Wetlands

"Get ready for Helen."

2013 1h 49m DE

😐

5.4

MID

★5.4TMDB · 325

DramaComedy

Synopsis

Spoiler shield

Helen is a nonconformist teenage girl who maintains a conflictual relationship with her parents. Hanging out most of her time with her friend Corinna, with whom she breaks one social taboo after another, she uses sex as a way to rebel and break the conventional bourgeois ethic. After an intimate shaving accident, Helen ends up in the hospital where it doesn’t take long before she makes waves. But there she finds Robin, a male nurse who will sweep her off her feet...

“Get ready for Helen.”

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Cast

Carla Juri
Helen Memel
Axel Milberg
Helen's Father
Meret Becker
Helen's Mother
Peri Baumeister
Valerie
Christoph Letkowski
Robin
Edgar Selge
Dr. Notz
Marlen Kruse
Corinna
Clara Wunsch
Helen (8 years)

Credits

Behind the camera

Director: David Wnendt
Writers: Sabine Pochhammer, David Wnendt, Claus Falkenberg
Languages: German
Countries: Germany

Want more? Switch to Cinephile mode in the header for DP, composer, budget, box office, production companies, keywords, and release history.

Did you know?

Fun facts 🍿

1 / 6

ERA

Did you know

Released 13 years ago.

MoodPlayr · trivia#01

2 / 6

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Directed by David Wnendt, shot by Jakub Bejnarowicz. Note their partnership — DPs and directors often return to each other across a career.

MoodPlayr · trivia#02

3 / 6

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Editor Andreas Wodraschke shaped the rhythm. On an edit-heavy film, the editor does more to control your pulse than the director.

MoodPlayr · trivia#03

4 / 6

CAST

Did you know

Carla Juri and Axel Milberg and Meret Becker carry the top of the cast.

MoodPlayr · trivia#04

5 / 6

FACT

Did you know

Marketing tagline: "Get ready for Helen.".

MoodPlayr · trivia#05

6 / 6

WILD

Did you know

IMDB entry: tt2524674 — still the authoritative cross-reference for credits and trivia.

MoodPlayr · trivia#06

Cinephile deep dive

The take

David Wnendt directs. Jakub Bejnarowicz behind the camera. Andreas Wodraschke cuts. Produced in Germany. Dialogue in German.

Trivia

Things worth knowing

1Released 13 years ago.
2Directed by David Wnendt, shot by Jakub Bejnarowicz. Note their partnership — DPs and directors often return to each other across a career.
3Editor Andreas Wodraschke shaped the rhythm. On an edit-heavy film, the editor does more to control your pulse than the director.
4Carla Juri and Axel Milberg and Meret Becker carry the top of the cast.
5Marketing tagline: "Get ready for Helen.".
6IMDB entry: tt2524674 — still the authoritative cross-reference for credits and trivia.
7Classified under 9 themes, including "based on novel or book", "based on true story", "hospital", "masturbation".

The technical file

Cinematography: Jakub Bejnarowicz
Editing: Andreas Wodraschke
Production design: Jenny Roesler
Costume design: Elke von Sivers
Makeup / hair: Monika Münnich
VFX supervisor: Dennis Rettkowski
Sound: Paul Rischer
Runtime: 109 min · 1h 49m
Aspect ratio (typical): 1.37:1 (Academy)
Status: Released
Original language: DE
Certification (US): R
IMDB: Wetlands (2013)

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David Wnendt

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Community reviews

What people are saying

Reno2015-05-17
★ 7/10
The reason I watched it was the director. 'Combat Girls' was a very good movie and I expected a similar result from this. But it was a totally different entertainer, so original and I was hooked throughout. It was based on the novel of the same name, a well received book and even it was translated to English later. But had some debate over saying it was an erotic related topic. Whatever, I don't know the book, because I'm kind of a movie guy, so saw it and liked it. I did not find anything like the book was criticised. You're going to create your own visuals while reading a book, but in a motion picture it gives perfect everything, including background score, which is a plus point. For that, the book must land to a creative mind, the director with vision who can convince others with his exhibition. We find the little kids around us in our daily life who never listen to their parents or anyone and do exactly the opposite to what they were told. Like an adamant character, even in some adults as well, which might developed during their childhood due to raised in a dysfunctional family or other similar circumstances of life they were brought in. This film revolves in a similar manner, but a bit ahead until you to get sick and say 'ew'. It's better to have a scratched knee now, than to have a broken heart later on. It was so disgusting and disgusting even more, in one word to say the grossest movie ever, perhaps among the top three or five or ten for sure. Whatever the possible way to make it happen, they used it to bring the outcome. If you ask me, I would say thank god I'm a man and it was the portrayal of a girl. The actress was pretty enough for anyone not to feel (that) bad for what you're going to witness, I call it an advantage for such a theme. Suppose it was an actor, I would have definitely turned it off in midway and said the F word. A tale of an 18-year-old girl Helen, who explains why she's so antithesis by recalling her childhood memories. By the second half of her teen life, overtaken by sex fantasies, but that was not the whole movie. These all were to develop the character which took almost full movie leaving current scenario which takes place in the hospital tight and squeezed. Her relationship as individual with her family members a vital phase in the storytelling, which tells she never understood none of the three. Her father, a careless with sexual active man. Her mother brainwashes with over lessons and with her little brother, they never really had proper bro-sis thingy. By the last quarter of the film you will completely know the Helen and time to change your mind, possibly. But still disturbs us her adaptation of the theory of everything. There are many movies where children are affected like Helen, but this film was absolutely a unique in the illustration of the sensitive topic. It's a debatable if parents take the film seriously, because it talk about parenting failure as well unhygienic thingy. Bit of fun, emetic, sexy, overall an exceptional movie for adults. Disgusting is a disgusting, if there is no problem accepting a change and variety in a movie that you usually watch and appreciate the effort, then this film could be a better entertainer. It should dub in English rather remake it if there is a consideration. I usually like German movies, because I'm picky, I choose wisely after a basic research. I knew it would be a commercial feature and I was prepared to enjoy it like that way. 7/10
CinemaSerf2026-06-09
★ 6/10
If you are looking for a film about marshes, reeds and ducks then aside from a little bit of rhyming slang, you're going to be disappointed. This is, instead, a pretty repetitious drama following the antics of "Helen" (Carla Juri). She's the product of a broken marriage and amidst her desires that her parents will reunite, she also has a fetish for exposing her nether regions to filthy toilet seats. She is the antithesis of her hygenic mother (Meret Becker) and so imagine the latter woman's shock when her daughter ends up in hospital requiring some surgery on her anus! "Helen" is completely unphased by this and is continuing with her usual nonchalant behaviour until she encounters the nurse. "Robin" (Christoph Letkowsi) is handsome, caring and soon food for her imaginative dreams as she attempts to find ways to prolong her stay in the hospital long enough to... He is strangely attracted to her too, but professional bounds being what they are, things are retricted to the odd flirtatious remark and to the contents of her very fertile imagination. Along the way we are treated to flashbacks of her earlier life. Some happier times with her dad (Axel Milberg) and some of her other fantasies - some of which might be true, some of which might not be - but all usually including the swapping or consumption of bodily fluids from men, women or both. She is a woman with no boundaries nor any desire for them - but can "Robin" perhaps change that? It's not that this is sordid or sleazy; nor that it brazenly deals with concepts of the sexual freedom of a woman - it's that it's dull. Her character is left undeveloped as we meander through scenes of very soft and not terribly well lit pornogrpahy and after about fifteen minutes of what I assume is supposed to be a variation on the coming/cumming of age tale, I was just hoping for an end to her increasingly sterile peccadilloes. Maybe I'm just to laissez-faire about other people's lives, loves and liberties but I'm sorry, here I couldn't have cared less about "Helen" and hoped desperately that "Robin" would find another red breast to comfort him. Not great I'm afraid.