I have often asked myself how many different life models and worldviews can be found in the externally peaceful Berlin apartment building I live in, where I co-exist in a confined space. During the Covid-19 pandemic there was a stronger feeling that you couldn‘t agree on basic assumptions in small and larger social settings. Asli Özge is dealing with a similar issue in BLACK BOX. In a Berlin apartment building, the police imposes a ban on going out due to an unspecified suspicion of terrorism. A car is towed, an apartment is searched, the trapped residents meet in the courtyard, which has been a contested area for a long time. The new building management has moved garbage cans, a protest initiative is forming, a child may or may not have peed on the doorstep. A central conflict is the ownership issue, the building consists of rentals and condominiums. The loyalties of the residents become fragile under external pressure, relationships and assumptions collide, distrust and fear are rampant. It is often filmed from a confined perspective: with outward peeks at apartments, reflections in windows and distorted images, Özge shows how you watch each other, how everyone only has a bit of information and construct realities from it. The fact that this microcosm is a metaphor for all of society is clear and Asli Özges diagnosis can‘t be disputed. What is difficult is the very slow building of the escalation which doesn‘t allow for a lot of narrative tension, leading to the overall view of a messy, unsolvable situation.

Susanne Stern

Translation: Elinor Lewy