I like all kinds of movies and when I was younger, the more disturbing the better. Even now, I like a good and shocking piece of cinema, but the trailer for WETLANDS is grossing me out. Maybe it is because I am getting older or maybe it is because of the shaving scene, but this is one NSFW preview.
Leave it to the Germans to produce a film like WETLANDS. Now, I am not a prude and this isn’t shocking simply because it is a woman. I would absolutely be repulsed if it was a guy doing the same things. And it isn’t even the sexual stuff. The scene showing her walking barefoot through raw sewage made me gag a little.
Eighteen year-old Helen Memel (Carla Juri) likes to skateboard, masturbate with vegetables and thinks that body hygiene is greatly overrated. Struggling with her parents’ divorce, she spends her time experimenting and breaking one social taboo after the other with her best friend, Corinna (Marlen Kruse). When a shaving accident lands her in the hospital, she sees it as a way to reconcile her parents, but ends up forming an unlikely bond with her male nurse, Robin (Christoph Letkowski) in the process.
The film is garnering a good deal of acclaim on the festival circuit and based on the trailer, the performances look pretty good. We get quite a few coming of age stories in American indie films but WETLANDS is currently getting the recognition. Hopefully this is not all shock value and there truly is a decent movie in there.
WETLANDS opens in limited release beginning September 5th.
“an unapologetically vulgar coming-of-age tale about divorce, first love and anal fissures”
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