Cinema | »Dance of the Titans«: Addicted to fortune cookies

It could have been really bad: "Dance of the Titans," a satire about the pathetic attempt by the world's most powerful heads of state to adopt a joint declaration during the G7 summit . It could have been a series of clichés, an embarrassing, because absolutely formulaic, reckoning with "those up there" who constantly manipulate us just to win the next election. The French president would have made bad jokes about the British's even worse food, the Italian would have been a caricature of Gianluigi Buffon and Bud Spencer drowned in red wine, and the German chancellor would have spent 90 minutes lasciviously stroking her German shepherds, who were sitting at her feet during dinner. This is probably what a German film about the absurd theater of politics would look like, produced by Constantin Film in cooperation with RTL+.

The three filmmakers Evan Johnson, Galen Johnson, and Guy Maddin , the latter primarily known for his silent film aesthetic and bizarrely absurd stories ("My Winnipeg," "The Green Fog"), have transformed the setting of a G7 summit into a grotesque, one that thrives primarily on its B-horror atmosphere. It's actually more of a horror soap opera, a genre that had to be invented to be missed.

Actually, it's become more of a horror soap opera, a genre that had to be invented to be missed.

Things get off to a good start when, after the group photo in front of Dankerode Castle in the middle of the German forest where the summit is taking place, the heads of the major industrial nations pause in front of a pit and watch archaeologist Dr. Buffelmann (just saying that name from the French president is a good joke) excavating a bog body. The tone is set: something is not quite right here.

The music, constantly present but never intrusive, something rarely achieved by films that rely so heavily on their scores, oscillates between a brutally disturbing doomsday symphony and the background babble of cheap 80s porn. The hierarchical levels are also subtly revealed in this somewhat strange prelude: French President Sylvain Broulez (Denis Ménochet) constantly interrupts German Chancellor Hilda Ortmann (Cate Blanchett) to boast about his knowledge of bog bodies; the Japanese Prime Minister (Takehiro Hira) stands in the second row taking photos. The Italian only asks odd questions and is otherwise unimportant; US President Edison Wolcott (Charles Dance) seems somewhat out of touch with the world and tends to fall asleep when things get important (you suddenly miss Joe Biden).

When the seven finally get into the swing of things after dinner in a gazebo at the edge of the forest to formulate their final declaration, which they intend to distribute to the public like a kind of fortune cookie in an unspecified crisis, they notice that the entire estate is empty. The servants have disappeared, a fog of horror is gathering, there's no cell phone reception (Germany, but normal), and the nearest town is 20 kilometers away.

What up to this point seemed like a somewhat freaky satire (the dynamics of the working groups they form to formulate the declaration are strongly reminiscent of gruesome school days, when you were lucky or unlucky enough to be paired with the fit nerds or the pot-smoking losers) now transforms into a completely bizarre trash horror soap opera. The French president collapses in the forest while fleeing from the resurrected bog bodies and is subsequently pushed through the mud in a wheelbarrow by the Italian; the Canadian prime minister (Roy Dupuis), who once had a fling with the British prime minister, disappears for a quickie with the chancellor in the strangely pink-lit bushes.

The forest, sometimes illuminated as if just before the aliens visited, sometimes appropriately dark (cinematographer Stefan Ciupek already created the images in Lars von Trier's "Antichrist"), becomes the scene of an extremely crazy chase between world leaders and zombie bog bodies. The best dialogue is between the British Prime Minister and the French President, who feels intellectually challenged by the completely crazy situation and sees an allegory in everything (the bog bodies were once leaders of their tribe and, when they fell from grace, were simply thrown into the swamp), in which the Prime Minister dryly remarks: "Sylvain, it simply means nothing."

This is a good instruction manual for the film as a whole. There are some truly great scenes that make it clear that even the most powerful people in the world are just little sausages with needs and fears, and above all, that no normal person can truly handle the burden of such responsibility. But all in all, the film doesn't want anything from us. We're allowed to keep our souls, polished by everyday life, which will never experience this kind of power, and are glad about it.

After the credits of this film, one has to ask, in Fukuyama's sense, about the end of satire. If even giant brains suddenly appearing in the forest, masturbating bog zombies, and a Canadian prime minister with a man bun no longer seem bizarre, if the filming takes place in an artistically distorted way, then it's unclear whether this world is even suitable for exaggerating anything in it. If a handkerchief on a table among the world's most important political figures is reinterpreted as a bag of coke, and it no longer makes any difference whether it's true or not, then we are truly lost.

"Dance of the Titans," Canada/Germany 2024. Directed and written by Guy Maddin, Evan Johnson, and Galen Johnson. Starring: Cate Blanchett, Roy Dupuis, and Nikki Amuka-Bird. 104 min. Release: May 15.