Berlinale 2025 review: ‘Das Licht’ (‘The Light’)

For his third Berlinale opening film after Heaven in 2002 and The International in 2009, German director Tom Tykwer, best known for his kinetic thriller Lola rennt (Run Lola Run), has delivered an ambitious, clumsy and ultimately insufferable parable that attempts to comment on a lot but ends up saying precious little.

Das Licht (The Light) follows a family falling apart in Berlin – where it constantly seems to rain.

Seriously, if you thought that David Fincher’s LA was drenched beyond belief, this year’s opening film gives Se7en a run for its money as the dampest film ever.  

We meet Tim and his wife Milena (Lars Eidinger and Nicolette Krebitz), who live with their twins Jon (Julius Gause) and Frieda (Elke Biesendorfer) and have shared custody of Milena’s other son, Dio (Elyas Eldridge).

This modern family unit are well off but live separate lives, and the couple seem to be passing each other on the down-slope of marriage. When he’s not chronically late for everything, Tim is barefoot in a swish office, pontificating to his think tank about how the next socially-conscious marketing campaign. The crusading Milena is frequently away in Nairobi trying to secure funding for the construction of a new theatre and likes to listen to the spiritual teachings of Eckhart Tolle. As for their children, Jon spends his time playing Tron-like VR games in a room that needs an almighty clean while Frieda likes to drop acid with her group of activist friends when she’s not busy looking like Shelley Duval in her minimalist lodgings.

As for Dio, he’s just there and has a penchant for singing Queen’s ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’.

When their housekeeper Maja has a heart attack and dies on the kitchen floor, in comes the enigmatic Farrah (Tala Al-Deen), who has recently arrived from Syria. She refuses countless jobs she would be better qualified for and instead chooses to be their new housekeeper, believing that “yesterday’s storm brought something with it.”

Indeed, there seem to be fated synchronicities that lead her into the bourgeois bohemian lives of this disintegrating family. And she seems to have a plan she yearns to set in motion.

The Light starts off promisingly enough with an extended shot that zooms into an apartment where Farrah is seen with a flashing device that seems to induce a trance-like state. It’s an effectively haunting opening, featuring talk of souls wandering the earth and needing guidance, as well as scenes of Farrah with her family in what initially seems to be some sort of holding cell. There are also elements of magical realism that pop up every now and then, which sets up the eerie impression that there are invisible forces conspiring in this soaked fairy tale.

Despite the fact that Tykwer has undeniable visual flair and sustains a suitably atmospheric sense of intrigue in the first half of the film, his script is so overstuffed and expository that it comes off as scattershot and unsure on what tone to settle for. Worst, its jumbled tonal shifts inadvertently trivialise some of The Light’s more noble themes.

Farrah’s past is glossed over in backstory flashbacks that corrode the central mystery and feel like the Arab Spring and Assad are there just to be ticked off a checklist; a come-and-go (so to speak) abortion subplot is casually chucked in for no apparent reason; Freida’s activism and sexuality are never delved into, making these potentially compelling aspects feel tokenistic and performative; and most irritatingly of all, there’s a lot of talk about white privilege but that too is only namechecked in platitudes and is never sincerely explored.

All this and no mention of Milena’s past indiscretion that led to the birth of Dio, which surely would have been useful information considering we’re dealing with couple dynamics during scenes of marriage counselling.

Oh, and brace yourselves: there are choreographed musical numbers: La La Lite interludes which are so on-the-nose in spelling out character emotions that it’s borderline insulting to the viewer’s intelligence. Milena’s “Who am I?” number is so literal it physically hurts, while Freida’s dream sequence, featuring her cycling to pounding techno with images of war, stock markers, unborn foetuses and nipples is so ridiculous it transforms The Light into an accidental comedy.

The film’s saving grace could have been the character of Farrah, thanks to the stellar efforts of Tala Al-Deen, who is by far the best thing about this very dim bulb of a movie. However, she is relegated to playing the “Magical Negro” – a tried stock character trope that only serves to aid the usually white protagonists. While there are elements that tantalisingly suggest something darker could be afoot, she is just there to alter the lives of the family by expanding the way they experience and understand the human condition.

Granted, there’s an argument to be made that she is also helping herself and not just selflessly assisting the family; however, the exotic foreigner cliché is still alive and thriving here – and not helped by the fact the final scene passes this pernicious trope onto the character of Dio and how Farrah bafflingly disappears for prolonged segments of this already endless film.

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It’s 2h42, by the way. And you feel every minute by the halfway mark.

Even if the final stretch of The Light reveals an already quite predictable twist, essentially disclosing that the titular light is not only an allegorical conduit to a higher state of illumination through the high frequency LED mind machine but also that the flashing lights serve as a precious tether between life and death, the stylishly filmed finale feels like too little too late. Just when you think Tykwer was taking his sweet time leading to a macabre denouement in which “escorts” could very well be replacements – à la Get Out – he squanders the central mystery and the possibility of a Twilight Zone spin, instead settling for a confused domestic drama overflowing with far too many ideas.

Had the film committed to the supernatural or even horror elements it seemed to tease at points, then something could have been salvaged from the wreckage. The Light could have been this year’s His House: a memorable and socially-minded haunted house film commenting on the marginalising forces fragmenting present-day society. But while Remi Weekes’ confident allegory managed to effectively speak on the mood in the UK via the depiction of the refugee experience, Tykwer’s film fails as both an engaging family drama and a timely migrant story. Shame, as the timing was opportune considering the worrying political climate in Germany and the looming elections which take place on the last day of this year’s Berlinale…

And on that missed horror opportunity, all that’s left to do is quote Tobe Hooper’s Poltergeist: “Do not go into the light. Stop where you are. Turn away from it. Don’t even look at it.”

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The Light premiers at the 75th Berlinale as the edition’s opening film. It comes out in Germany in March. European release dates TBC.