Dr. Urs Blank is a successful lawyer with a pharmaceutical company hell-bent on becoming the biggest in its field in Europe. They ruthlessly merge with other companies and eliminate them. His work taking its toll on him, Blank goes through an accelerated mid-life crisis that brings him to try psychedelic mushroom with dire consequences on his psyche.
The film based on the novel by Martin Suter is adapted by Catharina Junk, David Marconi, and Stephan Rick. Their script is brought to the screen by Stephan Rick. This team creates an almost mesmerizing film in which we get to see a man go from a very business mentality, to a sweeter man, to a psychological break that leads to violence and out of character actions for the lead. The way this is shown is with a slow-burn of a film which takes its time to get to the point, but is absolutely worth it.
In the lead of Urs Blank is Moritz Bleibtreu turning in a nuanced performance of a man who thinks he’s going psycho after ingesting psychedelic mushrooms. His performance here is great and multi-layered; he gives his character depth and emotions, showing the right amount of guilt, of feeling lost, of despair. His character drives the film and his performance is pivotal, making it of utmost importance, which Bleibtreu grabs onto and for which he gives one the best performances of his career. Also, giving fantastically nuanced performances are Doris Schretzmayer as Blank’s wife Evelyn, Nora von Waldstatten as Lucille, and Jurgen Prochnow as Blank’s boss Plus Ott. The ensemble is very strong, a sign of good direction but also of good casting, done here by Veronique Fauconnet and Nilton Martins.
This reviewer being a photographer first and foremost, the cinematography for Dark Side of the Moon caught attention. Stefan Ciupek and Felix Cramer do an amazing job of framing the story and characters in a way that is stunning and that brings everything together. The fact that this was done by two persons shows how well they work together and adapt to each other’s style as never in the film does it feel as though two people did the cinematography, which is not an easy feat as each of them as his own style, his own vision.
Dark Side of the Moon is a slow-burn of a film, a stunning film, filled with great acting, and with a very good story. Not knowing it is based on a book until after watching it makes this reviewer want to track the book down and see what other layers to the story can be found there.
Fantasia International Film Festival runs from July 14th until August 3rd, 2016.