"Feuchtgebiete" is a German movie running for clearly over 90 minutes (and dragging for most of it) from roughly 1.5 years ago. There was lots of media coverage around it as it was fairly explicit and polarizing in terms of the sexual content it depicted and dealt with. It is based on Charlotte Roche's partially autobiographic and very successful novel. I have not read it, but I can say that I think she is a smart woman and I enjoy seeing her in talk shows and so on. The first camera shot gives a good description where this film is headed. we see something that looks like a bare ass, but turns out to be the hollow of a knee. The movie is made my David Wnendt. He had quite a lot of success with his previous work "Kriegerin" and there is really nothing similar here like in that one, except that we have a female protagonist in both. The main actress here is Carla Juri and while she has received acclaim from so many awards bodies, I cannot see it at all. Her physical acting was mediocre, her narration was pretty awful, her voice is always the same, and sounded like taken from a bad television movie. She has no talent in terms of line delivery at all. For Juri this was the big breakthrough. Other well-known actors (before this film already) include Meret Becker (Otto Sander's daughter, as her mother), Axel Milberg (as her father) and Edgar Selge (as a doctor).
Now, let's talk about the plot. It is very repulsive. There are scenes, in which a young woman uses her genitals to wipe over a public toilet seat and she shows off that she does that on a regular basis and has never gotten any infection. In many other scenes, she puts her finger into something gross (inclusding herself) and licks on it afterward. She tries out all kinds of vegetable in the bathtub and makes a list which ones are most suitable for masturbation. People talk about putting their feces on their beloved's belly. Drugs are abused as if it was perfectly normal. This movie gives a lot of horrible messages and acts as if it was perfectly fine. No area of disgust gets left out. And in the face of all of this, the film tries to be actually relevant as it occasionally refers to the main character's wish for her parents to reunite again. This is the central dramatic storyline, when they are not talking razor injuries in the genital area that is. Anyway, that parents story line is, in my opinion, just a distraction from all the repulsive parts to make this movie somehow seem to have an appropriate plot that touches people.
To mention more details, there is a scene involving tampons that you really do not want to see and something involving pizza as well near the end. It's a mess of a film, neither funny, nor dramatically relevant. A movie can be shocking and still deliver a worthwhile story. This one does not even in the slightest achieve that. I highly recommend to stay away.
Now, let's talk about the plot. It is very repulsive. There are scenes, in which a young woman uses her genitals to wipe over a public toilet seat and she shows off that she does that on a regular basis and has never gotten any infection. In many other scenes, she puts her finger into something gross (inclusding herself) and licks on it afterward. She tries out all kinds of vegetable in the bathtub and makes a list which ones are most suitable for masturbation. People talk about putting their feces on their beloved's belly. Drugs are abused as if it was perfectly normal. This movie gives a lot of horrible messages and acts as if it was perfectly fine. No area of disgust gets left out. And in the face of all of this, the film tries to be actually relevant as it occasionally refers to the main character's wish for her parents to reunite again. This is the central dramatic storyline, when they are not talking razor injuries in the genital area that is. Anyway, that parents story line is, in my opinion, just a distraction from all the repulsive parts to make this movie somehow seem to have an appropriate plot that touches people.
To mention more details, there is a scene involving tampons that you really do not want to see and something involving pizza as well near the end. It's a mess of a film, neither funny, nor dramatically relevant. A movie can be shocking and still deliver a worthwhile story. This one does not even in the slightest achieve that. I highly recommend to stay away.