So, what will you do if you lose whole your certification like a passport or a car license and around people, suddenly, become not to recognize you? In the film named “Unknown”, Dr. Martin (Liam Neeson) is exactly in that situation. He goes to Berlin with wife (January Jones) to attend an environmental symposium. After getting hotel, however, he realizes that he lost his certification at an airport and, on his way to there by taxi, he get a car accident. Then, after awaking from the accident, he realize that nobody recognize him, even his wife. After watching this film, I can’t stop admiring such a completely sophisticated narrative. But more than that, I think the best part of this film is using Berlin for the location setting.

Using Berlin as a setting of the film is a smart choice. One reason of that is, by setting Berlin as a location, the director could put main character, Dr. Martin, in hopeless situation to bring back his identity. Actually, when he lose his certifications, if he was in his home country, U.S., and could communicate with surround people, it might be easy to bring back those certifications. So, in order to prevent him from those possibilities, the film uses Berlin as a setting. For example, in the film, after losing his certifications, only person can certificate him is the taxi driver because the workers at a hotel he stay always ask him to show his certification and his wife does not recognize him strangely. Actually, he also tries to contact with acquaintance in U.S., it does not work well and, then, he is in almost hopeless situation.

Another good reason to use Berlin as a setting of the film is that it is fit for other minor characters. In this film, there are, of course, some important minor characters; however, a point the director should concern might be how to make those characters appeared naturally in this world. Regarding the point, Berlin might be the best choice. For example, the taxi driver is an immigrant from Bosnia and Herzegovina. This is related to the fact that the Germany is one of the countries which accept many immigrants in its countries. But, since the driver has entered Germany illegally, she is not cooperative with him. If the location is a less immigrant acceptable country, it is difficult to set this minor character’s position. Moreover, there is another important minor character, a detective who tries to investigate Martin’s certificate information. Actually his way to investigate is more than usual detective way, like using a back channel. Then, later we realize that he is come from a secret police in the East Germany. This is also one example of how the location fits the character in the story naturally.

Above all, this film has a excellent sophisticated narrative in it. However, such a splendid narrative is, actually, founded on location setting selected thoughtfully. Because this film’s real pleasure is enjoying the deeply thought story, I don’t mention about the story. Therefore, I really recommend you to watch this and enjoy the masterpiece by yourself.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1401152/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1

When I watched the 8 1/2 in the class, I, actually, was really disappointed in myself because I couldn’t catch that film’s concept as well as keep up with that story at all at that time. There are huge amount of dialogue and also too many mixtures of real, memory, and illusion which were inserted suddenly to each other. While those features, in usual, work as help for audience to understand the film, I, this time, felt that I was totally betrayed by them. After watching this film again and again later, however, I abruptly come up with one clue which helps us to appreciate such a most difficult and challenging film, that is “an action of the time when you are distressed.”
First, it might be true that, when people face difficulties and feel distressed, they would often try to escape in the memory or illusion to neglect those difficulties. While watching the film, I was so much confused by the large number of mixture of real, memory, and illusion, for example, the real of making film, memory of Saraghina, and illusion of a harem or grand final. However, those confusing mixtures could be appreciated if you remind the clue “an action of when you are distressed.” Let’s imagine the situation you confront to the difficulty like doing homework. Then, people might realize that they can’t stop recalling the memory or imagining unless the difficulty is so exciting to them. In the film, making the film is such a difficulty for Guido. So he escapes that difficulty not only physically (go away from them who force him to make it) but also mentally.
Second, it also seems somewhat true that, when people face difficulties and feel distressed, there would be full of incoherent talks and thoughts. One another fact I realized as I watch the film was that there were so many dialogues in it and, yet, that I, still, couldn’t keep up with the story. In usual, the dialogue seems to work as a guidance of the story for example by explaining what they do next, why they think so, or why that happened. In this film, however, actor/actress, especially Guido, tell a lot about not kind of explanation or description of the situation but what they are thinking at that time in incoherent way. Therefore, even though they use many word to describe their thoughts, those don’t dedicate to understand the story effectively and, so, it makes this film difficult to appreciate.
In conclusion, through watching this film again and again, I realized that how my way to appreciate the films is stuck in narrow style. When I watch films, I always appreciate it by follow its story in each situation thorough actor/actress’s dialogues which explain or describe the situation explicitly. However, this film completely rejects such a way and forces me to appreciate through whole keyword, like “distress” in this film. After I realize it, this film totally changed its appearance and I could accept such complex mixtures of real, memory, and illusion, and a large number of dialogues.