Out of Bounds

A stark, Bergman-esque deconstruction (or rather destruction) of a relationship. Though Labrador contains hints of Hour of the Wolf and The Passion of Anna (a desert island, a painter, pregnancy), Aspöck doesn't achieve the suggestiveness or psychological complexity of either of those films in his debut. Contrary to the original intent, the three protagonists do not find their way to each other, but rather become estranged. The isolation of the island prevents them from escaping into privacy, the loss of which is not only virtual due to their spatial proximity (Oskar shows himself to be a conscientious journalist when he reveals to Nathan that he has Googled him). The impossibility of hiding away somewhere and having a moment alone brings the characters into conflict. Prying into the undiscovered past of the others leads to doubts and uncertainty, and to questions that are uncomfortable but important for a healthy, functioning relationship. The “one woman between two men” situation is not used primarily to generate tension that could erupt in physical aggression at any moment in the manner of a thriller (as in Knife in the Water or Stress in Three). It is rather more of a psychological confidence game in which the initially relatively clear distribution of power gradually becomes less clear. The main and apparently only enhancement of the already relatively routine love-triangle formula consists in the unrelenting uncertainty about the true nature of the relationships between the characters and partly in the questioning of the traditional (stereotypical) gender-based division of power. Formalistically, the film doesn’t offer anything imaginative: alongside the artsy melancholic landscape shots, the “amateurish” zooming like that seen in home videos is mostly jarring, the alternation of large exterior shots with close-ups from cramped interiors is rather more incidental to the narrative instead of giving it dynamics and, unless I missed something, the composition of the shots didn’t say much about the changing relationships between the characters. The only significant (inanimate) element of the mise-en-scéne, whose meaning you have to infer for yourself, is on Stella’s ears, seemingly inadvertently throughout the whole film, which tells us a lot about the film itself. Labrador isn’t a shallow film, but it doesn’t offer a) a compelling reason to search for any depth in it, or b) an adequate reward for those embark on such a search. 60% (03/01/2013)

Even though it seems like a visit to her partner's father, in an interesting, abandoned, and desolate environment, it turns out to be a film about who to choose. It's easy to get swept up in the emotions and environment where you feel like there is nothing else. however, the setting has more impact than the actors. (05/04/2017)