Fate

In Kelemen's work, an "icy naturalism" and "Brechtian form of expression" (according to Rafał Syska in Filmowy neomodernizm) exist side by side in harmony. The former is usually reserved for the male element, while the latter takes possession of female bodies. Actresses recruited from the theater are to master them without fail: scenes involving women are enchanting with their desperation-filled choreography. In Fate, Sanja Spengler plays an unfaithful woman named Luba. A street accordionist named Valery knocks on her door, and upon finding another man in the apartment, kills the intruder—perhaps a random client—in an attack of madness. In Kelemen's work, love is like an electrical discharge, a dry crack, with the two opposing poles springing apart, going out into the night, still bewildered, homeless, and lonely. Marginalized protagonists—Russian emigrants—visit Berlin's roadside bars and stations, melting into the picturesque ruins of a world after the turn of the century, meeting nothing but contempt and violence along the way. The effect is electrifying. To the extent that, inspired by Fate, Susan Sontag called for a revival of cinephilia in her famous essay The Decay of Cinema.