincide with contemporary society's operation. So I think that in Yella's case, she will always struggle with her desires conflicting with economy.
I agree! I think that is the brilliancy of Petzold's films--the sense of inescapability--comes from giving a feeling of constant ambiguity and disorienting approaches. Just like discourse, there are limits to how we interpret and act out and upon our desires. Living in a world driven by money, where the main exchange is bills, and where "everything has a price," it only makes sense that everything is tinted by economy. One just has to look at Valentine's Day, for example. It is suppose to be a celebration of love, but what is at its core, it's a display of capitalisms influence into the most private feelings. After all, love is regarded as an emotion separate from economy, but in reality it revolves around economy.
DeleteI'm thinking of the other scene where Phillip tells Yella he doesn't want the house, the family, or the green Jaguar. He doesn't seek out the traditional goods that form the base of a stable marriage. Yella's confusion as to what he needs the money for, if not that goal, supports your point that in Yella's world, and ours too, money is love and love is money because economic stability is prioritized.
Something that really bothered me in both Jerichow and Ghosts was the small moments that today were defined as the “cracks” in the realism. In Jerichow I couldn’t help question the unrealistic relationship between Thomas and Laura. A real relationship cannot be founded when neither character really attempted to get to know each other. In Ghosts, the cracks came forth in Nina and her ability to let other people’s narratives control her. After discussing how the cracks are placed to underscore the ghost quality of the films I realized their importance in allowing the films to go in that “inbetween” zone.
ReplyDeleteWith Peztold’s obsession with the repercussions of the ghost figures I see how important it was for those cracks to be in place. Fisher says, “Given his abiding interest in afterness—in remnants, ruins, and ghosts—it is fitting that he turned to these topics over a decade after they transpired” (Fisher 99). The years of misuse and wear on an object will lead to cracks. These cracks are the physical proof that an outside force has on the object. In Yella, the cracks more visibly represent what the physical world is having on the unconscious body of Yella. She starts to recall the same line of action before the crash whenever she is around water. It is a mental cue to her that something else is happening that she can’t fully comprehend at the time.
After Yella realizes that she is the “monster” (Fisher 114) from seeing the drowned body of Dr. Gunthen she has the flashback of the events that lead her to her ultimate death. While she was in real time there was no way for her to reflect on how her decisions were going to effect her, and that is the same reason that Peztold created the films about these topics years after it happened. They both, in their own ways, needed the cracks to lead them to the answers (or ambiguity) of the original conflict. Unfortunately, for Yella, the conclusion of her relationship with Ben and future resulted in a concrete termination.
Going through the film the viewer is much like Yella: confused about the cracks but unable to completely decide if they are the “real” moments happening, or if Yella as a ghost is somehow adding them to the “real” world. As Yella sits in her first meeting she knocks over the glass cup onto the floor resulting in the onset of one of the moments. Now, she is the only person in the room to notice the glass falling over so it begs the question under which category it is: the real impeding on the imaginary or the imaginary created during the real. This is not answered in the scene, and even brought more into question, as Yella is able to use facts she heard from Ben in the conversation.
Again, the audience is not sure what is real or not when Yella runs down the hotel corridor away from Ben to Phillip’s room and Ben disappears. Phillip and Yella’s relationship leans towards the real after that and Peztold leads the viewer into believe that the story we are following is the real one. So much so is this back and forth that the ending, when it is revealed that Yella is constructing this whole story in her unconsciousness until she dies, comes as a shock. Even after having all of the cracks along the way I was unprepared to find that her “ghost” was actually her life and how it “haunted” her as she was dying.
The main question I had after the film was why did Yella's dad let her go with Ben? He seemed like at least a good father, by giving her money for the new room, the way the two interacted and the embrace in the beginning was very drawn out. I know that's not a ton to go off of, but for what we have it seems like enough. The long, drawn out hug came after Yella told her dad that Ben had followed her. The father shares his disliking of Ben, but he let's Ben take her to the train station instead of waiting for the taxi that was on its way. I feel like he cared enough about his daughter's safety that he would've at least put up some sort of opposition. I felt like there would've at least been a difficult conversation between the father and Ben.
ReplyDeleteThere is a distinct difference in the two scenes of Ben and Yella driving off the bridge. At the beginning of the film, Yella attempts to fight Ben and take the wheel, and at the end, she sits dejectedly in the passenger seat. What was it that happened in her dream state to cause this change in Yella?
ReplyDeleteAs Kyle astutely stated in his post above, "Yella's deepest fantasy is to find love and money in the same place." I think towards the end of her dream, Yella realizes that seeking to possess both at once has turned her into the person she hated most: Ben.
We know that Ben seeks the love of Yella and money and his desperation for both drive him to stalk Yella before murdering her and committing suicide. We see Yella begin to do the same to the executive/father and his perfect family. At first, she watches them from afar shortly after arriving in Hanover; she does this again much later. She then crassly tells the executive that his patents will not hold unless he comes up with 200,000 euros, which he says he cannot obtain because the only thing he has that is worth more than that is his life insurance policy. Yella basically tells him to figure something out.
In essence, Yella left him no choice but to kill himself. Fischer touches on this saying, "The close-up on her wide-open, emotionless eyes as she watches him leave is the first indication that she is assuming the role of the monster: she is watching and planning something both highly calculated and disturbingly sinister" (114). We can tell she feels guilt because she sees his corpse before anyone else has even realized he is missing. This is when she realizes that her desire for simultaneous wealth and love has turned her into Ben, as she has mirrored his actions.
Yella does not want to become Ben. That, plus the fact that she has no other desires in life that we know of, could be the reason why she allows Ben to drive them off the bridge, putting up no fight.
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ReplyDeleteAmong the other two movies that we’ve watched, Jerichow and Ghost, I find that the movie, Yella, was much easier to follow in terms of its storyline and flow. Just like the other two movies, Yella also starts off “in the middle of things”. There was a long take at the beginning of the movie as though it is trying to brace the viewers for what’s to come. However, I’ve noticed that there was not much long takes throughout the movie, only at the beginning, which was unusual to me because the other two films had plenty. This indirectly tells us that the movie was straight-forward enough for us to interpret as compared to the other two films.
ReplyDeleteI noticed that the whole movie plays with the element of guilt. Hence, after reading through the article “German Desire in the Age of Venture Capitalism”, these particular statements stood out to me, “Her dream, her desire, is not opposed to the desires produced by venture capitalism; it is not a dream for a more 'authentic' state of being that she could find only outside of its logic: she is not nostalgic for a time prior to 1990, which is why neither her former husband, Ben, nor her beloved father embody viable alternatives to what Philipp has to offer her.”
Yella obviously feels guilty for the death of her late husband, Ben. She was also supposed to die with him but instead, she lived. So, because of the guilt she felt, her husband continues to haunt/stalk her life. The sound of crows and water was obvious triggers of her guilt because it reminded her of the accident which made me realize that the wine glass filled with water that spilled and broke was also a part of her imagination and guilt because no one else in the office seemed to notice it. Philipp gave her a sense of escape from the guilt which was why she ran to him when her husband was chasing her down the hallways of the hotel. The reason Philipp manage to give her that sense of escape was probably because of how he does not feel guilty stealing money from his own company. She then learned his ways and embrace her guilt in the wrong way by deceiving people (Dr. Gunthen) which then led to his death. So, no matter how much security Philipp could offer her, it wasn’t enough which explained why she decided to suicide with Ben.
Does she really "decide" to "suicide with Ben"? Yella isn't any more alife than Ben is after the initial crash. neither of them actually crawls out of the water...
DeleteYella, where do I even begin with this movie? This, out of all the movies we have watched this week has had me scratching my head and confused all day long. The main thing I noticed in this movie and am comfortable enough to articulate (because the rest of the movie confused me so much I wouldn’t want to make assertions I am unsure of) was the costuming of Yella in the dream sequence.
ReplyDeleteIn the very first scene on the train we see Yella changing her red shirt while gazing out at the lake as the train passes by. Shortly after that we see Yella drying that red shirt on the line foreshadowing what will happen to her in the lake. Later on after the crash and what turns out to be the first scene of the dream sequence we see Yella attempting to change her shirt but she never seems to manage putting a different shirt on despite looking through her whole suitcase. Throughout the rest of the movie the only outfit she seems to be able to wear day in and day out is that red shirt. This is an obvious clue to the audience that these scenes are not based in reality and simply a creation in her own mind. To be quite honest this movie was very confusing for me and I don’t even quite understand my own take on this rather interesting movie. However, Yella’s personality teamed up with Nina’s and Laura’s from the previous three films to seem to have similarities something I will draw upon for the paper over the weekend.
The red shirt was a great observation! I thought the movie would end by revisiting the car crash, and that she maybe didn't survive, but had I noticed her wearing the red dress throughout the movie I would have spent less time wondering if this was a fantasy or reality and focused more on everything else that was occurring.
DeleteYes, I'm glad you (finally) bring up the red shirt--no one else had done so. That is indeed a key sign that strongly suggests that she is not living in "reality" anymore after the initial crash....
DeleteYella felt like a cycle. As the other two movies this one starts you out 'right in the middle of things'. It is only towards the end that I got the feeling that Ben and Yella had either been on one end of the deal before the movie starts. Yella could be seeing her situation with Ben from the other side with Phillip. Where she likes it gets engrossed in it, and then realizes the harm it really does.
ReplyDeleteThe cycle continues with her panic attacks. After her initial crash in Ben's car, she hears the trees, water, wind, and a crow. In following scenes, it seems when she sees Ben, she hears these sounds. The crow acted as an awakening call.
While the film is a cycle, you could also see Yella as a Ghost. Where she is stuck in this cycle til she figures out what she did wrong, or moves past it.
Also, I found it funny that I didn't put to much importance on the crow cawing while watching the movie. The sound of a crow definitely has been used in movies before; signifying death. It didn't seem important because she had lived through the initial crash. At the end, the big payoff definitely makes you feel like a dork for not paying attention to it.
Yella is about a woman who is being stalked by her ex-husband but also the role of Germany’s economy and capitalism. Yella, who is smart but self-conscious; ends up having a dream and sees the path that she can take, pursuing a career. What I found interesting is, in the beginning of the film, I got the impression that Yella was living in fear, while she was hanging up her clothes and after being followed by her ex-husband, Ben. Also, during this scene and throughout the film, the sound of crows in the background leaves a dark feeling to the film.
ReplyDeleteThough the film focuses on the fact that Yella doesn’t love Ben anymore, as explained in the reading; “Ben insists on driving her to the train, but this ostensible kindness turns quickly cruel. The failure of a business they had started together has led her to leave him.” (Fisher, 105) What was odd to me that Yella decided to go into the car? Both Yella and her father knew that Ben was stalking Yella, what Yella should have done was waited for the taxi. The film was about her transformation and her future but yet, Yella decides at the end of the film that she doesn’t want to grab the steering wheel from Ben. After Yella dreams about her future and seeing what the consequences of capitalism she decides she doesn’t want to pursue her dream because no one could give her what she wanted. If she would have stayed at home, she would have been stuck with Ben. If she would have followed her path, she would be unsatisfied, which puts fear in the idea of capitalism.
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DeleteI like that you call some attention to how the film comments on the relationship between East and West Germany, which in this film of course is post unification. But the promise of a better life in capitalist west Germany seems to be rendered as horror....
DeleteAs we have previously seen in Petzold’s films, chance encounters lead the film’s main character to a noir-like alliance centered on economic power. A large portion of the film takes place in a hotel, which in itself is a temporary living arrangement – not a home. When Yella lands a job in West Germany, she’s ready to leave her old life in the East including her estranged, emotionally unstable ex-husband, and her father whom she is very close to. The film says a lot about gender roles, Yella’s father is the only male character she is completely comfortable with. Even when she is happy and in love with Philipp he has a history of snapping at her and being unpredictable. When Philipp peals the orange, it’s a safety blanket, a reminder of her father.
ReplyDeleteAlthough it’s hard to call this a horror film, the fear is found in “the body of a soon-to-be-victimized woman, frequently depicted in the convulsive throes of terror, that anticipates horror.” This privileging of the female body intersects horror’s normally male-gendered monsters.” (Fischer 104). The disorienting nature of Yella’s recollection of the accident – hearing the bubbles of the water, the crow, the wind – and not knowing what is real is the horror in the film. Outside of the people that Yella directly interacts with, there are no extras in the film. Nobody else is on the train or outside of the train station; no one else is in the hotel. Yella has no home or place to belong, which is a common theme in Petozld’s films. As compared to by Fischer, being isolated in a hotel is a familiar horror scene that we’ve seen in classics such as Psycho and The Shining. Also similarly, this isolation provides the chance for Yella to live out a fantasy or a nightmare in a new place and a new identity.
While I didn’t really enjoy the end of Yella I did like role that water played in the movie and how the song “Road to Cairo” fit in to the movie. After the scene of Yella getting driven off the bridge in to the water with Ben behind the wheel, Yella has some sort of PTSD moment when she is in the negation meeting and knocks her water glass off the table. The glass shatters on the floor, Yella glances down and see the water swaying back and forth and sees the pieces of broken glass lying around her chair. This event sends her in to a state where she can’t hear anything that the people in the room are saying and instead hears sounds of wind blowing, birds chirping and water rushing.
ReplyDeleteThis episode brings her back to the moment of the car wreck. The fact that she can’t hear anything people are saying is Petzold’s way of simulating Yella being under water or drowning, the birds being overhead and the trees blowing revive the scene of the crash.
Aside from water being some sort of PTSD trigger I found the lyrics to the song “Road to Cairo” by Julie Driscoll used in Yella to be very fitting. Lyrics include.
I been traveling
Gone a long long time
Don't know what I'll find
Scared of what I'll find
But I just got to see them again
Hey thanks for stopping
Are you headed down to Cairo?
I wrecked my Lincoln in Saint Jo
Why to little old Cairo?
No special reason
Look up some folks I used to know
“Don’t know what I’ll find” and “Scared of what I’ll find” relates to the flash-forward moment Yella has moments before the wreck where she sees her future and is scared of the uncertainty it holds. “I wrecked my Lincoln” and “Looking up some folks I used to know” relates to the accident on the bridge and Yella truly knowing herself.
Lastly, one thing that stuck out to me of Abel’s Essay of Yella was the line: “rather than obsessively returning to the violent event itself and actually depicting it, Godard's camera tends to focus on the effects the event had on the subjects that it affected.”
I think this really lends to how we view the climax of the crash or any horrific moment in the film. The scene does not show gore and violence, but rather the vehicle slowly sinking to the depth, this leaves a lot of open interpretation to the viewer and if the first two films we have watched. Jerichow, and Ghosts have taught us anything. That is something that Petzold loves to do.
There are many ways to interpret this film but I find it most interesting to view it as a glimpse Yella has before she is killed in the car crash. Some people believe one sees their life flash before their eyes at the moment of death, and I view this film as that moment to Yella. What we see throughout the film is a fantasy of what she wanted in life blended with elements of what she experienced. I feel this idea opens the film up to more discussion as opposed to having a cliche ending where Yella realizes her future may not be as bright as her past and simply allows Ben to jerk the wheel of the car which leads to both of their deaths.
ReplyDeleteI think in Yella's vision she is coming to terms with her relationship with Ben by creating Philipp. I thought of Philipp as a young version of Ben in Yella's fantasy. He had business savvy and was driven to be successful. Yella seemed to be impressed with nearly everything he said and did. I viewed this as an embellished recollection of how Yella and Ben's relationship began. This explained the character of Philipp for me but then I questioned why Ben continued to pop up throughout the movie.
I find it interesting to view Ben as her subconscious pulling her back to reality. He occurred multiple times saying "we need to go now." Essentially, Ben was acting as an entity to pull Yella out of her fantasy. Ben would come and go at random throughout the movie and it was stated earlier in the film that Yella was moving 2 hours away from home so I found it hard to believe he was stalking her. I believe his character served more of a purpose than to be the jealous ex-boyfriend in her fantasy.
This film touched on reoccurring Petzold themes of love, money, and home. Yella needed money in order to gain love. And she needed both money and love to feel a sense of worth and belonging. The character Philipp and the vision of Ben echoed Yella's insecurities throughout her fantasy.
"Petzold's films are almost always concerned with characters who are on the move - usually against their will" (Abel, 2). This has been seen most prominently thus far in "Yella." Furthermore, The motive behind the movement of the characters is almost always economic.
ReplyDeleteFor instance, near the beginning of the film, Yella tells her father that she has found a new job, which is "only two hours away." Thus, this employment opportunity requires her to move away from her father, highlighting how "interhuman bonds" can "become increasingly frail" in the individualism of capitalism (Bauman, 2).
The general sense of being "on the move" is of course strengthened by the numerous car and train scenes. Perhaps the most symbolically significant of these scenes is the long take of the scenery outside of the train as Yella travels to Hanover. Of course, the train is moving so fast, that the images distort into horizontal blurred lines. It is an image that evokes feeling of discomfort and anxiety, thus indicating to the audience that this trip is not a fun getaway, but an unpleasant pilgrimage.
Yella is not quite done moving yet, though. Her job with Alpha Wings in Hanover falls through and Dr. Schmitt-Ott plans to take her to Hamburg to work. However, Yella seems quite frustrated with this prospective move. Thus, she opts to work as a negotiator with Phillip instead.
Of course, she is still required to be mobile to some extent for economic reasons when working with Phillip. They travel from company to company negotiating business arrangements and although they mostly stay in Hamburg, they have to leave there eventually. The purpose of their travels is reinforced in the minds of the viewers by the fact that they discuss business in the car. This, in turn, reinforces the idea of the indispensability of mobility to capitalism in that even while Phillip and Yella are in the midst of movement, the occupy themselves with financial matters.