‘Black Box’: Munich Review

Dir/scr: Asli Ozge. Belgium, Germany. 2023. 120mins

The threats posed to communities by modern gentrification mix with good old fashioned suspicion in Asli Ozge’s tense ensemble drama. Events largely unfold across one day in the life of the residents of an apartment block in Berlin, where external pressure exerts stress on existing cracks in the loyalties and trust between neighbours. 

Ozge has an eye for the small triggers that can generate neighbourhood hostility

The latest film from the Turkish-born, Berlin-based filmmaker marks her second German-language feature after 2016’s All Of A Sudden. Selected for Cannes Atelier in 2018, it now opens the New German Cinema sidebar at the Munich Film Festival before a domestic release on August 10. The film’s universal themes of social prejudice and middle-class fears, reinforced by the backing of the Dardennes brothers’ production company Les Films du Fleuve as co-producers, should also help it gain attention further afield.

A sense of threat is conjured from the start, as a large portable office swings precariously from a crane as it is lifted into the back courtyard of an ageing apartment block. This opening is accompanied by a cacophony of street noise in an early indication that the film will generate much of its mood from the sound design from Paul Heymans and Thomas Gauder, rather than a score. An East West Management label on the office may suggest a breaking down of barriers, but Ozge indicates that it is psychological walls that cause the most problems these days. 

It belongs to Johannes Horn (Felix Kramer) who is in the business of buying up and renovating the flats in the apartment block and subsequently selling them back to the current rental occupants; an egg thrown by an unknown assailant indicates that not everyone sees this as a positive. Horn’s presence has also caused the communal bins to be moved which rankles with ground floor resident Erik Behr (Christian Berkel), who is getting up a petition about the smell. 

Elsewhere in the building, stay-at-home mum Henrike Koch (Luise Heyer) is desperate for a return to the workforce potentially offered by her first interview in years, which she hopes will help her and husband Daniel (Sascha Alexander Gersak) be able to afford to buy their flat. Other residents will come and go through the course of the film, including Ismail Sultanov (Timur Mogomedgadzhiev) and his lover Madonna (Manal Issa).

But the day is thrown into disarray by the arrival of masked special forces police who lock down both the block and the bakery beside it, refusing to let anyone leave. Their presence and a subsequent discovery causes the residents’ rumour mill to churn; secrets (that may just be lies) are revealed and allegiances shift. All the small fears of everyday life are magnified, including the anxiety of no longer fitting into this neighbourhood – despite its ironic and increasingly evident lack of existing cohesion. 

Cinematographer Emre Erkmen captures the action with a close-quarters intimacy that reflects a community increasingly on the lookout while seemingly unaware of bigger surveillance threats. Much of the film’s tension also rests on a commanding central performance from Heyer as she tries to navigate the domestic business of marriage and motherhood along with wider tensions.

Ozge has an eye for the small triggers that can generate neighbourhood hostility – a kid peeing here, a neighbour stuffing something into bin bags there. She also shows the wealth of microaggressions that can fuel a general sense of distrust, as neighbours jump to conclusions as much as a result of their existing beliefs as in response to what they have witnessed. The director also uses cleverly worked ambiguity about several characters to invite us to scrutinise our own preconceptions and expectations.

Once or twice, Ozge reaches for more explosive acts that teeter on the edge of believability. There are also moments where the action sprawls out to such a degree in order to include all the members of the ensemble cast that the tension slackens in response. Her film is at its strongest when it explores the architecture of pressure and prejudice that could, in the wrong combination of circumstances, turn anyone into a threat to their community.