Berlinale 2023 Review: WHEN WILL IT BE AGAIN LIKE IT NEVER WAS BEFORE, A Family Saga on the Edge

The sprawling family saga When Will It Be Again Like It Never Was Before, based on the autobiographical novel by Joachim Meyerhoff, turned out to be an intriguing oeuvre. The film by German director Sonja Heiss, her third, opened the Generation section of the Berlinale festival, a section primarily focused on stories about children and teenagers.

However, When Will It Be Again Like It Never Was Before does not fall into the usual category of run-of-the-mill coming-of-age films. The story centers on Joachim Meyerhoff, who goes by the familiar Josse (Camile Loup Moltzen) in the film, a young boy growing up in the 70s with his family on the premises of a psychiatric clinic.

As Josse´s father Richard (Devid Streisow) works as a director of the clinic (Meyerhoff´s father worked at Hesterberg Psychiatric Hospital), the protagonist and his two brothers come to regard the patients as an extended family.

The film depicts Josse's growing up over three decades. His careless youth is disrupted by violent anger tantrums he cannot control. He becomes uncontrollable in such a state and the only cure is putting him to sit on a running washing machine. This turns into a ritual that usually his mother Iris (Laura Tonke) has to do.

Heiss perceives growing up through the eyes of the youngest member of the family what enables an innocent look at life and its darker moments. However, Josse is not a naïve kid which becomes apparent in the second decade when the family idyll becomes disrupted by wear and tear in the marital life of Josse´s father and mother.

Furthermore, Josse has to come to terms with the unfairness of life which is demonstrated through a story arc with his first love, a girl suffering from clinical depression.

When Will It Be Again Like It Never Was Before is not foremost a story of a dysfunctional family, even if the film formally checks this category. It is a story of a family molded and shaped by unexpected events and many life circumstances: illnesses, heartbreak, tragedy, grief, regret, separation, and disappointment. Everything happens within the environment of the psychiatric clinic except Josse´s brief stint in the USA.

Heiss´s film is a family retronostalgic tragicomedy that approaches life with all its ups and downs. However, Heiss does not wallow her characters in tragic events, keeps the melodrama grounded, and does not traumatize the viewers (hence why the film could be programmed in the children's section). The style is reminiscent of Jaco van Dormael´s style.

The driving motif of When Will It Be Again Like It Never Was Before emerges as a notion and question of what is normal and what it means to be normal. Josse´s family defies the notion not only by living in a psychiatric clinic. Every member has certain quirks but by period standards they are certainly not normal.

They elude family and parental standards of the 70s/80s with their liberal perspective. The protagonist does not have “a normal” childhood by the standards of the major society. And Heiss further extends the list as she continues to observe the turbulent life of a rather eccentric family.

When Will It Be Again Like It Never Was Before contains transgressive moments without being transgressive and tragic situations without accentuating the bleakness. Heiss demonstrates her talents in tackling grim subject matter (and this also stems from Meyerhoff´s provocative autobiography) and turning it into a poignant reverie while bending the coming-of-age genre.

Despite the melancholic undertone of the majority of scenes, When Will It Be Again Like It Never Was Before remains uplifting and defiant vis-à-vis normalization of any kind.