With immigrants as a central theme, plus a nod to Jordan Peele’s “Get Out”and musical numbers staged on Berlin streets that could come from an ABBA film, German director Tom Tykwer’s “Das Licht” (The Light) opened the 75^th Berlinale film festival on Thursday with an enigma. Which side of the intensely controversial issue of wholesale immigration into Germany is it on?

That is not a question that will probably be taken lightly here in Germany where national elections in less than two weeks’ time will determine if the stridently anti-immigrant Alternative für Deutschland party, which has been running second in some polls, takes a major role on the national stage. All of the other leading parties have shunned working with the AfD, which has proposed the “remigration” of immigrants back to their home countries, but a so-called firewall intended to isolate the party has shown signs of metal fatigue.

Into that explosive mix marches Tykwer’s first feature-length film in years, after devoting his time to the cult streamer “Babylon Berlin”. The Berlinale programme has a deceptively anodyne thumbnail description: “The Engels family is comfortably living separate lives under the same roof until the enigmatic Farrah, their new housekeeper… challenges each of them in unexpected ways.” That barely hints at how dysfunctional the family is. None of them notices for the better part of a day and night that their previous Syrian housekeeper has collapsed in the kitchen and is sprawled dead on the floor.

That death opens the door of the Engels household to Farrah (Tala Al-Deen), who has been living in what appears to be a commune of Syrian immigrants. She is highly regarded among them for her abilities to relieve stress and anxiety with the aid of a half-moon-shaped, table-top flashing light machine. If the idea of pulsing light beams directed at a subject’s face in a darkened room puts you in mind of Peele’s hypnotic clinking tea cup in “Get Out”, well, then, voila!

Tykwer’s film, at turns dramatic, at other times tongue-in-cheek satire, especially in the musical numbers, blends the supernatural with the stark realities of thousands of Syrians, like Farrah, fleeing war-torn Aleppo. The film features a very capable German cast including Lars Eidinger, who is a familiar face from “Babylon Berlin” and was the lead in last year’s “Sterben” (Dying), as Tim Engels. He keeps the family afloat financially making slick, environmentally themed commercials that his punk 17-year-old daughter Frieda (Elke Biesendorfer} says are greenwashing for predatory capitalist corporations.

Engels’s wife Milena (Nicolette Krebitz) is an independent contractor for a German ministry where she has been pushing for something like 15 years a pet project to build a community theatre in Nairobi. The project is having trouble getting off the ground, with the Nairobi locals taking a lackadaisical attitude (a swipe here at racist stereotyping?) to the construction of same. Milena is at wit’s end because the funding for the theatre — and her job — is at risk. Plus she and Tim haven’t had sex in years. Plus she had an affair with a Kenyan neighbour, the fruit of which is the charming pre-teen Dio (Toby Onwumere), who loves to sing Queen hits (cue one of the Berlin street musical numbers). He’s the McGuffin of this piece, the deus ex machina, the Chekhovian revolver — take your pick.

Unfazed by all this, and in fact relishing dealing with a family of four in terminal breakdown, comes Farrah who, as we belatedly learn, lost her family — husband, son and daughter — when only she survived the sinking of an overloaded refugee boat in a storm. Milena notes that Farrah, as a trained psychotherapist, is overqualified to be a housekeeper, but never you mind. What she really wants is to help the Engels overcome their stress and anxieties with the aid of her blinking light machines — and then some.

It’s impossible to say much more without having to deploy the overused phrase “spoiler alert”, although I could note that Frieda has a twin-brother Jon (Julius Gause) who spends his time in his room playing a virtual reality game. He hitches up online with a girlfriend whose tag is “Carla21nomad” who can do moves straight out of “The Matrix”, including jumping to the tops of buildings. Plus it’s always raining. A comment on global warming? A dig at Tim’s greenwashing advertisements? Whatever, he is soaked when he gets home from cycling, strips and walks around the house stark naked.

But all this is to keep us diverted while a more serious theme is developed. The question the movie is mostly dealing with — and which audiences will have to answer for themselves — is are the immigrants a force for good, a malign presence, or perhaps a bit of both? The AfD may well be delighted with this film, or as Charli XCX puts it in her hit song “360”, “maybe not”.

— By Michael Roddy