Marielle (Laeni Geiseler) can overhear her parents in “What Marielle Knows”

Two teenaged schoolgirls turn family dynamics on their head, one of them by developing telepathy that allows her to read her parents’ minds, wherever they are, the other by writing a book about a lesbian affair she’s had with her French teacher, in two witty and thought-provoking Berlinale films.

German director Frédéric Hambalek’s “Was Marielle Weiss” (What Marielle Knows) and Norwegian director Dag Johan Haugerud’s “Drømmer” (Dreams (Sex Love)), the third instalment of a trilogy, are both competing for the festival’s top Golden Bear prize, which will be awarded on Saturday.

Hambalek told a press conference that the inspiration for his 86-minute-long film, which contains some hilarious moments while probing the serious issue of trust among family members, occurred when someone showed him a baby monitor.

“They were new at the time, and they were able to watch their daughter asleep and something inside me immediately went, ‘Uh, this feels wrong’,” Hambalek said.

“Of course, it’s a joke because you can surveille your children with quite different means, and people do that today. Nevertheless, I thought, what is a private sphere, what is privacy in a family? Do children have privacy? What would happen if you were to turn that dynamic on its head, so that was really the spark.”

In the briskly paced, 86-minute film, Marielle (Laeni Geiseler) has gotten into a fight with her BFF at school, who has slapped her after Marielle called her a slut. After the slap, Marielle spontaneously develops the ability to monitor her parents’ lives. She knows, for example, that her mom Julia (Julia Jentsch), at the time the school called her about the fight, was smoking in a supply room with a work colleague with whom she is on the verge of having sex.

She also knows that her father Tobias (Felix Kramer), who has a high-level job at a publishing house, has been challenged over the choice of a book cover in a staff meeting and been publicly embarrassed by his ambitious colleague Soren (Moritz von Treuenfels). That the two of them will come to blows in the parking lot, and that Tobias, who starts the brawl, comes out the worse, is inevitable.

It turns out that much of what Julia and Tobias say around the breakfast table is either lies or white lies, and Marielle now knows it. Her mother keeps lying about not smoking, and not having an affair. Tobias lies about being super-respected at work, where in fact his superior eventually orders him to change the cover, a depiction of a headless bird, because — as Soren has said in the staff meetings and the boss now tells Tobias — it looks too much like a Magritte.

Marielle’s parents quickly realise the implications of this. Each of them tries to play for her favour and when that doesn’t prevent her telling them everything she’s overheard, they try talking to each other in French. All three of them become so exasperated at being unable to lead normal lives that the parents propose something they want to keep hidden from child welfare officers, which is, with Marielle’s agreement, to slap her in the hope that it will reverse the telepathic curse.

Tobias tries but doesn’t have the heart and adds almost under his breath that mothers have to sort these things out. So Julia steps up to the plate and delivers her daughter a slap that resounds through the cinema. Does it work? That’s the movie-ticket-price question, but for a good hour and a half of cleverness, it’s worth it.

In “Drømmer”, 17-year-old Johanne (Ella Øverbye), during a holiday at her family’s country cottage, becomes immersed in a romantic novel about an affair between an older man and his young female student. Both have strong feelings for each another but are afraid to admit it — until they do.

Upon returning to school, Johanne develops an obsession with her new French teacher Johanna (Selome Emnetu) who is twice Johanne’s age but whose unconventional style of dress, exotic homemade knitwear, plus her appreciation of Johanne’s excellent French skills, fuel the attraction. Depressed and unable to understand what is going on, Johanne tracks down Johanna at a posh flat in a wealthy district of Oslo and when the door is opened, rushes into her arms.

Johanne starts to visit on a regular basis, ostensibly to learn knitting, but on the second or third visit, they are holding hands on the sofa and when Johanne leaves, Johanna wraps a scarf around her neck — just as the older man in the novel did for his young student. How much deeper the affair goes is left tantalisingly unspoken, and unseen.

One day when Johanne visits, another woman is there and Johanne is ignored. She leaves, slamming the door as she goes. But throughout the time of her visits, Johanne has kept an intimate memoir, which she shows to her grandmother Karin (Anne Marit Jacobsen), a published poet. The grandmother is shocked that Johanne has had an erotic affair with an older woman, but sees that the book is well written. She says she might show it to her publisher but only after Johanne’s single-mother mom Kristin (Ane Dahl Torp) has read it.

Kristin also is shocked and considers legal action against the French teacher, who has since left the school, but when the publisher says the book might sell, she flip flops. The grandmother meanwhile recognises that what Johanna has written is better than anything she ever wrote. Johanne has seen an opening in life and run with it, while the grandmother regrets missed opportunities.

The dialogue of this film, even when translated from Norwegian, is sparkling and the character’s reactions and interchanges are never quite what you expect. A small gem.

— By Michael Roddy