Milk Teeth

CinemaSerf7/10

Mar 6, 2024

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"Skalde" (Mathilde Bundschuh) is really only just tolerated by her rural community having been born to a stranger (Susanne Wolf) in this tightly-knit, introspective, village. Their society works on a bartering system - she trades slurry with her neighbours and thanks to the friendly, but qualified, support of local elder "Pesolt" (Ulrich Matthes) and the more feisty support from "Gösta" (Karin Neuhäuser) they get by. That's all challenged though when the village dogs start to behave erratically just as she encounters a young girl "Meisis" (Viola Hinz) who has come from the forest and whom they take in. The hugely superstitious population decide that she is some sort of harbinger of evil, and demand that she be sent away, but "Skalde" is determined that she's just an ordinary young lass and refuses to co-operate. This earns her the enmity of a populace who now largely shun her. Might now be a time for "Skalde" to consider whether this is the best place for her and the youngster to live - especially as the mutterings from her erstwhile neighbours is becoming a little more menacing? This film is set contemporaneously, which makes the plot all the more effective when it deals with aspects of a local lupine mysticism that seems so anachronistic coming from people who routinely use cars and mobile phones! Sophia Bösch works the pace well, and the very less-is-more style of delivery from Bundschuh helps create an atmospheric drama that's tense at times, engaging at others - and the film never quite gives them, or us, the answers that we might expect.