Wetlands Review

I don't have a vagina, but Wetlands made me squirm as if I did.  David Wnendt's romp through female sexuality gives viewers an excuse to exit right off the bat: it starts at peak grossness, a level it returns to time and time again.  If you can't handle the first five minutes without throwing up or turning away, you'd best look elsewhere for a couple hours' entertainment.  This is not a film for the squeamish or the prude.  Wetlands glorifies the abject.  Every bodily fluid is showcased, boundaries of cleanliness and propriety are violated at each turn, and taboos are broken at a breakneck speed.  Wnedt's film channels the riotous spirit of Vera Chytilová's Daisies, but lacks the subtlety, which isn't necessarily a bad thing.

Wetlands is, more or less, a character study of Helen (Carla Juri), a punkish teenager whose rebellious spirit shows through her sexual adventures and utter lack of a filter.  A shaving accident lands Helen in the hospital, where she reflects on her past, plots to reunite her divorced parents, and romances attractive nurse Robin (Christoph Letkowski).  What unfolds is a curious labyrinth of dream, reality, memory, and fantasy, full of blurred lines and clear innuendo.  It's a truly wild ride, and, for the right viewer, a joyous one.

If Wnendt is using hypersexuality to comment on the general lack of interest in female sexuality art often exhibits, then he does so, and then some.  While sex on film is usually about male pleasure, women often - to use a crude pun - get the shaft, playing the part of sensual object to the active, throbbing macho man.  Wetlands is keen on making up for decades of passive female sexuality, going to gross extremes such as tampon swapping and cum chewing gum.  The film often feels like it's trying to shock the viewer without any method to its hormonal madness.  Many scenes, taken on their own, are exercises in excess.  But within the context of the broader coming-of-age story (emphasis on the coming, perhaps), Wnendt's purpose shows clearer.

Look beyond the sex, and Wetlands is a story about family.  Helen is very clearly the daughter of her parents.  Her mother (Meret Becker) is newly Catholic and utterly straight-laced, an exercise in sexual repression.  Her father (Axel Milberg), is the opposite, a middle-aged playboy whose absence is just as damaging as the mother's presence.  Helen falls somewhere in between, using her raunchy proclivities as an act of (sometimes secret) rebellion.  But she's still a kid, hoping that her hospitalization can lead to a reunion between her parents, and thus heal some of the wounds that have bled since her childhood, which we get glimpses of via flashbacks.  Throughout, Juri does a marvelous job of crafting a beautiful, spirited character: even as Helen is crass, she's cute.  We might roll our eyes at her childish behavior, but we feel deeply for her, because she still has so much to learn.

The fluid narrative flow is fitting, considering Helen's easy-going demeanor, and the winking quality of her character.  It's up to the viewer to decide how much of the film to believe, as Helen's narration makes it clear that she is aware of being watched - the self-reflexivity makes the viewer a voyeur - and she consistently proves herself an unreliable narrator, as she dupes the doctors so she can prolong her time in hospital.  So Wetlands plays like a dream, maybe a wet dream, more likely a wet nightmare, with some of the nastiest sights I've ever seen onscreen.  Skip the snacks when you sit down for this one.

Even in its raunchy visual mire, Wetlands has a beating, boisterous heart.  Helen and her mother are both trying to find themselves, Helen in her promiscuity and experimentation, her mother through a parade of religions.  It's wonderful to see women exploring themselves, their relationships with each other, and their place in society.  The film suggests that the messiness of figuring things out is worth it in the end.  Indeed, the bawdy walls Helen hides behind eventually fall away, and Wetlands becomes, in its final moments, a movie of a totally different genre.  The denouement is practically swiped from a romantic-comedy, a jarring double semi-meet-cute that works because of what it mean: that we are complex creatures, constantly learning about and redefining ourselves, and thereby doing the same for the world around us.  Of course Wetlands must become a vastly different creature in its final moments; this is Helen's world, and she isn't yet done growing.