The Universal Theory
Timm Kröger’s metaphysical sci-fi thriller is given a stunning Alpine setting, all the better to cloak the vagueness of the material.
Image courtesy of Picturehouse Entertainment.
Until now I have not been aware of the work of the German writer/director Timm Kröger but that is hardly surprising because this is only his second full-length feature and its predecessor was not released in the United Kingdom . Nevertheless, from the very start one recognises that The Universal Theory has been made by somebody possessed of a remarkable cinematic eye. One realises too that he is a man with a detailed knowledge of cinema's past for this piece contain so many echoes of it. That very fact may render it a treasure trove for those who will relish identifying the films and the directors that Kröger admires. But when it comes to the story being told here, I would not be surprised if many found The Universal Theory a frustrating experience.
Kröger's film has a prologue in the form of a television interview with a German author named Johannes Lenient (Jan Bülow) that takes place in 1974. The subject of this interview is a book of his which is a fanciful work about the existence of parallel worlds and the interviewer insists on calling it a novel whereupon Johannes angrily denies that it is fiction and walks out. This counts as a bold opening since it invites scepticism about the book in question yet at this point the film proceeds to switch to wide screen and abandons colour for black-and-white and, as the credit titles come up, we find that what we are now watching are the supposedly real events that took place in 1962 and became the subject of the book which Johannes has written. That book and this film bear the same German title, Die Theorie von Allem.
Following this introduction, we see young Johannes saying goodbye to his mother and setting out for Switzerland since he has been invited to attend a physics congress there and to discuss a dissertation that he has been working on. He is accompanied by Dr Strathen (Hanns Zischler) who has acted as his supervisor but who proves to be critical of the ideas about a multiverse being expounded by Johannes. Instead, it is another man attending the congress, a Nobel nominee name Professor Blumberg (Gottfried Breitfuss), who is enthusiastic about his ideas. We soon learn that Strathen and Blumberg are in fact old antagonists but at this stage the film is finding a new focus. The hotel where Johannes and the others are staying offers an entertainment by a jazz band which includes a French pianist, Karen (Olivia Ross), who attracts Johannes. They talk and, although she claims not to know him, she is able to tell him of details from his childhood of which only he is aware. This strange link between them leads into a passionate relationship and, despite other elements coming to the fore (there are mysterious deaths and talk of men in tunnels under the mountains nearby where uranium had been mined), the obsessive love affair really has pride of place.
The film makes fine use of a prominent music score by Diego Ramos Rodriguez and David Schweighart and many critics have noted how it recalls Bernard Herrmann’s score for Vertigo. Indeed, Hitchcock is one of the most obvious cinematic reference points here (the setting in different ways reminds one of Spellbound and The Lady Vanishes). The scene in which it becomes an open question whether or not Johannes and Karen have met before is reminiscent of Last Year in Marienbad, the use of black-and-white images on the wide screen also recalls Truffaut’s Tirez sur le pianiste and coincidentally the fate of the Swiss hotel made me think of an old British film, So Long at the Fair (1950). Furthermore, Kröger ensures that his film has the flavour of the German cinema of the time while also carrying over a number of elements that recall that country’s silent film era (this is a very German film).
All of this makes for a very stylish work indeed and one that has been well cast. Even so, the fact remains that style seems to outweigh content in that even when a death occurs it creates limited tension. The film has been called a metaphysical mystery but the only real mystery here is what one is meant to make of a narrative in which people die but then turn up again seemingly alive. That they exist in some way in alternative worlds is an idea presented in such vague and confusing terms that for all the visual distinction of the film it proves hard-going especially when it enters its second hour.
This could be a matter of taste but I could not persuade myself that The Universal Theory had a story worth the telling despite its visual elan. But I do admire its chutzpah when late on after a narrator has arrived out of nowhere we learn of events after 1962 including the news that the novel written by Johannes has been made into a film and a bad one at that at that! On top of which it is suggested that the novel itself might become a cult hit. That could just possibly be the fate of Kröger’s film and I must concede that it ends on an apt shot. Yet the phrase that best sums up The Universal Theory is "a stylish oddity": the style is great but for this reviewer the oddity is just too much.
Original title: Die Theorie von Allem.
MANSEL STIMPSON
Cast: Jan Bülow, Olivia Ross, Hanns Zischler, Gottfried Breitfuss, Philippe Graber, David Bennent, Imogen Kogge, Emanuel Waldburg-Zeil, Vivienne Bayley, Dana Herfurth and the voice of Dominik Graf.
Dir Timm Kröger, Pro Timm Kröger, Heino Deckert, Tina Börner and others, Screenplay Roderick Warich and Tim Kröger, Ph Roland Stuprich, Pro Des Cosima Vellenzer, Ed Jann Anderegg, Music Diego Ramos Rodriguez and David Schweighart, Costumes Pola Kardum.
Ma.ja.de.Fiction/Barricades/Panama Film/Catpics Coproductions-Picturehouse Entertainment.
118 mins. Germany/Austria/Switzerland. 2023. US Rel: 27 September 2024. UK Rel: 13 December 2024. Cert. 15.
