Sugar Orange (German)

This was a weird film to understand. I tried hard and wanted to understand and was hoping that something logical will come out of it but unfortunately it didn’t. It doesn’t mean that film was bad or story was odd. The problem according to me is the way the treatment was done of the film. Constant flashbacks and pretty much no explanation of anything that happened in the past just adds to more confusion. Having to write the synopsis now itself is a task because that will completely depend on what my understanding of the film was. By the way, also it is not really a gay film. It might be gay interest because of Clemen's character but thats it.

Leo is Sugar, Clemens is Orange. Together, they are two ten-year-old boys who are inseparable, really close friends. Cut to current day, when Leo is all grown up, running a club and has jus stated a romantic relationship with Lena who turns his feelings upside down and awakens his inner child, the one still searching for unconditional friendship. It turns out that Leo has fear of being abandoned. The reason is that when they were kids Leo had an accident and his best friend Clemens left him all alone the entire night and Leo still can’t figure out the reason behind it. Clemens is now in a steady relationship with Leo’s’ elder brother who is an author. It seems that has also become the cause of Leo’s’ broken relationship with his brother. When his brother in in town for a book reading, he embarks on a road-trip with Lena to escape the possible arrival of Clemens. He goes to his childhood hometown. Between flashbacks, we are exposed to what Leo fears and what he is comfortable with. There are moments of fights and insecurities between him and Lena who sis trudging to find out what happened between once upon a tie best friends. The ending is a bit open ended when Clemens appears and him and Leo engage in a playful game while swimming. Is that just hallucination like previous times or is it reality? We won’t know.

The film has potential, story is novel but I think it would have added more character had it been a more linear structure. Also, a lot of things were left tour imagination and interpretation. Why did the best friends fall apart, why did Clemens leave his friend alone, did Leo had ore than friendly feelings towards Clemens, why is Leo bitter about the fact hat his brother is with Clemens, why does Lena go back to Leo even when he doesn’t treat her well and more questions like this? Also why does it seem that in all of his home town, there is no one else besides some 5-6 young men and Leo and Lena. Where is everyone else? For a long time in the film, I even thought that Leo’s bedroom was more of a stage setup and not a real thing. On a bright side, the acting by Leo was good and there was a very weird but sexy appeal about him and his character. It was intriguing and as a person I would like to know this character more and what is going on in his head.

Story had potential and acting is decent; its the non-linear screenplay and character structure that leaves audience feeling cheated and incomplete. (4/10)