Salmonberries

I watched a VHS rip of Salmonberries I found on YouTube. Generally, I believe the visual quality of a film shouldn’t make or break whether a movie is good; if a movie is only good if you see it in a theatre as opposed to a phone screen, maybe it’s not a good movie. Basically, shut up, Christopher Nolan. However, the quality of Salmonberries I watched was so poor that I am unsure what happened during some scenes, especially dark scenes and that definitely affected my enjoyment of it.

Salmonberries stars k.d. lang as Kotzebue. Kotzebue was left in a box as a baby with that name on it. She has travelled to a small Alaskan town of the same name to search for any information on her parents. In doing so, she meets the town’s librarian, Roswitha. Roswitha is from East Germany and obviously, also has a tragic backstory related to that. The two women bond and eventually, Kotzebue reveals romantic feelings for Roswitha which Roswitha is unsure about.

Salmonberries spends a lot of time establishing atmosphere. The film largely takes place in a small Alaskan town so much time is spent showing that this is a cold and slow-moving place. It becomes so much it ends up feeling like filler. You don’t need to do much other than show snow to establish that it’s cold.

The chilly atmosphere extends to the relationship between Kotzebue and Roswitha. Roswitha particularly spends a good portion of the movie not giving Kotzebue the time of day. Their relationship develops strangely as for two acts the women feel like strangers and then suddenly they’re going to Germany together and establishing pet names for one another.

This leads to the scene were Kotzebue reveals her feelings for Roswitha. I didn’t love it. It somewhat sours their very sweet connection. Kotzebue veers into predatory in the scene. Roswitha asks her a few times to stop and Kotzebue not only continues to express her romantic interest but physically pins Roswitha to the bed. This is an older movie and does ultimately feature an ambiguously happy ending, but the scene still rubs me the wrong way. Especially because Kotzebue presents quite masculine and we really don’t need more depictions of butch and masculine WLW being predatory or aggressive like this.

The best part of the film is kd Lang’s original song for the film. Lang is a very talented singer and songwriter and it’s a lovely song. The song really does add something. In one scene that it’s played in, the use of the song is the only thing that tipped me off that there was supposed to be burgeoning romantic chemistry between Kotzebue and Roswitha as the visuals in the scene weren’t doing much in that regard. On the downside, the film clearly realizes it’s a good song and ends up overusing the track. Oh well, it’s very effective the first two and a half times they use it at any rate.

k.d. lang says Salmonberries inspired her to write one of her acclaimed albums, Ingenue. So for that reason alone the film has justification to exist. However, I can’t give it beyond a middling rating. Part of my tepid feelings towards the film are definitely based on the quality of the VHS rip I watched but that’s not entirely the problem. The film has a lot of filler and then what feels like a rushed third act. Also, as someone from Canada, I don’t need a movie that spends so much time showing how damn cold it is outside. If I wanted to experience that, I’d actually go outside.

Overall rating: 5.9/10

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