Florian Gottschick | Zwillinge (Twins) / 2010

love at first sight

by Douglas Messerli

 

Florian Gottschick and Denise Langenhan (screenplay), Florian Gottschick (director) Zwillinge (Twins) / 2010 [15 minutes]

    Florian Gottschick’s film concerns two brothers Daniel and Jan (Stefan and Tobias Schönenberg) who meet up again, after a year and a half self-willed hiatus, at the bachelor party for Daniel who the next day plans to marry Sofie (Natalie Krane).

   When he answers the doorbell, dressed in a bunny rabbit costume, Daniel is shocked to see his brother, whom he almost hints is not welcome at the event. Nonetheless, he cannot resist inviting him in, and over a night of partying that extends evidently to a local nightclub, he ends up inexplicably handcuffed to a pipe in the women’s bathroom, his brother sitting at his side, who releases him only after a deep kiss.        

     The two men have been justified in the uncertainty of the reunion as they find themselves sharing a bed again. And in the morning, when Sofie enters the kitchen where Jan is now hunkering

down over his coffee, she is startled after sharing a kiss and confidences with him to discover he is not Daniel. Apparently, it is she who has invited him to the previous evening’s stag night, and as soon as the two get a moment to know one another, she wastes no time in laying out the territory, openly asking him if he and Daniel are still fucking. She adds that she’s not the jealous type and knows that in marrying Daniel she is marrying both of them.

       Although apparently they have invited no one to witness their private ceremony, she dresses, in her bridal gown with only Jan in attendance; soon after, again with his brother at his side, Daniel begins to dress in his blacks and whites, wondering out loud whether he’s made the right decision in agreeing to marry.

     Jan says it probably is for the best, but as the two lock eyes, Daniel suddenly undresses as they engage suddenly in a quick act of coitus. Daniel redresses—at least we presume it’s Daniel—and heads off to the marriage ceremony, the other sitting on the bed in contemplation of their obviously unresolved sexual relationship with each other.

     Surely, Sophie has married both of them, and Jan and Daniel may now not even attempt to live apart.

 

Los Angeles, June 4, 2021

Reprinted from World Cinema Review (June 2021).