Seven Days Sunday (2007) User Reviews (5)

Promising start by New German Director

[Turfseer · 7/10 · 4 May 2008]

Saw this film at the Tribeca Film Festival. It's the first effort by German filmmaker Niels Laupert who attended the Munich film school. Laupert bases his film on a true story that occurred in Poland where two juvenile delinquents commit a series of thrill killings. The story is set in Germany however a little over ten years ago. Laupert said after the film was over that he set it in Germany in order to be able to direct the actors in his own language. Laupert admittedly is not interested in the reasons why these youths decide to kill nor does he offer any kind of psychological analysis. He simply wants to chronicle the 'banality of evil' has it actually happened.

The remarkable aspect of the film is that the Laupert really seems to get into the characters' heads--the dialogue is extraordinarily realistic and the dreary routines of these amoral criminals appear quite credible. But be forewarned: this film quite bleak and will not warm your insides. If you are looking for a screenplay with the familiar markings of the typical Three Act Structure, you will not find it here. In short, the film does not build to any real big crisis points. It's a long, slow grind, culminating in a series of violent scenes which become a bit repetitious. The only real surprise is the revelation that the main character (a lapsed choir boy) ends up being more violent than his pal who appears at the beginning of the film to be the more violent of the two. The acting and cinematography are excellent and one gets the impression that the director is talented enough to sustain a career in the film industry in the years to come.

Youth without direction

[kosmasp · 5/10 · 24 January 2018]

Now I could say no pun intended, but if I'm being honest ... it is very much intended. Talking about intentions, I can understand that for some the intentions of the movie are not clear. One may think it just wants to show us what is happening without giving us guidance. And that leads us to the point where you can say the same thing about the youth portrayed in here ... they are not being leaded by someone and therefor just drift and without anyone really giving them advice.

Having said that, it is really difficult to root for anyone in this. While at some moments of the movie I was reminded of Mean Streets (the Scorsese one), when you kind of look at the two main characters. But it's an illusion, not just story wise but also quality wise. I commend the rawness of the movie and not taking prisoners. But acting is also subpar and the point it tries to make could be told in an even shorter running time ...

So what??

[dschmeding · 3/10 · 19 February 2012]

"Sieben Tage Sonntag" is another movie that is loosely based on a real case of youth violence. The movie follows the two lead characters Adam and Tomek through their daily routine. Adam lives with his grandmother and seems to be brought up in a Christian surrounding. He cares about his grandmother, has a connection to church and seems to be the emotional character of this film. Tomek on the other hand gives the tough guy, uncaring for other peoples emotions, yet obviously insecure.

He is the one paving the path into a downward spiral of drugs, booze, ignorance and violence. All we know is he seems to come from "the city" where he went through some hardship that is supposed to be illustrated by his jail-style tattoos. The movie plays in a run down polish city that gives the gritty backdrop for the story, although it feels like being shot in Germany and could be a picture for any ghetto in any country. Everything is broken and run down, windows are barely ever not broken and there is little light on the horizon of all the kids appearing in the movie. So what starts with sniffing glue, stealing booze and vandalizing old buildings leads up to a strange dare about killing someone that suddenly magically appears out of nowhere on some party.

Now that is my biggest beef with the movie... the character development is ridiculous to non-existent. Adam is portrayed as a rather caring character. He voices his disapproval of several of Tomeks misbehavings, is shown caring for his grandmothers problems as well as the girl he is falling in love with. Tomek is hitting on that girl with not too much of success and I guess the girl is supposed to be some breaking point or explanation for the violence the movie leads up to.

But it just doesn't make any sense when out of the blue Adam comes up with the dare. Nothing leads up to this strange dare about if they are able to kill a person. And when they stole booze and stumble upon a drunk that Tomek wants to stab with a broken bottle, nothing explains why Adam stabs the guy like a lunatic and runs across town with blood all over him until the police catches him.

I get that this is one of the cases where explanations are hard to find but if you make a movie at least have some logical character development. Here things just happen and when Adam is in jail he doesn't speak a word, not even to his grandmother when visiting.

So basically you are presented with random actions in a depressing environment. Cinematography, score and acting are OK but the movie although pretty short gets boring and doesn't deliver anything.

OK, life is hard in the ghetto but what is the viewer supposed to take from this movie that he didn't know before??

Compared to a movie like "Stoic" with similar approach to a real case this just feels like a complete failure.

Mediocre story and performances

[Horst_In_Translation · 4/10 · 1 June 2017]

"Sieben Tage Sonntag" or "Tulpe" "Tulip" or "Seven Days Sunday" is a German movie from 2007, so this one has its 10th anniversary this year and it means a really long break for writer and director Niels Laupert because this film is not only his very first full feature film, but also his most recent work until later this year when his newest project will be released apparently. This is the story of two young men whose lives go off the rails when boredom results into violence and the duo commit a horrible act of violence. This boredom is also what the seven days Sunday refer to because they don't have a work or direction in their lives, but I personally do not really like the title here as it always comes down to what you make of it, even if you do not work full time hours every week. I mean there are millions (perhaps billions) of unemployed people out there and not really too many of them take the path of crime, let alone there are enough employed people who become so empty inside with their everyday routine that they also commit acts of violence.

Anyway, back to the movie: It is a really short one as it only runs for 70 minutes only (not counting ending credits. The cast includes names like Trepte, Baal, Schmidt-Schaller and Ulrich that German film buffs (like myself) will recognize. Martin Kiefer, who is the male co-lead here, is admittedly a name that I am not really that familiar with, so I guess you could say his career has not been as memorable and successful (probably the better word) as Trepte's in the last decade. As for Trepte, he seems to have a tendency to appear in these crime-related movies about young men making wrong decisions and having to deal with the consequences. This one here is not as good as "Keller - Teenage Wasteland" from two years earlier though. I personally think that the lack of really memorable plot references and scenes as well as the pretty mediocre performances by the two lead actors do not turn this into a rewarding watch and it did not get me curious about Laupert's newest work. But perhaps he has a better cast at his disposal this time and also stepped things up in the meantime. It's been a long time since 2007. "Sieben Tage Sonntag" gets a thumbs-down from me. Not recommended.

Amazing Achievement Considering the Budget and the Time Frame

[funkfox · 9/10 · 4 May 2008]

(from the Tribeca Film Festival screening I attended)

The director, Niels Laupert, is ushered down the aisle by a polite smattering of applause. He is tall, blond, and angular, and is clearly more comfortable behind the camera than at the front of a stage. He explains to the sparse crowd that the film, was his graduate thesis at the Munich Film School. That he shot it with almost no money at all, because the school only funds shorts and not feature films. That it was shot in 16 days, and that none of the actors got paid. A no-budget grad school project made in a fort night. How much should we be hoping for? But Seven Days Sunday is, hands-down, the best film I saw at the festival this year. In 1996, two 16-year old boys in a small, tired Polish town got drunk one night and decided, literally on a whim, to kill somebody. So they did. They attacked one pensioner in a train station, and another on the street near one of their homes. Having no motives, but also no means to hide their crimes (nor really any understanding of what they themselves had done), they were both apprehended by the authorities by the next day. They had boasted to friends at a party that they were going to do it beforehand, completely unprovoked and apropos of nothing.

The film is dark, minimal, sublime, and haunting. The actors, largely unknowns, play their parts with effective disaffection. The cinematography captures the bleakness of mid-nineties small-town Poland completely. When the lights come up, the director comes to the front of the theatre again. His English is the quaint, grammatically-challenged English of a kid who probably didn't study the language well but has seen every seminal American film in the canon multiple times. He explains that he didn't want to make a Hollywood film, because Hollywood films always need to 'tidy things up', explain everything, make it digestible. But this film gives no easy answers, because there are none. A thoroughly sensible treatment of a thoroughly senseless crime.