Review of Wetlands

Some late night madness at the Melbourne International Film Festival! Sexual perversity in Germany, and lots of bodily fluids as well. Helen (played with energy and verve in a bravura and brave performance by Carla Juri) is a skateboarding teen obsessed with personal hygiene, sex, and her anus. The latter of which leads to an unfortunate incident that sees her hospitalised for an operation. While recuperating, she flirts with her male nurse Robin (Christophe Letkowski) and tries to affect a reconciliation between her divorced parents. Director David Wnendt (Combat Girls, etc) brings Charlotte Roche's controversial novel to the screen with imagination, and he throws everything at the audience with his in-your-face visual style that includes split screens, animation, heightened colour palette, and a throbbing music soundtrack. Much of it is deliberately done for shock value, but the effect soon wears off, and the film seems to overstay its welcome by 20 minutes. The film unfolds in non-linear fashion, while Helen's unapologetically provocative voice over narration leads the audience on a wild journey of sexual experimentation, drugs, family secrets and lies, and youthful exuberance. She is the typical unreliable narrator, and her story is at times over the top. The scatological humour in Wetlands is certainly crass and in your face, and the film will certainly shock and offend the more squeamish.