Lore (2012)

Lore Lore is a 2013 crime-thriller centering around the effect of the aftermath of post- WWII Germany and the battle of siblings through the Black Forest. Lore, the eldest daughter, takes her four siblings through hundreds of miles to their grandmother’s house. The purest faces commit the sorest of sins but not without their fair share of austerity and peril. It’s an emotional hurdle you have to jump but will stumble with. Although spectacular in its cinematography, Lore is not a story best told as a film. But, this doesn’t mean I didn't care for it. The creative direction behind Lore allows me to appreciate the contrast it imposes onto films of similar genre. It was tumultuous, graphic and overall confusing. But if I could describe Lore in one word, it would be "real". The inter-sibling relationships, the rural German lifestyle, the absolute struggle to walk halfway across the country to reach your grandma's house malnourished and emotionally frayed. I think what threw me off initially with Lore is how nothing is glamourised. Themes of crime and exploitation run rampant throughout the film. Regardless of severity, you are in these children's circumstances and Lore does whatever she can, utterly selflessly, to keep her siblings alive. These children have purple lips and blackened feet. Lore is withered with the trauma she has endured in the last month. Any pride she had was shaken off a long time ago and she's created a perspective we've never seen, a perspective we weren't aware of. These are the same children cheering Heil Hitler (doesn't mean you should) and bright-eyed with the visions of their Führer. Now they all have one foot in the grave and there's no food for miles. All that in a single film? Hard to swallow but leaves you full, knowing that you'll probably never see a film like Lore ever again. Its plot was denser than memory foam and to be thrown onto it, envelops your mind with hard-hitting poverty and total desperation. The way Lore employed a sexual aspect eked the truth of the 1940s. Have no money? Trust on the garish system that is prostitution. It's never presented as a pleasure to have in Lore. It's always toward THE tangible item: food, by any means. The ending scene was what gave me the impression of Lore I have now. I feel the author of the book that Lore was based off (Rachel Seiffert) thought "You know what would be better than a happy ending? A depressing ending to not give the audience a feeling of resolution!" This gave the effect of the film never really ending because Lore wants you to know everything is miserable when you’ve been through what she has and will continue to be miserable. Not the best ending in my opinion, but the most true to circumstance. Consistently impressive cinematography is not absent in this film. The grading spills exactly the amount of blue and red needed to invoke the hardship of these children. The shots themselves looked amateurish, yet the sleekness of editing and the plot loosen the gears of "Lore". In conclusion, Lore is a book on screen, imagination realised. Maybe I'm not familiar with the genre but it struck an odd chord with me. Violence is reality in the film and it's a whole new reality.