The well-directed sophomore narrative feature ultimately loses itself, placing more importance on its central theme of interpersonal interactions while firmly rejecting a more fleshed-out, compelling story.
Human Factors(Der menschliche Faktor)
✭ ✭ ✭ Read critic reviews
Germany, Italy, Denmark · 2022
1h 42m
Director Ronny Trocker
Starring Mark Waschke, Sabine Timoteo, Marthe Schneider, Wanja Valentin Kube
Genre Drama
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Nina, Jan, and their two children head to their holiday home on the Baltic Sea for a relaxing vacation. But a mysterious home invasion shatters the peaceful mood and sparks tension among the family members as the event is revisited from each person’s perspective.
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A bit too somber and detached for its own good, Human Factors nevertheless marks another strong entry from a filmmaker who – after several shorts, a documentary, and one other feature – is just getting started.
The Playlist by Christian Gallichio
While Trocker attempts to connect the form to the content of the film, he gets lost in his formalist conceits, never creating fully realized characters to hold the weight of his structural choices.
Trocker’s second feature (following 2016’s “The Eremites”) never quite manages to make good on its gamesmanship and only allows itself to have any fun once it’s sure that nobody else is.
Screen Daily by Jonathan Romney
This deviously constructed puzzle film plays cat and mouse (or to be exact, pet rat) with the viewer, yields subtly disconcerting insights into the fault lines of bourgeois life, and features terrific lead performances from Sabine Timoteo and Mark Waschke.
A challenging and very well considered inspection of familial disintegration, featuring strong performances, Human Factors is a solid entry in the Sundance World Cinema Dramatic Competition.
Despite the mystery of the home invasion becoming increasingly tangential, Human Factors remains a compelling puzzle-box.
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