RUNNING ON EMPTY | FILM REVIEW
Dir: Lisa Weber (2020, 90 mins)
If you ever need a stereotypical documentary about life on the dole, this could be it, sadly. No higher education or trade, check. Lazy and disinterested, check. Teenage pregnancy; junk food; no father, or at least none to look up to – yes, yes and yes.
Director Lisa Weber has known Claudia since she was 11, and has featured her in previous work. Aged 19 at the start of the period depicted in Running On Empty, Claudia celebrates son Daniel’s fourth birthday in a Vienna flat; she’s moved back with mom Gabi and brother Gerhard after being thrown out by an ex because she doesn’t have a job. In the three years Weber follows her, nothing really happens or changes (no, not like Seinfeld).
It’s not specified where Claudia and Gerhard’s father is. Daniel still drinks from a bottle and uses a dummy while he sleeps. No-one appears remotely interested in working, on benefits but with no evident disability or medication issues; it doesn’t look as if Claudia or Gerhard have ever held down a job. Claudia moves in with a new boyfriend, who seems to be concerned with Daniel’s education but misguidedly bullies him while trying to help. Everyone, Daniel included, is attached to their phones and computers.
Claudia racks up almost €3,000 of debt for reasons of varying legality, while embodying the reactionary tropes we’ve all heard: money for fags, more than one mobile, hair dye, tats and the gym, with none left over for rent. You keep thinking this can only be bad editing; there must have been some movement on the education or job ladder (Claudia needs to get a completion certificate for a high school equivalency) – but it seems that Claudia, Gabi and Gerhard just sit around, smoke or sleep when not watching TV or on their devices. If there’s evidence of the family trying to better themselves and Weber hasn’t filmed it, she’s done them a disservice.
There is love and closeness here in this family, but the impression is of a cycle of welfare repeating itself, and Daniel, like his mother and uncle, will bear the brunt. It reminded this viewer of teaching, wanting to bang one’s head on the wall after trying to communicate with some parents and realising why their kids were like they were. Weber’s gaze is understanding but unflinching; hopefully, there’ll be a sequel to Running On Empty with good news and improvement concerning this family. They shouldn’t be a lost cause in the shuffle of papers.
Screened as part of Diagonale – Festival Of Austrian Film. Watch here
words RHONDA LEE REALI