Wetlands Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		4.5
Audio		4.5
Extras		1.5
Overall		4.0

Wetlands Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Brian Orndorf January 4, 2015

I wouldn’t plan for an elaborate dinner and exquisite dessert before screening the German film “Wetlands” at home. It’s not a movie made to stoke appetites, it’s a restless creation hoping to repulse in a myriad of ways, endeavoring to find beauty within the folds of unrepentant illness. Based on a novel by Charlotte Roche, “Wetlands” sets out to the capture the head rush of a broken adolescence, with all its impulses, curiosities, and emotional unrest, and the feature is certainly vivid enough to reach a few high points of frightfully detailed experience that are rarely explored on-screen. However, its visual intensity is tiring and incessant shock value tends to weaken already feeble emotionality present later in the picture. This is certainly unforgettable work, but often for the wrong reasons.

For most of her scattered life, Helen (Carla Juri) has struggled with the delicious pain of hemorrhoids. A freewheeling young woman, never far from her skateboard and habitual sense of bodily discovery, Helen is faced with a hospital stay after an accident with a razor has exacerbated the monumental mess around her hindquarters. Bedridden and eager to cause mischief, Helen engages her nurse, Robin (Christoph Letkowski), an attractive man pulled into his patient’s strange orbit, which greatly disturbs his ex-girlfriend, who’s also a medical professional. As she mends after a painful surgery to put her rear back together, Helen’s mind races through her toxic childhood, with her depressed Mother (Meret Becker) and standoffish Father (Axel Milberg) unable to supply the level of love and guidance she deserved, resulting in the creation of a woman who lives only to experience her own body, teasing self-destruction at every turn.

Excitedly announcing exactly what type of film it is, “Wetlands” opens with Helen discussing her lifelong battle with hemorrhoids and her fascination with the secretions and holes of her body. She’s an explorer with nasty habits, unwilling to follow common hygiene practices to build up goopy results primed for examination and sensory launch. It’s not pretty either, finding director David Wnendt opening the picture with a vividly detailed CGI exploration of a pubic hair, voyaging into the microscopic world of soiled toilet seat, with the young woman rubbing herself on fresh waste to jumpstart her own pungent vaginal culture. And this is just the first few minutes of the movie. “Wetlands” isn’t about to stop there, striving to top itself as Helen nibbles on congealed semen she’s saved after pleasuring a mystery man, face paints with pal Corinna (Marlen Kruse) using menstrual blood, and experiments with genital odors to snake charm strangers. Wnendt sets aside plenty of time to experience Helen’s disgusting routine, creating a semi-comic pitch to the proceedings, tracking the character’s relentless fascination with the mysteries of numerous bodily fluids.

There is a foundation of illness exposed in Helen’s mother, an unhinged woman who’s recently gone the born again route to provide a semblance of direction in her life. Mother is the dominating force in Helen’s universe, and the screenplay employs flashbacks to inspect this troubled relationship. Helen was raised to refuse trust, and through the traumatic separation of her parents, she’s lost interest in love. There’s a hint of babyfever in the air, but Helen has squashed such fantasy through personal choice, leaving her free to inspect the world one careful finger-wipe at a time. The literary influence really comes through in the picture’s midsection, creating an episodic experience for “Wetlands,” following Helen as she interacts with Robin, Corinna, and attempts to slip her hands around her own psychological makeup, filing through the trauma and confusion of her life. That’s not to suggest anything adds up in the effort, but Wnendt labors to create a swirling interlacing of fantasy and reality, only to lose a crucial path of direction to tangents (including wasted time with Corinna’s drug-dealing boyfriend) and continued interest in testing gag reflexes.

Wetlands Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

For Helen's journey to have meaning, clarity is key, permitting viewers to soak up every last visit to her nether regions. The AVC encoded image (2.40:1 aspect ratio) presentation preserves the HD-shot odyssey with encouraging clarity, allowing sharpness to dominate the viewing experience. Detail is delivered on facial reactions, unclothed adventures, and visual effects, bringing out secure textures that leave little to the imagination. Colors are bold and bright, with a crisp read of primaries, capturing hues on costumes and set design, while skintones hold their intended pinkness. Blacks are largely satisfying, only dipping into a few moments of solidification.

Wetlands Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

For those already invested in the tone of "Wetlands," the 5.1 DTS-HD MA sound mix arrives with authority, immersing the listener into Helen's world of bodily fluid excitement. The opening trip into toilet seat bacteria and shed pubic hairs gets the listening experience off to a boisterous start, with a pleasing sense of circular activity, working surrounds with bold sound effects and mild directional movement. The track pushes out often, making the most out of atmospheric opportunities and especially soundtrack selections, which keep up a full low-end beat, while instrumentation is crisp. Scoring is equally communicative and supporting. Dialogue exchanges are direct and emotive, sustaining performances while balanced with background particulars. Of course, with any onscreen act of self-exploration, there's typically a sweetened sound effect to go with it, leaving the mix eventful, bringing out the flavors of the images.

Wetlands Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Alternate Artwork Gallery provides ten images that vary in provocative poses and sexually charged imagery. It's not hard to understand why most were passed over.

• And a Theatrical Trailer (1:48, HD), a "Pink Band" Trailer (2:30, HD), and an International Trailer (2:00, HD) are included.

Wetlands Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Helen doesn't have to be likable, but her plight should be interesting enough to support an entire film. Juri deserves credit for committing entirely to the whirlwind attitude of the character, following wherever the screenplay leads, but Helen is a rather unpleasant woman throughout "Wetlands," while her tale of woe holds little substance. The story eventually abandons tomfoolery altogether to take Helen's isolation and frustrations seriously, slowing the feature down to dissect her shattered psyche, slamming the brakes on the speedy, slickly edited antics. It rings false, coming off far too calculated to honestly explore the character's anguish, transforming the movie into an After School Special, only with more anal agony. Wnendt wants the highs and the lows of Helen's life, but there's no transitional period that facilitates such a turn of events. Suddenly, the audience is expected to care for a brutal human without proper lubrication. Considering Helen's constant sampling of her own juices, the demand seems completely out of character.