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This is the situation posited in the Swiss film "Dora or the
Sexual Neuroses of Our Parents" shown on Thursday at the Berlin
International Film Festival.
It focuses on the consequences of the protective parents of a
mentally disabled, 18-year-old only child, Dora, as they take
her off medications so she can learn to deal with life,
including her own budding sexuality.
"Almost all the taboos are shown in the film but this was not
the intention, this was my own discovery," director Stina
Werenfels said of the movie, which was adapted from a play by
Lukas Baerfuss.
A main departure from the play is the explicit sex between Dora,
convincingly played by Victoria Schulz, and the unsavoury Peter,
played by German actor Lars Eidinger, recently seen in "Clouds
of Sils Maria".
Rushing headlong into life, Dora follows Peter into a public
toilet, where he rapes her.
The parents discover what has happened and call the police,
while seeking medical attention for Dora. But the police find no
proof of rape, Dora is of consenting age, and when she spots
Peter again, they begin to have sex regularly.
The film looks at the complications that arise from parents
wanting as normal a life as possible for Dora, their only child,
while suffering from their own marital strains because they are
unable to have another child.
Dora throws away her birth control pills and almost immediately
gets pregnant, sending her mother, played by Jenny Schily, into
an emotional tailspin.
"Is a young woman with mental impairment allowed to have a
child?" Werenfels said at a news conference. "People with a
disability have the same rights as all other people... and now
we enter a new zone. What are the new problems?"
The Hollywood Reporter trade publication in a review said:
"Although there are things to admire about this audacious,
taboo-challenging effort -- like Victoria Schulz’s breakout lead
performance and Lukas Strebel’s nervy cinematography --
Werenfels and Boris Treyer’s script ... is alternately too
elliptical and too on-the-nose to get to the heart of this
tricky subject."
(Editing by Crispian Balmer)
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