Christian Petzold: Yella (2007)
Worksheet for film screening
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What do the very first shots of the film depict? What kind of
landscape are we presented with? What is Yella doing? How would
you describe the mood and atmosphere of these shots?
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Where does the crash take place, and how / why might this location
be significant? What gender relations does Petzold present us with
in these early scenes, and how are they echoed throughout the rest
of the film?
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Yella arrives in Hannover. While walking along the road her
attention is caught by a family in a house on the other side of the
road. Yella then seems to have a strange attack of sorts. How does
Petzold depict this episode and what does it signify? At what other
points in the film does Yella experience a similar phenomenon?
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How would you describe the various spaces in this film: hotel
rooms, office premises, automobiles, trains and the road? What
kind of world does Petzold wish to express through these spaces?
Does he ever offer us alternative kinds of spaces to these?
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Similarly, what background noises typically accompany most
scenes in this film? What do they tell us about the contemporary
German environment these characters inhabit?
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In a central conversation of the film Yella asks Philipp why he is
stealing money from his employers. What is Philipp’s reply, and
what does it tell us about the problem of boredom in the neoliberal
present?
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In the final shots of the film we suddenly return to the crash
depicted at the start. How does this alter our perception of what
has happened since the crash at the beginning?