Munich: The Edge of War

Neville Chamberlain hopes for peace in our time.

(2021) Historical Drama (Netflix) George MacKay, Jeremy Irons, Jessica Brown Findlay, Jannis Niewöhner, Liv Lisa Fries, Raphael Sowole, Sandra Hüller, August Diehl, Ulrich Matthes, Richard Dillane, Alex Jennings, Mark Lewis Jones, Hannes Wegener, Aidan Hennessey, Nicholas Farrell, Rainer Sellien, Abigail Cruttenden, Helen Clyro, Nicholas Shaw, Robert Bathurst, Anjli Mohindra. Directed by Christian Schwochow

 

Students of history will remember the image of a jubilant British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain waving a sheaf of papers in his hand upon his return from the Munich Conference with Adolph Hitler in 1938, exclaiming “I bring you peace in our time,” after getting the German Chancellor to agree not to invade the Sudetenland of Czechoslovakia by essentially handing over the territory to him. The policy of appeasement in order to provide “peace at any price” turned out to be tragically wrong, and Chamberlain was excoriated for it by contemporaries, but also by history.

This film, based on a historical novel by Robert Harris, tries to shed a different light on the outcome of the Conference. It opens with Oxford students George Legat (MacKay), Paul von Hartmann (Niewöhner) and Paul’s girlfriend Lenya (Fries) celebrating their graduation. Von Hartmann is particularly ecstatic, knowing he is going home to what he terms a “new Germany,” following the triumph of the Nazi party, taking a country bled dry by World War I and the onerous terms of surrender that was placed upon it. Six years later, Paul is a diplomat in Germany who’s attitude to the Nazi party has taken a serious about-face. Meanwhile, George is now married to Pamela (Findlay) and working as a private secretary to Prime Minister Chamberlain (Irons).

Chamberlain is frustrated at Hitler’s (Matthes) saber-rattling and refusal to negotiate. Europe stands on the precipice of another ruinous war, and nobody has forgotten how long it took to recover from the last one – and in fact, it could be argued that they were still recovering. So Chamberlain puts together a conference in Munich to try and hammer out an agreement that would prevent war. Legat, who speaks fluent German, is brought along to translate. MI-6 also sees an opportunity for Legat to perhaps ferret out some intelligence about Hitler’s plans.

Boy, does he. Paul’s current lover Helen (Hüller) has come into possession of a typed-out document that outlines Hitler’s plans to plunge Europe into a massive war, with Germany eating up territory, shipping undesirables East to labor camps, and resettling their land with good Aryan stock. Paul manages to get George’s attention and George arranges a hasty meeting with Chamberlain, but one of Hitler’s bodyguards (Diehl) who also happens to be an old friend of Paul’s, is keeping a watchful eye on him.

The movie tends to emphasize the espionage aspect of the younger, completely fictional characters, ignoring the opportunity to give us some insight into Chamberlain and the other historical characters in the movie, whose actions in Munich would have such enormous repercussions. To be honest, the espionage content is far less interesting.

Irons portrays Chamberlain as a man absolutely certain that he is right and working for the right end. In an odd aside, the movie seems to indicate that Chamberlain’s actions, far from merely giving Hitler the green light to do what he wished, actually gave the Allies needed time to prepare for the war, which is a bit of an odd way of looking at it.

We never really get a sense of the tension of living in a police state and while the cinematography is fairly nice (particularly in the opening sequence), the score is a bit bombastic and intrusive. Also, the opening and closing credits are done in kind of a weird Sixties Rankin-Bass kind of style which doesn’t suit the film at all.

The trouble with historical dramas is that we generally know how the movie is going to turn out. Nobody needed a spoiler alert to know that the Titanic was going to sink. That doesn’t mean that there isn’t something to see here, particularly on the occasions when the film looks more closely at Chamberlain and what drove him to the decisions he made. I wish they would have concentrated more on that and jettisoned the ill-advised and not-very-well-executed thriller material.

REASONS TO SEE: There are certainly some modern parallels to the return of authoritarianism.
REASONS TO AVOID: Focuses far too much on the espionage thriller aspect rather than on the historical drama, which is much more fascinating.
FAMILY VALUES: There is some profanity, brief violence, period smoking and adult themes.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: Although the lead characters of von Hartmann and Legat are fictional, they are based on real people; the document that von Hartmann risked so much to smuggle to Chamberlain actually existed, although there is no evidence that Chamberlain ever actually saw it.
BEYOND THE THEATERS: Netflix
CRITICAL MASS: As of 2/8/22: Rotten Tomatoes: 86% positive reviews; Metacritic: 53/100.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: Valkyrie
FINAL RATING: 6/10
NEXT: American Gadfly

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State Funeral

Pomp and circumstance for a despot.

(2019) Documentary (MUBI) Josef Stalin, Nikita Khrushchev, Lavrenti Beria, Vyacheslav Molotov, Gregori Malenkov, Enlai Zhou, Valko Chervenov, Yumyaagiin Tsedenbal, Dolores Ibárruri. Directed by Sergey Loznitsa

 

In the pantheon of 20th century monsters it is clear that Josef Stalin stands right up there with Adolph Hitler and Chairman Mao. These three men were responsible for the death of hundreds of millions of people through genocide, war, starvation, and political assassination. These men had an agenda which was mainly about holding on to absolute power. All three were authoritarians. They remain, to this day, cautionary tales.

When Stalin died in 1953, it created something of a crisis in the old Soviet Union. He was the glue that held together the USSR after Lenin died; the glue was brutality and fear, but it was glue nonetheless. The pressing thought when he died was What will become of us? which was a legitimate question although one that couldn’t be expressed openly. Papa Joe, which he was somewhat ironically nicknamed, had projected an image of paternal caring and love, even though people were dreadfully afraid of the NKVD (which became he KGB) and of Lavrenti Beria’s network of informants who ferreted out any dissent and brought dissenters to horrifying ends.

So for the occasion of Stalin’s funeral, the remaining central committee members wanted a show of epic pageantry that would on the one hand allow the country to mourn and to also reassure the people that the business of government would continue as it had been. A lavish spectacle was planned, with the dictator lying in state in the Hall of the Unions in Moscow before a massive funeral in Red Square. All of it would be captured for posterity by hundreds of cameras documenting not only the main festivities in Moscow but also local and regional memorials from all over the vast Soviet Union.

Belarus-born documentary filmmaker Sergey Loznitsa (who is currently based in Germany) went through more than forty hours of footage and narrowed it down to two and a half hours. The footage has been digitally enhanced, looking as clean and crisp as the day it was shot. As a historical document, it is priceless; as a cultural document, it is fascinating, giving a rare glimpse inside the USSR which we largely didn’t see much of in the West other than propaganda. Well, of course, this is largely meant to be propaganda (I’ll get into that in a moment) but it has been skillfully edited to present much more of an objective picture.

Loznitsa eschews conventional narration, utilizing instead what was broadcast over the ubiquitous loudspeakers throughout the Soviet Union – glorifications of the Communist movement, glorifications of the Soviet Union and of course glorifications the dear departed, reinforcing his public image as a paternal figure. The soundtrack is enhanced with sounds of shuffling feet, wails of lamentation, and other ambient sounds. It is the images of the people filing past the coffin that will stay with me though; the working class, ordinary folk whose faces look numb. Is it grief? Or is it relief that perhaps things will get better with Stalin gone? If it was the latter, there’s no way to ever know – even were interviews to be conducted back then, nobody would admit to it for fear of ending up in one of Beria’s prisons, or with a gun pressed to their temples.

We have the benefit of viewing this film, like any other historical document, with hindsight. Even though most American audiences will not recognize most of the people in the film, they were the most powerful Soviets of their day, as well as high-ranking communists from all over the globe. I suspect a good many of them won’t be recognized even in Russia, nor would the irony of a massive funeral celebrating a man who murdered tens of millions of his countrymen be recognized in a land presided over by Putin, who has borrowed some of Stalin’s tactics.

It might be hard on some to sit through endless shots of people filing past a coffin – and that takes up an awful lot of the film, but trust me, this isn’t a boring or repetitive film in the least. As a country that is battling some tendencies towards authoritarianism ourselves, this is a cautionary tale to say the least. A cult of personality can thrive here. We’ve seen it done. If we want to see the aftermath of one, we can do worse than to look at this film…and remember it.

REASONS TO SEE: The Soviet propaganda machine in full flower. The images are surprisingly crisp and clean and often breathtaking in scope. The numb expressions of the common people is very telling. Makes terrific use of sound.
REASONS TO AVOID: A very long time to watch a funeral.
FAMILY VALUES: There are some images of Stalin’s corpse.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: Stalin died on March 5, 1953 from complications arising from a massive stroke suffered two days earlier.
BEYOND THE THEATERS: MUBI
CRITICAL MASS: As of 6/4/21: Rotten Tomatoes: 86% positive reviews; Metacritic: 81/100.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: The Death of Stalin
FINAL RATING: 9/10
NEXT: Welcome Matt

Berlin, I Love You

How very Berlin of you.

(2019) Romance (Saban) Keira Knightley, Helen Mirren, Luke Wilson, Jim Sturgess, Mickey Rourke, Jenna Dewan, Emily Beecham, Dianna Agron, Veronica Ferres, Diego Luna, Iwan Rheon, Charlotte Le Bon, Sibel Kekilli, Nolan Gerard Funk, Julia Dietze, Sylvester Groth, Toni Garn, Yvonne Maria Schafer, Pheline Roggan, Robert Stadlober, Rafaëlle Cohen, Alexander Black, Hannelore Elsner. Directed by Dianna Agron, Peter Chelsom, Claus Clausen, Fernando Eimbcke, Justin Franklin, Dennis Gansel, Dani Levy, Daniel Lwowski, Stephanie Martin, Josef Rusnak, Til Schweiger, Massy Tadjedin and Gabriela Tscherniak

 

Veteran travelers tend to not want to make Berlin a destination. As major cities go, it has little to distinguish itself from any other large city – Cleveland, for example – and while there is more of a history in Berlin than Cleveland, the connotations of some unpleasantness 70 years ago lingers on. Berlin is where you go when Munich is fully booked.

The fifth in the Cities in Love series – of which only four have made it to America (a 2014 anthology set in Tbilisi has yet to receive American distribution) which began with Paris Je t’aime back in 2006 features a handful of directors (there are ten here) creating short vignettes set in that particular city and all featuring something to do with love. An “opposites attract” romance between a living statue (Stadlober) and an Israeli singer/activist (Cohen) who take up competing spaces in a par serve as a linking device as they continue to run into each other all over the city.

The vignettes take place in between the linking sequences and include  British aid worker (Knightley) stationed in Berlin bringing home a young refugee kid in “just for a night” while her cantankerous mom (Mirren) is visiting; a jaded, aging lothario (Rourke) hooking up in a hotel bar with a beautiful young woman (Garn) who hides a devastating secret, a stressed-out big budget film director (Wilson) falling in love with the city and Dewan, one of the citizens therein, and so on and so forth.

As a travelogue, the movie works, filming taking place near familiar tourist landmarks but not really exhibiting much thought toward Berlin’s recent checkered past other than through the animated credits sequence. We also get a glimpse of Berlin’s notorious nightclub scene with pulsating beats, a deplorable excess of neon and beautiful people getting happily hammered.

Despite having a fine cast, most of the sequences are curiously flat, as if the directors, knowing they had a limited amount of screen time rather than setting the pace on fire rather left it smoldering, rather than sizzling, giving the overall experience a kind of flatness that is off-putting. These sorts of anthologies depend heavily on the cast and the writing to tell a good story in about ten minutes of screen time, but that happens less often rather than more. To be fair, Wim Wenders’ Angels of Desire (which is referenced here) aside, Berlin is not known for romance and neither will this movie be.

REASONS TO SEE: The cast is excellent.
REASONS TO AVOID: As with most anthologies, some of the segments work, some don’t
FAMILY VALUES: There is a fair amount of profanity, sexual content and some brief nudity.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: Future installments in the series are said to include Shanghai and Jerusalem, with New Orleans, Delhi and Tokyo to follow.
BEYOND THE THEATERS: Amazon, AppleTV, Fandango Now, Google Play, Microsoft, Netflix, Redbox, Vudu, YouTube
CRITICAL MASS: As of 6/18/20: Rotten Tomatoes: 11% positive reviews: Metacritic: 34100.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: New York, I Love You
FINAL RATING: 6/10
NEXT: The Hidden Orchard Mysteries: Case of the Air B N B Robbery

Snowflake (Schneeflöckchen)

Even angels can’t get the blood stains out of their white robes.

(2017) Comedy Thriller (Artsploitation) Reza Brojerdi, Erkan Acar, Xenia Assenza, David Masterson, Gideon Burkhard, Alexander Schubert, David Gant, Adrian Topol, Antonio Wannek, Sven Martinek, Anjela Hobrig, Mathis Landwehr, Martin Goeres, Selam Tadese, Eskindir Tesfay, Alexander Wolf, Bruno Eyron, Stephen M. Gilbert, Judith Hoersch, Katja Wagner. Directed by Adolfo Kormerer

 

Vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord according to the Bible. In the movies, vengeance belongs to any Tom, Dick, Harry or Jane willing to go far enough to achieve it. There is a reason, however, why God reserves vengeance for Himself.

This madly Meta German film begins with two Turkish men eating dolme kebabs in a Berlin shop. One likes the dolme, the other doesn’t. As they leave, we realize that a massacre has occurred in the shop. The two men – Tan (Acar) and Javid (Brojerdi) – calmly steal a car and discover in the back seat a screenplay. Curiously, the screenplay seems to predict everything the two say and do. Unnerved, they set out to find the man who wrote it.

The man turns out to be a somewhat rumpled dentist (Schubert) who has no idea what is going on. The two have other issues in that a mysterious woman named Eliana (Assenza) wants to see them dead for murdering her parents. She and her bodyguard Carson (Masterson) set out to meet Carson’s dad (Gant) who believes he is God and just might be. Talk about having Daddy issues! Anyway, the Almighty puts them in touch with a rogue’s gallery of assassins, including cannibals Bolek (Topol) and Dariusz (Wannek) who wear animal masks with Dariusz communicating only by squealing like the pig mask he wears. There’s also maniacal assassin Victor (Martinek) and a pair named Fumo (Tesfay) who is blind and Rashid (Tadese) who is not. The two targets have the benefit of beautiful guardian angel Snowflake (Hoersch) but also the wild card of superhero Hyper Electro Man (Landwehr) and would-be dictator Winter (Burkhard).

If that sounds like a handful, it is. This is a genre-bending, boundary-pushing mash-up that is as unique and totally original a movie you’ll see this year and maybe this decade. The movie boasts an extremely complicated but beautifully connected plot that on paper seems to be utterly senseless but once the final credits start rolling make absolute sense. This is the kind of movie that Quentin Tarantino would love.

The performances are solid throughout. Most of the actors are better known in Europe if they’re known anywhere, but despite the film’s microscopic budget they managed to cast some extremely talented actors – and got them to work for nothing.

The film is set in a post-economic collapse Berlin which is overrun by crime but people nonetheless go along with living their lives as normally as possible knowing that a trip to the grocery store – or to a dolme shop – could be fatal. That sounds a lot like the present day United States to me.

The humor here is biting and sometimes jarring and even whimsical and the action is well-staged. Most of the characters in the movie are pretty reprehensible in one way or another; seeking vengeance has a way of corrupting the soul and nearly everyone in the film is after revenge for one reason or another.

This was a most unexpected and welcome surprise; I hadn’t heard much about the film and even the distributor gave it merely a gentle push. I suppose this isn’t for everyone – some might find it a bit scattershot – but it certainly resonated with me. This is easily one of the best films of the year and one I would recommend to any film lover anywhere.

REASONS TO GO: A unique and original movie. The performances are solid all around. The story is engaging and the humor black as coal. It’s a little bit Tarantino, a little bit Monty Python.
REASONS TO STAY: The film’s a bit on the long side.
FAMILY VALUES: There is plenty of profanity along with violence and gore, as well as some sexual content.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: The chainsaw that Javid carries around in the movie is actually an electric one; the power cord was taped to the side so that it gave the illusion that it was gas-powered.
BEYOND THE THEATERS: Amazon, Fandango Now, Google Play, iTunes, Vudu
CRITICAL MASS: As of 12/10/18: Rotten Tomatoes: No score yet. Metacritic: No score yet.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: Free Fire
FINAL RATING: 9.5/10
NEXT: The Favourite

The Cakemaker

Bake me a cake just as fast as you can!

(2017) Drama (Strand) Sarah Adler, Tim Kalkhof, Roy Miller, Zohar Shtrauss, Sandra Sadeh, Stephanie Stremler, Eliezer Shimon, Iyad Msalma, Tagel Eliyahu, David Koren, Tamir Ben Yehuda, Sagi Shemesh, Gal Gonen. Directed by Ofir Raul Gralzer

The loss of a loved one is always devastating. Some find themselves having a hard time facing the fact that their loved one is gone. Others feel the need to wrap themselves in everything that reminds them of their late loved one, holding onto it before the memory fades. We all cope with grief differently.

Oren (Miller) is an Israeli businessman whose travels frequently take him to Berlin. His travels to Berlin frequently take him to a café run by Thomas (Kalkhof). It might be for the Black Forest Cake that Oren loves or the cinnamon cookies he takes home to his wife, but as it turns out the connection between the German and the Israeli goes far deeper.

When Oren doesn’t show up at the appointed time and Thomas’ texts and calls to his lover go unanswered, Thomas makes his way to Oren’s Berlin office and there discovers that Oren has been killed in an automobile accident. Gutted, Thomas decides to go to Jerusalem where he finds the café that is being started up by Oren’s wife Anat (Adler). Impulsively, Thomas asks for a job and Anat gives him one as a dishwasher.

However his skills as a baker become much more apparent to the horror of Anat’s brother Moti (Shtrauss) who is deeply distrustful of a gentile and a male one at that in the kitchen. He is concerned that the café’s kosher certification will be threatened. Meanwhile, Anat finds her bond with Thomas deepening, still having no idea of her employee’s relationship with her late husband. Her son Ital (Eliyahu) also begins to open up to Thomas. If the truth should come out, the two will be utterly destroyed.

This is a movie that doesn’t do what you expect it to – and that’s a good thing. I honestly never could figure out where Gralzer was going (he also co-wrote the script) and the choices he made were all good ones. There is a very melancholic air here, understandable considering the subject matter. There are times that Thomas’ actions seem almost creepy but as the movie progresses some sense can be made of them, largely thanks to a flashback late in the film. Still, Kalkhof has a brooding, gentle presence that draws the audience in. Adler is a bit more shrill, but she softens a bit as her character’s relationship with Thomas grows more romantic.

The movie takes it’s time getting where it’s going to which is fine with European audiences but not so much for American filmgoers who are notoriously impatient with slow-paced films. I found the unhurried pace to be actually somewhat soothing; it allows the viewer to process what’s happening. It also allows the filmmaker to linger over some shots of pastries and cakes that are just mouth-watering short of being food porn. My advice is to see this film in a theater that is within walking distance to a nice bakery. You’ll be hungry by the time this is done.

This is an impressive debut for Gralzer and there are few wrong steps taken here. The late-film flashback that explains some of what happened between Thomas and Oren probably should have occurred sooner in the film and the ending was a bit muddled but beyond that this is the kind of rainy day movie that will whet your appetite in more ways than one.

REASONS TO GO: You never know where the film is taking you. The cakes and cookies look incredibly appetizing.
REASONS TO STAY: The movie is a little slow-moving.
FAMILY VALUES: There is some sexual content and brief nudity.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: This is the first full-length feature to be directed by Gralzer.
CRITICAL MASS: As of 6/6/18: Rotten Tomatoes: 100% positive reviews. Metacritic: No score yet.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: Carol
FINAL RATING: 7.5/10
NEXT: Six L.A. Love Stories

10 Billion – What’s On Your Plate? (10 Milliarden)

There are all sorts of hungry mouths to feed.

(2015) Documentary (Under the Milky Way) Valentin Thurn, Liam Condon, Johan Botterman, Andreas Gansie, Gutshof Habitzheim, Felix zu Lowenstein, Bangardswami Soundaratajan, Karl Schweisfurth, Jes Tarp, Bernd Schmitz, Haruhiko Murase, Ronald Stotish, Dawn Runighan, Mark Post, Jim Rogers, Rob Hopkins, Fanny Nanjiwa. Directed by Valentin Thurn

 

There are a lot of scary things happening in the world. The climate is changing; arable land will soon be at a premium. On top of that, the world population is exploding beyond our capacity to feed everyone and deliver drinkable water to them. Less farmland, more people – does anyone see this is a recipe for disaster?

Actually, many do. German journalist Valentin Thurn went in search of solutions to the coming food crisis which one scientist called “the greatest crisis man has ever faced.”

The changes in the weather don’t just affect cellphone reception. Many parts of the globe are experiencing extended droughts while others are getting too much rain. Crops that aren’t resistant to these changes will fail. Scientists are trying to create hybrid seeds that will grow plants that are drought resistant and deliver a more efficient yield. These efforts are being spearheaded by big companies like Bayer and Nestlé. However, it is somewhat disconcerting to learn that just ten corporations control more than three quarters of the world’s seeds.

Most of us are aware of GMOs which have been sold to us as bad things, but some scientists caution that without them we may not be able to feed everyone within the next 20-30 years – yes, that soon. Is it a choice between a rock and a hard place that we’re facing? Well, Thurn doesn’t think so.

One of the big culprits behind worldwide food shortages is meat. Cows, sheep, pigs and chicken require enormous amount of resources to maintain. On top of that, the middle classes of developing countries – including traditionally vegetarian India – are craving more and more meat, copying the demographics of Western nations including Europe and North America. The oceans are also becoming dangerously over-fished. Sustainable sources of meat are almost a must if we’re going to continue to enjoy hamburgers, sushi and McNuggets.  Some scientists are looking to grow meat substitutes in various labs. Alternative sources of protein are also being explored; insects, for example. Don’t turn that shade of green; in several cultures in Asia and Africa, insects are part of the daily diet. Chocolate covered ants, anyone?

Thurn seems to think that the answer lies in thinking locally rather than globally. Big multi-national food providers see food as commodities rather than a human right; food that is grown locally is affordable to nearly everyone as costs in transportation and preservation can be prohibitive. Small, organic farmers who have been practicing the same land stewardship techniques for ages may provide the answers for the coming food shortage crisis.

Thurn admirably keeps ecological sustainability part of his equation; solutions that may provide food but destroy the ecology are not viable and Thurn makes sure we know that. However, he has a tendency to be a bit of a tunnel-visionary; while he explores technological advances, he tends to criticize them with missionary zeal mainly rejecting them out of hand as being too expensive for the impoverished to explore. The thing is about technology is that as it becomes more commonplace, it tends to fall in price. Electricity, indoor plumbing and computers were all once only affordable by the very wealthy; now they are all everywhere used by all but the most impoverished.

Thurn is a very thorough investigator and he tries to look at every aspect of the problem – and it IS an important problem, one that is going to affect all of us. We all need to eat, right? However, there is an awful lot of information being presented here, a lot of it technical and after awhile it becomes somewhat brain-numbing. There is also a scene set in an Indian chicken factory farm in which the poultry is being slaughtered; those who are sensitive to such things may be disturbed.

Still, this is an important topic and anyone who wants to see the human race continue knows that keeping it fed is going to be a priority in the next century. Some of the technology and practices seen here may fall by the wayside but some of it is almost certainly going to become part of our lives. It is inevitable and although we may not like to think about it, we need to consider these possibilities nonetheless Our descendants are counting on us.

REASONS TO GO: This is a sobering but important topic for a documentary. There are a variety of viewpoints presented.
REASONS TO STAY: A definite case of information overkill.
FAMILY VALUES: The dire predictions may be troubling to some; there is also a scene in which chickens are slaughtered which may upset the sensitive.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: If current birth rates hold true, the world population will hit ten billion by the year 2050.
BEYOND THE THEATERS: Amazon, Film Platform, YouTube
CRITICAL MASS: As of 3/22/18: Rotten Tomatoes: No score yet. Metacritic: No score yet.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: Last Supper for Malthus
FINAL RATING: 7/10
NEXT: Unsane

In the Fade (Aus dem Nichts)

You just can’t keep Diane Kruger down.

(2017) Drama (Magnolia) Diane Kruger, Denis Moschitto, Numan Acar, Samia Muriel Chancrin, Johannes Krisch, Ulrich Tukur, Ulrich Brandhoff, Hanna Hilsdorf, Yannis Economides, Rafael Santana, Karin Neuhauser, Uwe Rohde, Siir Eloglu, Asim Demirel, Aysel Iscan, Christa Krings, Hartmut Loth, Adam Bousdoukos, Henning Peker, Laurens Walter, Jessica McIntyre. Directed by Fatih Akin

 

Our lives can be turned upside down in an instant. One moment we are surrounded by a happy, content family. The next – everything is gone. Dealing with that kind of pain is almost inconceivable to most of us but it happens far more regularly than it should.

Katja (Kruger) has that kind of life. She married Nuri Sekerci (Acar) while he was in a German jail for dealing drugs. He has since turned his life around, having become a respected member of the Kurdish community in Hamburg as a tax preparer and translator. Katja and Nuri have an adorable young son Rocco (Santana). While both Katja and Nuri are still a bit rough around the edges, there’s no denying that they are devoted parents.

One rainy afternoon Katja drops off Rocco at Nuri’s office so that she can visit her very pregnant friend Birgit (Chancrin) and share a spa day together. Returning home after relaxing, she is horrified to discover flashing police lights and crowds gathered at the street where she had earlier that afternoon left her family. All that’s left of the office is a charred and obliterated shell. A nail bomb was detonated there and her family was in a microsecond reduced to filleted meat.

At first she is in shock. It can’t be happening and her eyes show her agony. Her mom and her mother’s boyfriend, Birgit and Nuri’s parents have gathered to lend their support and express their own grief. The police seem intent on investigating Nuri’s past indiscretions; Katja believes that neo-Nazis are behind the bombing. Her lawyer Danilo (Moschitto) tends to believe her and in a not-very-smart moment gives her some illegal narcotics to help her cope…and sleep.

Eventually things get sorted and the culprits are caught. Now it’s time for the trial, but the German legal system is much different than our own. For one thing, everybody’s got a lawyer – including the co-plaintiffs, which are normally the families of the victims. Will justice be done? Or will Katja have to seek it out herself?

Kruger, one of the most beautiful actresses in the world, has been a Hollywood fixture for years. Incredibly, this is her first German-language film and she capably demonstrates that she could well be one of the finest actresses in the world as well as being an attractive one. This is the kind of performance that should have been rewarded with a Best Actress nomination but inexplicably wasn’t. It was at least as strong a performance of any of the ladies who did get the nomination. Kruger poignantly shows the numbness of grief, the rage, the despair. Much of it is communicated through her eyes.

Katja isn’t a perfect wife, mother or woman. She makes mistakes and she’s a bit on the raw side. With her many tattoos, her own drug use and an explosive temper, she is flawed enough to bring our sympathy to the fore. She’s never so unbelievably pure that we can’t believe her. Rather, we don’t disbelieve her for a moment. Kruger is raw, authentic and powerful here.

The movie is like a raw nerve being scraped through the first two acts but in the third one it falters. I can’t describe why without really going into details that are best left unrevealed until you experience it; suffice to say that it shifts tone into something  that really the film shouldn’t have become. More than that I will not say.

Fortunately, Kruger’s searing performance outweighs the movie’s faults. This is definitely a bit rough to watch in places – anyone who has lost a friend or family member in an untimely violent way will likely be triggered – but it is honest in not only exploring cultural differences but also in finding the balance between the need to inflict pain and the need to expiate it. This is certainly one worth looking out for.

REASONS TO GO: Kruger delivers the best performance of her career. This is an emotionally wrenching film from beginning to end.
REASONS TO STAY: The movie goes off the rails a little bit during the third act.
FAMILY VALUES: There is quite a bit of profanity, violence and some drug use.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: The home video segments were all shot on smartphones.
CRITICAL MASS: As of 3/19/18: Rotten Tomatoes: 73% positive reviews. Metacritic: 64/100.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: Killing Jesus
FINAL RATING: 7.5/10
NEXT: Hunting Season

A Different Set of Cards

Sometimes the game can get nasty.

(2016) Crime (108 Media) Adrian Linke, Jutta Dolle, Tim-Olrik Stoneberg, Guido Grollmann. Directed by Falko Jakobs

 

In the scheme of things the outcome of our lives often depends on circumstance. People who are born into poverty, for example, may not have the opportunities of those born into wealth and privilege. Turn over an unfriendly card and you’re a drug dealer; turn over a different card and you’re a police officer. So much of life falls on random chance.

In this low-budget German crime thriller, four people gather to play a game of poker. The narrator, Ben (Linke), watches the other three players like a hawk, trying to get a sense of their technique. One, a bearded badass (Stoneberg), is a trash talker who may slap you as soon as look at you. Another, a nervous bald man (Grollmann), is fearful and nervous; his game shows he can be easily rattled. Finally, a femme fatale (Dolle) is the wild card; Ben can’t really read her style at all.

These four players are actually playing a metaphorical card game; they are players in a drug dealer gone wrong. The badass is the buyer, who is strangely called The Salesman; the femme fatale is the seller, enigmatically called The Unknown. Ben himself is the buyer’s partner, only getting involved if things go south; he is The Accomplice. Finally, the nervous baldy is The Cop who is messing up the deal.

But Ben muses that this scenario could be a whole lot different if the players shifted roles. Ben becomes The Cop, the badass becomes The Unknown, the nervous bald guy becomes The Salesman and the femme fatale is The Accomplice. The outcome changes accordingly. And so it goes, as it turns out.

The concept is an interesting one and the same four actors keep the characters relatively intact even as their circumstances change. Jakobs, who co-wrote, edited, lensed and scored the film – I told you this was a low-budget affair – shows a remarkable confidence both as a writer and a director and manages to pull off what could have been a complete mess in less capable hands.

There is a distinctly film noir tone here – in fact the film was selected for a Los Angeles film noir festival earlier this year but with also a European flair. The use of light and shadow marks this very much as German as for whatever reason German filmmakers seem to be the most savvy filmmakers in the world generally in this aspect of filmmaking. The poker game segments are in black and white, adding to the noir feel.

Jakobs the writer wisely keeps the action to mainly two locations; a darkened room where the poker game takes place and a deserted warehouse where the drug deal segments happen. He also has only four actors in his cast; a lot of young filmmakers could learn a thing or two about putting together a great story in an affordable environment from Jakobs. What budget the film had seems to have been used wisely; the action sequences are well-staged and the gore is also done professionally without being too over-the-top.

Where the filmmaker falls a bit short is in the poker metaphor; it becomes a bit intrusive and feels forced the longer the movie goes on. I would have preferred more of the drug deal segments and less of the players sitting around the card table. However, there is a nice twist at the end which while not super original was at least unexpected and gave the movie what a lot of movies these days lack; a fitting ending.

I was only able to find one other review online for this so it hasn’t gotten a ton of press although it played the American film festival circuit somewhat extensively since its debut last year in Europe. It is widely available on VOD and while the jump cuts that Jakobs uses to distraction may mark this as a green filmmaker trying to establish a style, the things that work here work really well. Jakobs and his cast all have promising futures and I hope to see them all again sometime.

REASONS TO GO: The shifting roles is an interesting conceit. The film has a distinctly Germanic noir feel.
REASONS TO STAY: The poker metaphor gets old after awhile. There is a surfeit of jump cuts.
FAMILY VALUES: There is plenty of violence and some profanity.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: The English language version of the film was dubbed by the German actors, accents and all.
BEYOND THE THEATERS: Amazon, Fandango Now, Google Play, iTunes, Microsoft, Vudu, YouTube
CRITICAL MASS: As of 12/9/17: Rotten Tomatoes: No score yet. Metacritic: No score yet.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: Memento
FINAL RATING: 5.5/10
NEXT: D-Love

Toni Erdmann

Where the wild things are.

(2016) Comedy (Sony Classics) Sandra Hüller, Peter Simonischek, Michael Wittenborn, Thomas Loibl, Trystan Pütter, Ingrid Bisu, Hadewych Minis, Lucy Russell, Victoria Cocias, Alexandru Papadopol, Viktoria Malektorovych, Ingrid Burkhard, Jürg Löw, Ruth Reinecke, Vlad Ivanov, Mihal Manolache, Radu Bȁnzaru, Niels Borann, Radu Dumitrache, Klara Höfels.. Directed by Maren Ade

 

We all know somebody in our lives who simply can’t take anything seriously. Who knows, it even might be you. Behind the occasionally inappropriate humor and unending stream of jokes however a little wisdom might actually show up even more unexpectedly than you might think.

Winfried Conradi (Simonischek) is a music teacher living in Germany, who has retired none too gracefully from his profession. At his final performance with his student chorus, he has them all dress like zombies and he as the Grim Reaper, a joke that has his colleagues and parents scratching their heads, not to mention family members who have gathered to celebrate his retirement. Among their number is his only daughter Ines (Hüller) who has just jetted in from Shanghai on her way back to Bucharest. She works for one of those corporate consulting firms that usually advise big companies to lay off great numbers of their staff. She has a new project with an oil company whose boss is eager to get the cost savings of a mass layoff but doesn’t want to appear to be the bad guy so Ines will do it by recommending it. In taking one for the team, she knows she might finally get that promotion she’s been promised over and over again – but has never received.

Ines holds off her father at arm’s length with her cell phone grasped firmly in hand; not all the calls she claims “she has to take” are actually there but whatever works to give herself some space with her dad with whom the relationship has been stretched to the breaking point as long as they can remember. Shortly after Ines leaves with a half-hearted invitation for him to visit, an event occurs for Winfried that convinces him he needs to connect with his daughter – somehow.

Without any prior warning he shows up at her office in Bucharest. She takes him to a party at the American embassy but things become awkward when she begins to realize that her dad is much more socially accomplished than she is. Worse still, most of the people she works with are men who are either dismissive of her abilities, attracted to her sexually or simply hostile towards women in general. The visit with her dad doesn’t go well and he heads back home.

Only he doesn’t arrive at his destination. Instead, he shows up as Toni Erdmann, a life coach with a rumpled appearance, a brunette wig with long flowing locks and outrageous false teeth with a distinct buck-toothed grin. Ines is horrified particularly when “Toni” claims he is the life coach of the oil company’s CEO that she is trying to woo to go with her company’s program. And the longer “Toni” hangs around, the more empty her life seems.

This was on the shortlist of the Foreign Language Oscars this year and was a critical hit at Cannes, although critics were absolutely mystified that it was virtually ignored by the juries there. I have to say that I’m not on board this film as some of my colleagues are; at more than two and a half hours long it is more of a marathon than a sprint. Ade apparently chose no to edit down further for the sake of pacing; on the other hand there are scenes that go on far too long. For example, there’s a scene when Ines sings “I Will Always Love You” – the Whitney Houston hit – from beginning to end that could have been shortened, as could a scene at one of many, many parties and social outings that it appears that Romanian workers have a far more party atmosphere than their American counterparts.

The humor here is more subtle and sometimes awkward; Americans of late have seemed to prefer more outrageous, over-the-top humor that is both raunchy and essentially brainless. This is by no means a joke fest – often the viewer needs to think about what he or she has just witnessed for a moment or two before the absurdity settles in. As Da Queen might characterize it, the humor here is quiet which is a nice change from the loud overbearing comedies that are in favor at the moment.

The performances by both Simonischek and Hüller are outstanding. Simonischek, a renowned Austrian actor, never lets the character get to be a caricature of itself. Because he plays things low-key the absurd situations that Winfried/Toni creates have more impact. Hüller is also a revelation, giving Ines an uptight frayed nerve tone that is a poke at the career-obsessed in general. She’s so busy earning a living that she is not actually living and her dad knows that and tries, in his own way, to point it out to her. Sometimes it can be actually touching when he hugs her near the end after a bizarre appearance at perhaps the most awkward birthday party ever caught on film.

We do see a change in Ines as the film progresses but not one so great that it beggars imagination. Instead, we see a subtle change in her as she starts to let the cracks in her façade open up and allow her true face to reveal itself. It isn’t always an easy journey here – some of the scenes go on far too long – but otherwise this is a terrific and occasionally brilliant film that may test your patience over its running time but is a worthwhile investment of that time nonetheless.

REASONS TO GO: The humor is subtle which is a nice change of pace. Terrific performances by Simonischek and Hüller make this easy to watch.
REASONS TO STAY: Way too long.
FAMILY VALUES: Sexual content of a very overt nature, graphic nudity, some brief drug use and profanity.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: An English language remake is on the way, with Kristin Wiig and Jack Nicholson in the lead roles. If the casting holds, it will be Nicholson’s first onscreen appearance in more than a decade.
CRITICAL MASS: As of 3/7/17: Rotten Tomatoes: 92% positive reviews. Metacritic: 93/100.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: Nine Lives
FINAL RATING: 7.5/10
NEXT: Harmonium

UFO: It Is Here (UFO: Es Ist Hier)

These German lasses just found out that Donald Trump COULD be elected U.S. President.

(2016) Horror (Daredo) Laura Berlin, Dennis Mojen, Olga von Luckwald, Leonard Hohm, Jan Walter, Hacky Rumpel, Andreas Ladwig, Fabio Cimpeanu, Nika Cimpeanu. Directed by Daniele Grieco

 

If you’re gonna be a film student, you might as well be ambitious. It’s all well and good to film a documentary at the local zoo, but when an object appears in the sky above your heads, causing the animals in the zoo to universally freak out, that’s a whole other matter. Abandoning your original project to search out a crashed meteorite might just be the ticket not only to getting an “A” but perhaps getting your name out there in the industry.

That’s exactly the situation that confronts Melissa Stein (Berlin), Leo Best (Mojen), Paula Idem (von Luckwald), Erik Greven (Hohm) and André Selke (Walter). Afterwards, they take a vote among themselves to drive to the Northwest and find the crash site of the meteorite and the vote passes, with only sensible Paula voting to finish their Zoo assignment.

Paula is however overruled and off they go in their van into the woods of Germany/Luxembourg/Belgium (where the movie was filmed by the way) and find what amounts to a needle in the haystack. Wouldn’t you know it but they do; a plume of smoke signals that they’ve found what they were searching for.

The crash site is covered with a haze of smoke and is nothing like they expected. There are metal fragments everywhere; scattered all over the ground among scorched trees and embedded in the trunks of trees as well. It is nearly dusk by the time they get there and worried that the authorities will have cordoned off the area before they can get the footage they need, they elect to remain there overnight with once again Paula voting for going home. They should have listened to Paula.

One of their number turns up missing the next morning and when they eventually make a grisly discovery, it becomes clear they are being hunted. Eventually they find a cave where they have an encounter with the thing that’s stalking them and it is like nothing seen before on this Earth, at least for as long as humans have been here.

This is a found footage film which may turn some off to it immediately; for awhile there it seemed like every other horror movie utilized the technique until it became pretty much overused. These days it has become decidedly less so, which makes reviewing it a bit easier. Still, it’s hard not to compare it to the granddaddy of all found footage films, The Blair Witch Project whose template is followed pretty closely by Grieco and to be fair if you’re going to follow a template, that’s a pretty good choice. There are also some nods to Alien, a movie Grieco professes much admiration for. The creature has some similarity to things encountered in the Ridley Scott film, although I think it’s more of an homage than a theft in this case.

Essentially what you have here is five good-looking young people making bad choices in the woods (and later, in a cave and even later in an abandoned farmhouse). That’s essentially the recipe for any horror film, but I was pleased that at least one of the characters seemed to be sensible; she just wasn’t listened to  There is a fair amount of gore here – it’s not for the squeamish by any standard – and mostly practical effects. The alien itself is pretty nifty, although I wouldn’t call it a state-of-the-art creation. We don’t see much of it except in one cave scene where one is found that appears to be in a slumber while digesting a recent meal. There is also plenty of shaky-cam going on which those who are sensitive to such things should be wary of.

I admit that for me to be wowed by a found footage film it has to be really innovative and bring something to the table that no other film in the genre has. This one does have a few things worth checking out but otherwise it really doesn’t add anything particularly new to the genre. It’s solidly made by a filmmaker who knows what he’s doing and I wouldn’t be surprised if a few years down the line he starts to get some mention with the young lions of the horror genre.

REASONS TO GO: The creature effects are primitive but effective.
REASONS TO STAY: There are way too many found footage tropes here.
FAMILY VALUES: There is a ton of profanity, some disturbing images and plenty of horror violence.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: This is the second straight found footage film that Grieco has directed, having had a hit in her native Germany with The Presence in 2014.
CRITICAL MASS: As of 11/4/16: Rotten Tomatoes: No score yet. Metacritic: No score yet.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: The Blair Witch Project
FINAL RATING: 5.5/10
NEXT: Deepwater Horizon