Dust On Our Hearts (2012)

Directed by: Hanna Doose
Country: Germany

Movie Review: “Dust On Our Hearts” depicts a relationship of love and hate between mother and daughter, giving us at the same time the whole picture of a broken family. Kathi (Stephanie Stremler) is a 30-year-old single mother who is trying to be an actress without practical results. Her recent auditions keep going the wrong way and the financial dependence of her mom (Susanne Lothar in one of her last roles), a neurotic and manipulative life coach, affect her life deeply. Kathi sees herself in another weird situation when her dad, Wolfgang (Michael Kind), comes to live to Berlin many years after his separation from her mother, to try to get the family back together and meet his teenage son Gabriel for the first time. After an incident in a street market where her 4-year-old son disappears, Kathi loses the trust of her mother who tries to keep her grandson. Things didn’t seem so real in the scenes after the kid’s disappearance, when the family members act in a relaxed manner, while Wolfgang sees a good opportunity to infiltrate in her ex-wife’s house. Hanna Doose gives some good indications on screenwriting and direction, portraying a dysfunctional family where everyone is needy, but some scenes demanded a little more control to work better, exception made for a fight scene between mother and daughter that leads to their rupture. The fear of failing and be rejected, along with its consequences, played also an important part in this respectable but inessential study of characters.