herjoch

Hermaphrodites or intersexuals,as they are called today - imho a slightly pejorative expression - are a rare theme in contemporary art; I can only think of Euginides book "Middlesex". The more it is surprising,that "XXY" comes from Argentine, a country not especially prominent in modern gender discourses. But Luisa Puenza impresses in her first feature film with a sensibility and open-mindedness,which will last in the memory for a long time.Puberty is always a difficult state between two identities: Not longer a child and not yet an adult.For the main protagonist Alex that problem doubles,because for her there is also the question of her future sexual identity.Society demands a clear decision.Like the language,which cannot find an expression for his/her existence - the adults alternately speak of "her" or "him" -, so the medicine aims at subjecting everyone to its sexual bipolarity. With witty dialogs and panache the film proclaims the right of being different and of searching one's own sexual niche. But luckily it's far from being dogmatic or didactic.It also understands the position of the parents to give their child a kind of shelter and save it from the confrontation with society.What the film openly criticizes are the operations, or should I better say amputations shortly after birth. The acting is generally fine, especially by Efron("Glue") and Darin.The missing star is the result of little flaws: In some places it too symbolically conceived: It takes place at the coast,which combines land and water; the father working as a marine biologist for sea turtles,whose sex cannot be defined from outside.Such clear hints wouldn't have been necessary. Luckily in our modern advanced society it is for an individual easier possible to define its own "normality" and fight for it, though it will be a lifelong fight.The film shows that in a way encouraging the viewers.

I very much liked the latest films of danish director Susanne Bier - from "Open Hearts" to "After the wedding".So I was waiting for her first American film with a mixture of anticipation and anxiety. Would she be able to keep her style or would it be "hollywoodized"? The answer is : Yes and Yes.It is a typical Bier- drama: Strong,true in its emotions and feelings.Bier has always been interested in the fragility of human life and emotions and so the films deals with loss,fear,hope,helplessness and the search for emotional affection. Again a character has to take responsibility in a new found family. Benicio del Toro and Halle Berry play two persons devastated by the death of a third,who try to stabilize their lives with the help of each other.Luckily the film never succumbs to the easy solution of a conventional romance and stays open till the end.The acting generally is excellent,also in minor roles by Duchovny and Lohman, but it's really del Toro's film.In every pore of his face we can feel the fight of a drug-addict to get clean and stay so. But the film also has its drawbacks.As a member of the Dogma Movement Bier always had a penchant for extreme close-ups.This can be very effective,but here she clearly overdid it.The amount of mostly eyes, cheeks and hands takes away the concentration of the viewer and makes the film in parts too slow.The development of the scenario is sometimes schematic and predictable.The smoothing influence of Hollywood is clearly noticeable.I would have liked to see this film as a danish production, written by Anders Thomas Jensen and played by Mikkelsen and S.B.Knudsen in the main roles.I'm sure the result would be rougher and nearer to life.What also annoyed me was the character of Duchovny: He is way too perfect, a superhuman good samaritan.To resume: For a Hollywood drama the film is quite good, for a Bier film it is slightly disappointing.

A documentary film about dust, a material everyone constantly has to deal with and often likes to curse, doesn't seem to provide a lot of entertainment.But director Hartmut Bitomsky has proved in his earlier films - such as "Reichsautobahn" and "B-52" -,that such "unfilmy" material can lead to interesting and thought-provoking results.So it is also here in an attempt to make the invisible visible.The film treats his subject from all different angles: It shows the beauty of dust,the danger of it, the necessity of it for the creation of galaxies and much more.As always Bitomsky is interested in the importance of his subject to the political and military spheres; and here we get quite surprising informations.A decisive part of course plays the daily Sysiphus-like fight with household-dust, which one can only relocate,but not eliminate.The humor in these scenes reminds of those with Shirley Henderson in Sally Potter's strange film "Yes".Bitomsky has always been an exponent of a more essaistic than academic documentary film-making; so here you find a lot of digressions and side notes.A little weakness: In some scenes in the industrial and technical parts the film would benefit from more detailed explications for non-specialists.At the end of the film we have learned a lot about an industry producing, analyzing,fighting wit and reprocessing dust.An entertaining lesson!

Nicolette Krebitz is best known as an actress ("Bandits")and gave her debut as director with "Jeans", a film about the new, trendy Berlin after the reunification.It was part of a whole wave of similar films and didn't make a big impression on me.So I was positively surprised by her new directorial work with the highly romantic and obscure title "Das Herz ist ein dunkler Wald".It is a daring try, albeit not satisfying as a whole.The film is an odd mixture of "Berliner Schule" realism,theatre-like scenes on a bare stage depicting typical moments in a relationship and surreal scenes of a masked ball in a sort of palace,modelled clearly on "Eyes wide shut".The picture takes a bitter stock of today's gender relations and poses some uncomfortable questions.It treats the everlasting battle between the sexes, the moral of the German average middle class and deconstructs all preached ideas of a "new motherlihood".Not only in the teaming of Nina Hoss and Devid Striesow there are parallels to the brilliant "Yella",but also in that both films tell you more about the German society of today than many so called critical films.As in "Yella" the biggest attraction is the face of Nina Hoss, which reflects the abyss of despair and loss.In every scene you feel the will of the director to produce "art" and not all the parts get together well,but as a resume I would say: After "Jeans" I wasn't awaiting a new picture by Krebitz as a director with a curious anticipation, but after "Der Wald..." I am.What more could you say about a film?

Dysfunctional families and a complicated father-son relationship have been a recurring theme not only in the German cinema.Often in these films the children are more reasonable and have to show the adults the way with their sense for reality, for example in "Netto".The situation is similar in "Jagdhunde", the debut film of Ann-Kristien Reyels.Main character is the pubescent Lars,who after the separation of his parents lives with his father in a east-German provincial backwater.The father plans to turn an old barn into some kind of hotel for weddings - a strange idea,as the son clearly understands, in a society,where less and less people get married.Worth mentioning also is the fact, that in the whole film there is not one traditional family,but only patchwork-relationships.Ignored by the mostly close-mouthed locals they try to get along in the cold and winterly wasteland.Things change when Lars befriends a mute girl,which is also living only with her father and when for Christmas arrives not only the secret new lover of his father, the sister of his ex-wife, but the Ex herself with her much younger new lover.It is very pleasant to see how the developing,earnest and still insecure feelings of the teenagers are opposed to the calculated behavior of the adults aimed primarily at effects.Highlight of the film is a Christmas-dinner,which with its artificial holiday-like atmosphere and the hidden acrimony is as hilarious as it is depressing.The adults are not objects of mockery,but spectators develop an understanding for the actions,which are finally motivated by anxiety and insecurity.The relation between the two teenagers also is open for interpretations: Is it love or just the need of outsiders for a friend of the same age.It makes you a bit sorry,that this natural feeling and acting will disappear with the years, for getting older they will have to adapt to adult manners.Nevertheless the film depicts very precisely that phase of growing-up, in which you think the adults to be so ridiculous and dishonest and you are convinced never to become like them.The acting is flawless and laconic with some comic moments,especially by von Jascheroff("Falscher Bekenner") and by famous austrian actor Joseph Hader("Indien").Directing comes off very elegant and fluent - not the rigidness of the "Berliner Schule" - ,just one little point of critic: The sometimes exaggerated use of symbolic landscapes ( snow-covered fields,frozen pond).Overall an exactly perceived and felt film about the difficulties of growing-up and the gap between the generations.

Whereas Ulrich Seidl in "Hundstage", his first non-documentary film took the hottest days of the year for the description of apathy, brutality and humiliation in society, his new film takes place in a cold scenery. And that in a double sense: While in the East (mostly in the Ukraine) there is a deep winterly climate, in the West (Vienna) the relations and the social environment are characterized by coldness.Seidl's films have always been controversial because of the docu-like unrelenting gaze of their pictures,which abstain from any commentary and because of their description of social milieus and phenomenons one usually does not perceive or doesn't want to.All that applies also to "Import Export".Here we find scenes of grotesque disgust, in which the spectator is ashamed of watching and blaming the camera for its rigidity.On the other hand these films create some kind of maelstrom,which is difficult to escape from.There always is the question:Does he exploits his protagonists or not.Well, everyone has to find his own answer: I don't think so because showing the situation does not mean its denunciation.The story depicts in two unrelated strands two diametrical movements: From East to West and vice versa.The title already refers to the films main subject:The goods-like character,which the globalized capitalistic world imposes on the people.The society is in a desperate state ; nevertheless it is Seidl's most human film.He seems to show empathy for his two protagonists and even if there is no sort of Happy-End - the film has no real end at all,but just leaves its figures alone- the hope remains,that they have got a little bit of strength and decisiveness,which could make a more self-defined life in the future possible.Or maybe not.Every Film of Seidl makes you leave the cinema thinking,that the whole world and the people are in a desperate and hopeless state,but here we have at least little moments of tenderness,in which we see people fighting for their dignity.A rigorous film for the lovers of contemporary austrian film(Albert, Glawogger,Haneke) and definitely no "entertainement".

Films of the so-called "Berlin School" (Petzold,Arslan,Schanelec)in the last years frequently represented the German cinema at international festivals,and not with small success.Reactions were often similar:Accolades from the critics,especially those from France,while the non-professional spectators mostly were at a loss with the film because of the slow and fragmented storytelling,the long scenes without cutting,the concentration on close-ups and the staging of space.All that applies also to the new film "Yella" by Chr. Petzold,which for many was the favorite for the "Golden Bear" at the Berlinale 2007,but ended up only with a absolutely deserved "Silver Bear" for the fantastic Nina Hoss. "Yella" is some kind of finale to Petzold's "Geister-Trilogie",to which also belong "Die innere Sicherheit" and "Gespenster"; films,which are situated in a clearly outlined reality,but whose protagonists glide through their life like phantoms,unseizable and themselves unable to build a relation to the surrounding world.The story itself is quite simple and more or less superficial: Yella, living in East Germany and married to a man,whose business is near to bankruptcy, has applied for a job in West Germany and plans to leave her past life behind her.Her husband offers to drive her to the station and after having tried in vain to talk her into staying with him and starting their relationship new , he purposely drives the car through the railing of a bridge into the water.They both manage to get to the bank.Yella then disappears and takes the trip to the west.She doesn't get the promised job,but because of her knowledge of dealing with accounts and her appearance she gets the job of assistant to a specialist for venture capital.The film gives brilliant insights into the world of globalized capitalism dominated by greed, betrayal and blackmailing.Yella comes to enjoy the power and the success.It seems that she made it:A profitable job and a new man in her life.But she ruins it all by her own abnormal ambition fed by love.Well, then their is the end,which displeased so many spectators and was called pretentious, illogical or simply stuck on.But if one watches the film carefully and pays attention to all the visual and acoustic guiding themes the end is logic and convincing.A formally stern,deliberately cool and strangely mesmerizing lyrical film.By the way: It tells you more about today's German state of mind than a dozen statistical surveys.

Jaques Doillon ("Ponette", "Le petit criminel") has ever since been interested in the investigation of young people between seduction and desire.That's also the main theme of his new film.It is a chamber piece about a young man and two girls,which for the most part is situated in a hotel room,where they try out concepts of love and the whole spectrum of real and pretended feelings.It starts as some kind of play,but gets more serious with the time.There is not much happening in the usual sense,but mostly talking.Nevertheless this kind of test arrangement benefits from convincing actors (among them Caroline Ducey "Romance")and very subtle direction and camera work, so that there is always a inner tension,that makes you follow the development of the story.It's about the privilege of youth of reinventing itself every moment, but love requires courage and the for the most part they do not pass their test of courage.If you like talkative Rohmer films this is surely one for you.

This new film by director Pierre Jolivet,who gained my attention 10 years ago with his dark and sociologically precise "Fred", is a little gem.Yes, it is a typical romantic comedy ,so the happy end is obvious and never beyond questions;but the way to this is more realistic than in most other rom-CMOS.The film is a kind of comedic meditation about the possibility of love in a time so decisively dominated by annoying communication technology.It shows how in a capitalistic world the economic sphere infiltrates the private life of people and how difficult it gets to separate them.All those technical gimmicks remind me of old Tati films.The dialogs are lively and the performances top-notch.Bonnaire, one of my favorite actresses since I saw "Sans toit ni loi" for the first time, is as beautiful and compelling as ever,beyond that she displays a comical talent,that directors should use more often.Lindon is convincing as a control freak as well as an inept lover.For sure there are some weaknesses: Not all of the twists in the plot are useful and make sense, for example the episode with the sumo ringer is only ridiculous, and the slapstick humour is sometimes a little childish.The final conclusion,that love has something to do with risk of jumping into the unknown, of course is not new,but in our time, in which so many people want to obtain security in all areas of life, it is nice to be mentioned one more time.

Michael Glawogger is best known for his documentary films like "Working man's death" or "Megacities".Though a feature film, "Slumming" shares some characteristics with the films mentioned above,for example an episodic structure and the clinical,thorough look at places and persons.Funnily this films in some respect is more documentary than his so called documentaries,which were partly criticized for their elaborate and highly stylish camera work.Here Glawogger openly follows the path of directors like Ulrich Seidl or Barbara Albert( who co-worked on the script) and maybe even there are hints of Michael Hanecke.The film begins with a terrific, Thomas-Bernhard-like monologue by dirty and drunk down-and-out Kallmann( fantastically played by the notorious theatre and film actor Paulus Manker ) full of misanthrophy and scornefulness.Then we see a young yuppie,whose profession is being a "rich son", together with his buddy on his slumming tours.That is some kind of slum-tourism:Visiting the bars and amusement places of the lower classes and playing dirty jokes on them just because they think themselves being superior humans.One night they run into the as usual drunk Kallmann and act very cruel and inhuman upon him. From that moment on one narrative thread concentrates on the adventures of the poor Kallmann trying to return to Vienna,another on our two irresponsible snobs. A third one acquaints us with a young woman Sebastian falls in love with or at least pretends to,because you never really know where his intricate game ends and his true personality begins.When that girl learns about the mean joke,she sets out to rescue Kallmann,though he doesn't really need her,because he is the most viable person in the film.These three threads are cleverly interwoven.Shot mostly in bleak colours and with occasional black humor the film for the largest part of time avoids the symbolic cliché-traps of art-house cinema.Some symbols are used to often and to bluntly for my taste, for example the snowy landscapes = the coldness of the society or the garden gnomes = the smugness of people.Luckily the film ends neither with a catastrophe nor a happy end.Kallmann is back in his viennese ambiance,while Sebastian swaps the "being a stranger in his own town" to "being a stranger in a foreign country".It would be interesting to know the further paths of their lives and that's speaking for the film.Acting on the whole is superb and the drama well worth watching.

In the last years privatisation has often been hailed as a remedy for all possible financial or structural problems of the state.Given the discussions in Germany about the planned privatisation of the German Rail this film by German TV-documentarist Florian Opitz seems overdue.He offers four examples (transport,health,energy and water) in four countries to show,how it ends in higher revenues for the companies by raising the prices and in decreasing service quality and a major part of the population lacking access to fundamental qualities of life.If it was't so depressing you could laugh at some scenes,especially when Bechtel tried to privatise rainwater,banning the collecting and using of it.But the film also gives a little bit of hope;privatisation is nothing imposed on people who have no opportunity for resistance.The film nearly all the time stays with the victims and their fight to overcame the consequences of these decisions.The representatives of the World Bank and IWF with their formal and cold argumentation serve as comical figures.And there lies the weakness of this film and the reason why it gets only a 7 by me.It is openly biased-not per se a disadvantage for a documentary-,but offers for someone who is a bit familiar with the theme no new thoughts.I personally prefer docs with a more open view on a theme,thus forcing the viewer to draw his own conclusions.Here everything is readily packaged and you can only admit: "Yes,so it is!" Nevertheless it should be a must for the German Gouvernment and the parliamentarians especially the part about British Rail.

A new film by David Lynch; that means fanatical approval on one side, incomprehension and furious rejection on the other.But luckily there are different ways of making movies.I have seen nearly every film by Lynch: from "Eraserhead"( one of the midnight-movie favorites of the 80's) to "Lost Highway" and "Mulholland Drive". "Inland Empire" together with the latter two forms a brilliant tryptich.A lot of motives and subjects from earlier films are found here and developed.It would be useless and more or less impossible to talk about contents: I see it as a nightmarish trip in the "empire" of symbols and their psychoanalysis with clear hints to fairy-tales like those of the Grimms (the old witch at the beginning,the 7 whores = the 7 dwarfs ?!) or to Caroll.Other people will come with other maybe contradictory interpretations,but the film not only permits it,even requests it.It is like an art installation,which develops in the heads of the viewers its own individual life.For my girlfriend for example it was the most typical film of Lynch and by the same time a parody of a Lynch film.I'm eagerly waiting for the DVD and the philosophizing interpretations after some more viewings of the film.BeforeI forget: Highest praise to the notoriously underestimated Laura Dern for her absolute commitment to this strange,mesmerising and menacing role.Why the film gets only 9 points:The images.DV gives Lynch the independence to shoot such a film,but the partly murky images lack the precise,clearcut and chilling atmosphere of the earlier films.But that's only a minor quibble.As conclusion David Lynch himself:"The film can't be understood,it must be experienced".I wish you all the best.

"Shortbus", the new film by John Cameron Mitchell caused a stir, when it was shown at the Cannes Festival in 2006. In the first line this was due to the explicit sex-scenes,which legally could be defined as pornography.But unlike in films like "Romance" or "Baise-moi" they do not aim at producing any voyeuristic excitation,but they just illustrate the attitudes and blockades of the protagonists.So I wouldn't call it an "Arthouse-Porn", it is human story, a partly sad and partly hilarious status report about urban sex and love.Acted mostly by amateurs,who play more or less themselves, the film lacks the artificiality and bashfulness,often to be joined with these themes.Sex may be a problem for them, but it could also be the solution, when treated with open-mindedness and a laid-back attitude.There are some allusions to the Flower Power Movement of the Sixties, the host of the "Shortbus" even says at one time "It's like in the Sixties,only with less hope". Nevertheless the film ends in a relatively optimistic vein.Some scenes are a little bit over the top for my taste (unnesessary fuss),but these are easily outweighed by those of emotional truth and seriousness,which really grabbed me.We are all confronted with the treated issues: Either by ourselves or by a friend of a friend of a friend...So it's nice to see,that the film shows understanding for every character and does not try to ridicule them.If you are not offended by graphic nudity,you should give this film a try,especially when you have the opportunity to discuss it afterwards with a group of good friends,male and female.

Very seldom Italian movies find their way on to German screens,so I was delighted to find this little gem,moreover in the original Italian,which gives it a special flavor."In the past films were more about places than about characters"- so tells the narrator near the films beginning.According to that, one of the main constituents is "La Mole" in Turine,at one time the highest building in Europe and now housing the film-museum of Italy.It's a magnificent building with spiral stairways and convoluted corridors and provides an adequate place for a story between reality and the world of cinema.The story is about a love-triangle reminiscent of the french "Nouvelle Vague"-there are parallels to "Jules et Jim" and to"A bout de soufflé" concerning the female lead.It is told in a feathery way and in its love for the old-school poetic film-making reminded me of "The science of sleep".It is a tragicomical reflection about the necessity of storytelling and the immortality of cinema.Almost everyone left the well crowded cinema with a smile on his face.So if you enjoy a poetic,fairytale-like movie take the opportunity and watch it.

a film not about the murder itself or the backgrounds of it, Emilio Estevez film tries to be an Altmanesque parable in showing the American society via a multi-faceted accumulation of characters. More than 20 of them display all the fears,hopes,needs and problems of the American society in the late sixties.But many of these episodes are simply uninteresting and you soon loose any interest in their development.Too much personal trifles.Just in a few scenes you get a feeling for the time and the hopes,that so many people put on RFK.The All-Star cast has very few opportunities to develop real characters.The most touching scenes were the documentary ones.It was moving to see him and hear him speak in a way so different to today's politicians: simply, honestly and without any demagogy or agressivness.Estevez and his crew truly believe in their film and want to draw parallels to our actual situation, but that would have needed a sharper structuring.A respectable try,but it stopped in the middle becoming a remarkable film.Rating: 6 out of 10.

Having watched an incredibly dull film by my own decision, I can blame myself for it,but having been invited to such a mess like 300, I have to get over it by writing this comment. For some years I haven't seen anything dull like this.Not because it is historically wrong,it's not a documentary and I do not expect to find historical truth in Hollywod-movies.But the acting was terrible, a script was there obviously not and the soundtrack was awful.I do not want to accuse Frank Miller and not even the director of fascistic intentions ,but the film responds to popular prejudices and I don't know,what the mostly young audience will take away with the film.Maybe technically is's state of the art,but it's still a shame,that the film has been produced.The technical possibilities of today could have been applied better and to greater entertainment.

I greatly admired the previous films by Susanne Bier (" Open Hearts" and "Brothers"), so my expectations were very high.Luckily they have been fulfilled.Like the other two the film is a sociological and emotional experiment.It's about one's place in the world (the crucial phrase in the film is Jorgen's "Can one expect from you help only on the other side of the globe" ), about responsibility and the making of painful decisions.The film starts quite slow,but after half an hour it's getting more intensive,mostly supported by 4 extraordinary actors and actresses.While I already knew the qualities of Mikkelsen,Knudsen and Lassgard,I was really blown away by Fischer Christensen as the daughter.There were 4 real-life characters and I could follow their psychological turmoil.Some may find the script too constructed,but life turns out to be full of unexpected twists.The film is no popcorn-entertainment,but for anyone,who appreciates a human,deeply moving drama with the concentration on the characters instead of superficial action,I can only say: Go and watch this movie!