Title: Hysteria
Foreign Title:
Year: 2025
Country: Germany
Language: In German, Turkish, Kurdish, Arabic and English with English subtitles
Director: Mehmet Akif Büyükatalay
This is a carefully crafted, suspenseful film within a film, based on a media clip. Director and screenwriter, Mehmet Buyukatalay turns small errors of judgement into devastating outcomes. It is a withering commentary on the fear and misconceptions of the “Other”; on their cultural and personal icons and images, their faith, their desperation, and the blindness within their certainty.
The film opens at a horrifying scene of a house going up in flames with the sleeping inhabitants trapped inside. Temporary relief comes when it is revealed that we are watching a scene while it is being filmed for a movie. Only to return to the horror when we discover that it is a re-enactment of a racially motivated arson, killing a Turkish immigrant family of five.
In filming the re-enactment, Yigit, the director (Serkan Kaya) of Turkish descent hires Muslim extras from the refugee centre to act as the clean-up team for the burnt house. This was the final take and the film was wrapped. During the filming the extras discovered a burned copy of the Qur’an which had been used as a prop. This situation starts to slide into a sort of political hysteria as the conversation among the extras escalates. It is noted that a paper doll was burnt rather than a human so why would they not substitute another book rather than desecrate the sacred texts by burning the actual Qur’an.
These problems fall on the shoulders of a young and somewhat naive, and ambitious intern, Elif (Devrim Lingnau) of mixed Turkish and German heritage. She finds herself straddling both worlds as she struggles to stay neutral.
The story gets more complicated when Elif, through fear of losing the respect of the Director’s wife and producer, Lilith (Nicolette Krebitz) cover-ups that she has lost the keys to their home. This is where the only copy of the tapes of the film are stored. While Yigit and Lilith take steps to mitigate the Qur’an controversy, the tapes disappear. This starts a furor of deceptions and false accusations aimed at everyone especially the vulnerable extras at the refugee centre.
In the final scene, Elif brings all the characters together to Yigit’s and Lilith’s apartment. With accusations flying and reluctant confessions the tapes are produced. In a state of fury one of the refugees tries to burn the tapes, which quickly becomes an inferno. Every hysterical step the characters take to put out the flames just add fuel to the fire. The locks installed to keep “the stranger” out also traps them. In the end, it is not their class or religion or culture differences that are going up in flames but their existence as humans.
This well scripted film, the great ensemble cast , and the fantastic background music (Christian Henson) keep up an atmosphere of suspense and impeding danger. This was a good story well told.
