FREE ON CINEGEEK.DE Frank Capra - It's A Wonderful Life 

Once upon a time Frank Capras It's A Wonderful Life belonged to the forgotten movies until he was rediscovered at the beginning of the 70s. He became a Christmas movie, an annual ritual of families all over the world. I loved It's A Wonderful Life as a child and still do - I think because Capra's work is so honest! But it's not just about the film, it's the memories that are connected to it! It's A Wonderful Life was the declared favorite of director Frank Capra and lead actor James Stewart. Then the worst happened: It's A Wonderful Life was colored and disenchanted afterwards. Stewart himself is said to have said about this version that it would make him sick. The wonderful black and white version is one of those timeless classics that improve over time. Other movies, even very good ones, can only be watched once - Frank Capra's comedy, on the other hand, keeps coming back! He grows close to your heart, becomes familiar. It's A Wonderful Life seems to me like a powerful, fundamental fairy tale. It's the inversion of Christmas Carol: we don't see an old man telling stories of happiness, but a young man throwing himself into misery. The hero is George Bailey (Stewart). He is one who never found out from his small quiet town Bedford Falls, where he was born. As a young man he dreamed of traveling and knocking the dust off his shoes. But there was always something that kept him at home. Most of all his family's savings and his father's building society, which enables ordinary people to have their own house. This building society is the only one that stands between the community and the greedy Mr. Potter (Lionel Barrymore), the local banker. George marries his high school love (Donna Reed in her first role) and helps the poor realize their dream of owning their own home. But then his uncle loses a large amount of cash on Christmas Eve and the way seems clear for Mr. Potter. George is desperate, his face suddenly seems gloomy and thought-provoking. He stands on the bridge to throw himself down when an angel named Clarence (Henry Travers) saves him from it. Clarence shows George how life in Beford Falls would be without him. How would the world be without me? - That's the big question in It's A Wonderful Life. Frank Capra never conceived his tragicomedy as a Christmas film. It was the first movie he produced after his military service in World War II and he was supposed to be something special. It's A Wonderful Life celebrates the dreams of the simple American man who tries the best for himself and his neighbors. Capra had established himself during the 30's with a whole series of fantastic comedies in parable form and can be considered THE director of the Roosevelt era. For Stewart, who had also served in the war, it was the opportunity to work with Capra again. Like so many of his generation who embody the "boy next door", Stewart Capra owes the most important films of his career to Capra. At that time It's A Wonderful Life was no success and fell into oblivion. But the comedy isn't just there to warm our hearts! Remember the scene when George's younger brother breaks into the ice. Or the phone scene where angry James Stewart and Donna Reed suddenly face each other! Then the dark passages in which George staggers drunk through his hometown, which he tries to hate. Even the most greasy scenes, so the hint of heaven, work because they are so simple! I also often had to think of Berlin's banking scandal and the European misery, the "rescue" of the banks with taxpayers' money. Unfortunately the film could not inspire the post-war career of Frank Capra. He never again achieved the box-office results of his pre-war classics and staged his last work in 1961. Later, Capra was an esteemed guest professor at the film academy. Once he answered the question whether "nowadays" movies with the message of It's A Wonderful Life could still be realized with the statement that we would all have to give up immediately if we didn't...

FREE ON CINEGEEK.De Mustang 

Deniz Gamze Ergüven was nominated for the Oscar and the Golden Globe for her debut. Everyone seems to fall easy on her and so does her film. Above her paintings lies lightness, such a shimmering summer feeling! It is the last day of school before the big holidays. Five sisters - our heroines - are already romping around the sea, each on the shoulders of a boy. They seem to be quite light-hearted and cheerful, but this is deceptive. The five girls are not in the Atlantic, but in the Black Sea in Turkey. At home they are confronted with the angry grandmother. Too much temperament, too much passion! A neighbor snitched on her and called the orphaned girls whores. From that day on, their home becomes a prison. They are no longer allowed to go to school, they are allowed to cook at home. Now it's time to find husbands as quickly as possible. The sisters' experiences get worse and worse, and their urge for freedom is provoked more and more. We experience everything from the perspective of the youngest, Lale. She almost casually mentions that this is probably the last time they will be together. Suddenly a gloomy premonition lies down on the hustle and bustle.............................................. But although the uncle guards the girls night after night - Deniz Gamze Ergüven's film is about the untameable spirit of freedom and that is typical for this generation (Ergüvens is sure about that!). Your whole film is a promise of change and that will shake Turkey.

FREE ON CINEGEEK.De David Fincher - Fight Club 

Fight Club allows its heroes to get drunk and get beat up. They even sign a contract for it. Regardless, it's a celebration of fascism like it hasn't been since the dark 80s, a celebration of testosterone! Edward Norton plays a depressive, fear-driven loner. His world looks like a sardonic social satire. To overcome his pain, he attends meetings where the participants hug each other tightly. For example, the meetings of cancer victims. Those with testicular cancer. By the way, Norton appears here as "The Narrator". A good trick, which we will see through later. Then he notices another "miserable tourist" named Marla (Helena Bonham Carter). She also USES these meetings only. Then he meets Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt) in a plane. He seems to be able to look "The Narrator" straight into the soul. When The Narrator's dismal skyscraper settlement goes up in flames, he instinctively visits Tyler. "The Narrator becomes a member of Fight Club. There, men meet who find their freedom and self-realization in beating each other half to death. Until then, I like Fight Club. Unfortunately director David Fincher tries to show us how clever he is. He will add scenes that turn everything seen upside down. It's called "Mindgame" or "Mindfuck". And what is it really about? About the shackles of modern life that restrict us? Amen. And what is Tyler up to? Just to get men together who'll beat the crap out of each other? Tyler will philosophize a lot and tell very little that makes any sense. Fight Club doesn't follow Tyler's philosophy. But still the (especially male) audience likes him. Because the pictures philosophize for themselves and on them you see the muscle-bound Brad Pitt. He is allowed to sing the high song of fascism and looks really cool. A stupid movie.

FREE ON CINEGEEK.DE Maren Ade - Toni Erdmann 

Imagine if we'd been to Cannes. Nobody had Maren Ade or her new film Toni Erdmann seriously on the list of favorites. A film of three hours in length, whose press release was just as rambling. Many people probably only looked at Toni Erdmann from afar. But they were exactly the same, said later that there could be no such thing as justice if Toni Erdmann did not win the Golden Palm! Here comes such an exuberant comedy, with real thigh beaters, which can satisfy the audience deeply! Rarely has there been such a loving reaction from the audience in Cannes and if you look at the imdb rating, you will see a 9.1! No doubt, Maren Ade has to get her own subject in our film art bar Fitzcarraldo as a director and can count from now on to one of the greatest German filmmakers! Winfried Conradi (Peter Simonischek) is an aging bear who practices something like a 24-hour show on his own behalf: His hair looks like a gray bird's nest, he seems to dress up all the time in new costumes to make jokes. The daughter Ines (Sandra Hüller) is what is known in the modern world as a "Corporate Consultant". Thin as a model, serious, always on the phone. She is currently outsourcing hundreds of jobs to Romania (she speaks of "outsorcing" in modern asshole German). Ines works hard, she is successful and desperately unhappy. When her father pays her a surprise visit, it goes badly, as expected. They communicate in lukewarm phrases and soon he wants to leave again. A few days later, however, he returns in disguise as a coach for executives: Toni Erdmann. Now he may deeply penetrate Ines life, question everything, confuse everything. The 68er in the life of the daughter, whose market radical understanding of freedom can only be a misunderstanding! How much is in this movie! The non-understanding of parents and children, two different and equally unsustainable life positions and the truth that if everything is stuck, only comedy helps. Toni Erdmann did not win in Cannes. But he can give German cinema the necessary impetus to get to where it was forty years ago: right at the top!

FREE ON CINEGEEK.De Michel Gondry - eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind 

"The memories beautify life, but forgetting alone makes it bearable," writes the poet Balzac. "From the eyes, from the mind," believes Goethe. In Michel Gondrys Eternal Sunshine Of A Spotless Mind it means for Clemetine (Kate Winslet) that she can simply forget someone like Joel (Jim Carrey). She erases him and the fact that she ever loved him from her memory. Technically, it is explained to us in a friendly voice by a scientist, which means "Brain Damage". The brain is the author Charlie Kaufman's favourite area, whose previous escapades look like pure realism if you compare them to this insane love story. Here the story is radically wound up and unwound and in turn completely redefined. The nice thing is that we feel with the characters, even if they get lost in the middle of nowhere, i.e. run completely off track. It would almost be a fraud to return the whole thing to a chronology: In the beginning there are Clementine and Joel lovers - but this love ends badly. Clementine decides to visit Dr. Howard Mierzwiak (Tom Wilkinson) to erase the memory of Joel. And Joel? In return, HE erases his memories of YOU. But the character of love is that it makes her forget the bad ending by the beautiful memories of the beginning. We remember the good much better than the bad. That's why at some point during the process Joel thinks about keeping Clementine in memory. That's why he searches for a few thoughts left, somewhere in the depth of his brain - but the process seems relentless. That sounds like a movie you can somehow get to grips with? Completely wrong! The film opens with Joel getting on the train to meet Clementine. But they've never seen each other before! Everything runs here only by instinct and intuition! Somewhere there is something like a shadow, a deja vu. While Gondry's work is now running forward and then back again and with narrative time simply does everything that works (or not), both fragments follow the common acquaintance they had / will have / had (...) Meanwhile again new complications appear in the laboratory of the experiment, which I don't anticipate any further... But Eternal Sunshine is not only able to make big jumps through the narrative time. The film has an emotional centre and that's why it works. While Joel and Clementine go through different stages of romance and reality in the Ping Pong process, one thing remains constant: the human need for love. Against all resistance, man will take this need! It's also true that Joel and Clementine, as different as they may be (he's shy, she's wild), make a beautiful couple. Therefore they will fall in love again, no matter what science offers against it! For Jim Carrey this role was another chance to show himself as a serious actor. He, with his face for everyone, gives a man who is so lonely that for him a fragmentary memory is still better than none at all! Kate Winslet's Clementine is simply his counterpart and he needs her! Charlie Kaufman's mission is to sictimize the human brain. In his first films, the protagonists tried to archive something outside of themselves. In Eternal Sunshine, memories are all we have! If they disappear, we disappear ourselves.

FREE ON CINEGEEK.De Xavier Dolan - Tom At The Farm 

Xavier Dolan from Quebec is only 26 years old and has already made five films. The prodigy won prizes at numerous festivals and laid down exactly the career that every artist can only dream of! As an actor he looks as beautiful as the classic movie stars. And just like in Film Noir, he makes beautiful people do ugly things. But is there something behind the mask of beauty? Dolan has filmed a play by Michel Marc Bouchard that follows the rules of a classic film noir. The film is over 100 minutes long - unfortunately too long for a thriller that should create excitement and get to the point. Dolan tries his hand at a genre film for the first time, but in the end he is mainly interested in the sado-masochistic practices of his two main characters. - Francis (Pierre-Yves Cardinal) has just told about a dance course he attended with his recently deceased brother, now he takes his former partner Tom (Xavier Dolan) into a big barn and puts on music. Tom has to dance with him, Francis would never accept refusal. Both glide through the dark room, Francis leads and Tom surrenders - but in each of his steps there is also something resistant. Francis, who comes from the country, and Tom, the urban dweller - an opposing couple. Both struggle with themselves, standing between a life in absolute freedom and the fear of their own desire. Agathe (Lise Roy), the dead man's mother, never wanted to know anything about her son's connection to Tom. Tom has no choice but to pretend and the lie becomes the truth for him. The whole life on the farm turns into charades. The farm and Francis, once they woo Tom, then they threaten him again. Two souls live in Tomas and Francis' chest: The brutality of the other seems to correspond to the gentleness of the one. But with his attacks against Tom, Francis sometimes seems more vulnerable than his victim. Who's the perpetrator, who's the victim? It's hard to separate now. Francis and Tom hate each other, but everyone wants to be like his counterpart. But then Sarah (Evelyne Brochu) arrives. She must now serve as Tom's alibi friend and at this point, Tom At The Farm begins to strain us with his lengths. The various narrative threads get out of hand, the film lacks the necessary structure. The thriller elements seem clumsy and unmotivated, the wonderful pictures and the intense film music don't help either. Why doesn't Tom just leave the farm? In real detective stories, the characters make ridiculous decisions, which we accept. We gladly forgive a good thriller for not being realistic. But since Tom At The Farm doesn't take himself seriously as such, the movie seems strangely unreal. Behind the beautiful facade there is no passion to unleash real excitement!

FREE ON CINEGEEK.DE 'Michelangelo Antonioni - Blowup 

Who would still be interested in a "hipster" photographer who may witness a murder (or not?????), leads an empty cynical life and ends up somewhere in the park while watching the students play tennis without a ball at dusk? Answer: Everyone! Who didn't want to play back to the 60s Swinging London when the Yardbirds were in some basement bar? This is the time of Michelangelo Antonionis Blowup! We should get his movie out of all the hype and fashion. Sometimes Blowup threatens to degenerate under this ballast. Let us surrender to the magic, even the spell of this work! Antonioni has made a suspense thriller, but without giving us the resolution, the reward. Blowup plays in the middle of London, in the heartless fashion world with its groupies, rock concerts and parties. In the center, an anti-hero whose soul had long since died - but which is now being resurrected by his art. His name is Thomas and he is played by David Hemmings. Thomas, the fashion photographer with the Beatles haircut in his Rolls, who is used to "Birds" knocking on his studio to portray them. Once we notice how much he thirsts for a spiritual love when he sees his neighbor (Sarah Miles). But that is not available for Thomas. So he keeps spending time with the models. But when Thomas goes for a walk in the park one day, everything changes. He watches a man and a woman (Vanessa Redgrave). Are they fighting? Are they flirting? The woman is chasing Thomas, who photographed her. Desperately she wants his film back, even invades the studio to steal it. Later Thomas enlarges exactly this film: Blowup. He notices that he's probably photographed a murder. Antonioni shows the pictures, then again the photographer. He jumps back and forth. We see arrangements of light and shadow that show us... Yeah, what is it? Thomas is interrupted at this moment by two "Birds", two girls who force their sex game on him. Then he returns to his magnifications. He makes even more prints and Thomas recognizes, as the woman looks forward, into the bushes. It shows (????) a man with a revolver. And maybe we see this man lying on the floor. Or maybe not. Thomas pulls it back into the park and there he SEES the man lying on the floor. Why you read so often, he wouldn't be sure of it, I don't understand. Thomas SEE the man. It remains unclear, however, whether this is a murder. Maybe the woman just wants the pictures because she's hiding an affair? But it doesn't really matter if it's a murder. This is about a creep developing a mission through his art. He is not interested in money, his ambitions or even his mistakes in character. No, he is completely lost in his craft. And that makes him happy. Later, however, all this will be taken away from him again. The body is gone, just as his photos have disappeared. The woman has also disappeared (we notice her outside a club before she vanishes into thin air). The Fianle is like the beginning. Thomas sees again the students we met in the first scene of Blowup. They play tennis with an imaginary ball. The photographer pretends to see the ball. We can even hear him! Then the photographer disappears into the park, changes from one picture to the next and is finally gone. So is the body. 

FREE ON CINEGEEK.De Komm süsser Tod 

Here comes a movie from our top 30! That means from the exclusive club of the 30 most awarded films of our video library. Come Sweet Death is in the heart about the constantly staggering policeman Simon Brenner (Josef Hader), who was already known from the novels of Wolfgang Haas - and which were considered unfilmed. After all, how was this "Viennese taunt" supposed to work on screen? Very well indeed! The recipe of the novels: to simply shape the genre "crime thriller" into something completely new. Come Sweet Death is Haas' second novel - the first Brenner film to be packaged in a cinematic way by Wolfgang Haas and director Wolfgang Murnberger. Brenner. A suspended policeman who struggles with bizarre jobs. As a paramedic he gets caught between the fronts of two rescue companies. Who will ultimately transport the patient? The pressure from both competitors is so great that patients are sometimes "manufactured" by force... By the way, Brenner himself does not fit in Vienna at all. He's a grumpy country guy. He's no paramedic either. Actually, Brenner doesn't fit in anywhere. If you want, you can also see the comedy as a parable of capitalism. And that's not an unreasonable interpretation on my part.

FREE ON CINEGEEK.DE For Sama 

Waad al-Kateab is a 26 year old student with a restless urge to comment. She comments on the individual fate of the Syrian war more intimately than anyone else ever has. In a war that is becoming increasingly complex and violent, she is armed with nothing but a smartphone. In 2012, she planned to finish her studies in Aleppo. Back then, the "Arab Spring" was still raging; there was plenty of hope. It was destroyed by the regime of Bashar al-Assad. Syria sank into chaos and war. The revolution seemed like a distant fantasy. Then al-Kateab decided to stay and not to leave like so many others. She decided to fight for a better future. Then she began her documentary. Almost as if she was putting together a kind of photo album of horror. One that she dedicated to her daughter Sama. Of course, there's also her fear of being killed herself. So For Sama can also be considered a legacy. Here begins the journey of the freedom fighter al-Kateab and her husband Hamza. The pictures are overwhelming! They break through the "fourth wall" to the audience. The people affected appear right before our eyes. They address themselves to us. A mother who just lost her child. She asks why she is being filmed at such a moment of unending tragedy. We do not hear the answer. But this mother will be part of a story that must one day be told. To remember her. and all the other victims of the war. Then we see two brothers taking the dead body of their third brother to the hospital. We see bombed streets and at some point air raids seem like a normal thing. Mass funerals, the work of the many, many volunteers and a freshly born baby. For Sama is the most important humanistic film of the year! All these tragedies and small miracles of humanity are captured by the autodidact al-Kateab. And she always believes in the positive! We often experience war through a family perspective as we have never seen it before. For example, when mothers try to present war to their children as something normal. Domestic life continues to take place amidst deadly threats. One year after the shooting was finished, al-Kateab held out together with Hamza - but in the end, Syria, where even hospitals are being destroyed, is no place to raise a child. In the end, the family manages to escape. Their unrelenting footage saved them! A brave act of resistance! It will remain until the day Sama can watch it.

FREE ON CINEGEEK.DE Roy Andersson - A Swedish Love Story 

A story of first love and "Sturm & Drang"! It's summer. Pär is fifteen, meets his friends, plays pinball, rides around on his moped. A normal teenager. Then Pär visits his grandfather in hospital and meets Annika. They don't speak to each other, but Annika notices Pär too. Definitely. It goes on for a while. They look at each other with eyes in love, but are still too shy to talk to each other. Finally they dance together - but even this first dance does not end like in the classic Hollywood movie. It needs the help of friends to bring Annika and Pär together. The family life of the young couple is problematic. Annika's father is a successful businessman, Pär's father a car painter. They do not take their children's love as seriously as Annika and Pär. For both of them this first time is the whole world! If you know the late Roy Anderson movies (because there are decades between his first and second movie!), you will be surprised about this realistic love drama. Young love is overlaid by family drama. And Anderson's film doesn't fantasize about this - in fact A Swedish Love Story is more realistic than any fantasy! Ann-Sofie Kylin and Rolf Sohlman play Annika and Pär, two typical teenagers who do exactly what teenagers do. They listen to music with the cassette recorder, eat sandwiches. Their first love scene is probably the most tasteful one I know! And the adults? That's another story. Of course they think that Annika and Pär are just summer flirting. Annika's father disapproves of Pär, because he isn't rich. And Pär's parents? Is their son even capable of more than a summer love affair (they doubt it)? A Swedish Love Story is a beautiful film! One that shows the limits of love, but above all how love can overcome limits! 

FREE ON CINEGEEK.De Lukas Moodysson - Together 

 At one point a customer had rented the DVD of Lukas Moodyssons Together and never returned it. I waited and waited; it never came back. In the meantime, you kept asking, "Is Together back?" "Is my favorite movie back?". That's right! Together is the favorite movie of quite a few of you! You know, the movies we love the most, we claim them. Like they're "our" movies! Others we then try to missionize to like these "our" favorite movies too. I'm sure some of you will perceive Together as a flashback back to your own childhood. After all, here we see children whose parents are in the downward spiral of separation. It goes like this: Father Rolf (Michael Nyqvist) beats his wife Elisabeth (Lisa Lindgren) and therefore Elisabeth takes the children to brother Goran (Gustaf Hammarsten). Goran lives in a commune called Tillsammans = Together. Tillsammans is located somewhere in the suburbs of Stockholm and it is 1975. Goran lives there with like-minded communards like his mistress Lena (Anja Lundqvist). Certainly Lena and Goran had once agreed to have an open relationship and now Lena sticks to the principle a bit more than Goran. And that's where Anna, who is now a lesbian, lives. And Anna's ex-husband Lasse and the children. Then there's gay Klas and revolutionary Erik. My uncle in '68 told me that "revolutionary" was a normal term for those who planned the revolution. In their Stockholm suburb. My uncle said all his friends were "revolutionaries" and they met to question each other about Marx or Lenin. For such ideological conversations, Together offers chickpeas and porridge, red wine and arguments about who does the dishes. The sweaters are clumsy, the hair fluffy. So comic characters? No! That's the art of Lukas Moodysson and that's why so many choose Together as their favourite film. All our prejudices against such people are gradually being dispelled in the film. Underneath the confusing, chaotic reality appears. At some point we even feel sympathy for a man who beats his wife after all and indignant frustration towards those who want to live a utopia here (and neglect their children in the process). Nothing is worse than ideologists! In contrast to Hollywood movies, the children here are not little clowns, but fully developed individuals. It's as if they are acting in their own film within the film, as their interests don't want to fit in with those of the "adults" at all. The "adults" argue about the difference between added value and profit, play torture and determine who General Pinochet has to be. And at this point we have to clear up a misunderstanding that also affects Moodysson's "Fucking Amal": Together is commonly called a Feel Good comedy (just like "Fucking Amal"). No!!! Uplifting might be Toether and you even hear Abba once. But the life of the commune is drawn deeply ironic and there is very little sunshine. Deep in the heart Together is a film about loneliness and the desperate attempts to get closer to each other. Together, that's all that matters, isn't it? Unfortunately, the characters in the film don't know it.

FREE ON CINEGEEK.DE David Lynch - Dune (Alternate Ending) 

Now that we at least know excerpts from "Jodorowsky's Dune", David Lynch's notorious version has to be put back into the DVD player! Since I started working at the Filmkunstbar Fitzcarraldo, I have never seen a customer who would have happily returned Dune to me. But it's still worth a self-experiment! I intend to ignore everything that seems pointless. I also overlook the cheap effects from the bargain paradise (and Dune cost 40 million dollars!). It's 1984, the SciFi genre has long since mutated into high-tech. David Lynch's Dune, on the other hand, looks as if it was from the 1950s. Everything is confused; the work is unstructured, never gets to the point. And looks ugly, as if Lynch has put a yellow filter over every shot! Maybe the film material was also faded by the sun? Sure, we're in the desert, but must it look so shabby? Those who have read the original by Frank Herbert may understand the plot a little better. In the center, the search for meaning of a young hero. He leads his people against a devilish baron who breaks up the galaxy with "Spice", a mind-expanding drug. "Spice" makes you think less and less (philosophical tones sound but are never continued). There are so many characters, so many narrative strands standing next to each other without motivation that we have to start from a meditation on Herbert's novel. Monsters like the sand worm obviously have button eyes and spaceships were never as ugly as in Dune! You can also see them sailing through the air attached to wires. The actors were attracted to ridiculous costumes, but they have to recite dialogues that seem out of context. Lynch's Dune is a project that obviously got out of hand. If you watch the documentary about "Jodorowsky's Dune", you get an idea of it! What a tragedy! "Jodorowsky's Dune" we were never allowed to experience and instead THAT here! 

FREE ON CINEGEEK.DE Tom Tykwer - 3 

In another vulgar genre, Tom Tykwer's 3 would be called a "Threesome" - but this is the Arthaus treatment of the same theme. In Tykwer's film there are also a number of sex scenes, but in his case the orgasms turn out sad and desperate. Less ecstatic. The focus is on a couple from Berlin who are about 40 years old and live in a committed relationship. Hanna (Sophie Rois) presents on TV and Simon (Sebastian Schipper) does business with art. They are not married, but who is? After 20 years they understand each other blindly, but the excitement of first love is gone. One evening Hanna goes out for a drink and Simon learns that he has testicular cancer. But he can't reach Hanna and time is running out, because Simon now has to have an operation. He refuses a general anaesthetic. In the meantime Hanna has met Adam (Devid Striesow). One thing leads to another; they end up in bed together. Soon afterwards, Simon meets Adam at the swimming pool. Unwittingly. The men talk about testicular cancer and have sex. Adam, by the way, is not a guy who could have come out of a Pasolini film, but a friendly man with a warm smile. Adam is not bisexual, more of an accommodating man. We learn more about Hanna and Simon's life through the flashbacks that Tykwer loves so much. In this way he can visualize ideas and possibilities as he did in his best films. Above all Tykwer can show how two parallel love affairs develop. And aren't all Tykwer films mainly about the medium FILM itself? What is decisive is that Adam has not the slightest idea that Hanna and Simon are a couple. He likes both and both like him. All three of them don't want to hurt anyone. They got themselves into a situation in the middle of their lives... Three is about affection, not lust. Because the one you are with, you love even more when you are NOT with him.

FREE ON CINEGEEK.DE Gaspar Noe - Climax 

Gaspar Noe, full-time provocateur, has made a new film that will split his audience. As always. Climax is of course not a "real" horror movie (contrary to the imdb genre definition) and also not as horrible as earlier works of Noes. Nevertheless, it's a movie you should watch at night. As a video retailer I advise: Climax is not a film you experience in daylight. I am and I have never been a friend of Gaspar Noes, but I was all the more surprised to enjoy Climax! Here we try to translate the uninterrupted energy of the protagonists through imagery. The music fits to this: very restless. The plot is simple: During a party a dance group mixes sangria with LSD and chaos develops. The pre-LSD half of the film is even stronger, thanks to the incredible dance sequences. Who knows, maybe Noe should direct a teen dance film? In Climax at least, he follows the dramaturgy of such films, divides the action into a series of dance numbers. In between, there are "solos" and interview sequences of the individual dancers (who are probably also "real" dancers). Here we learn more about their passions and fears. Then LSD is swallowed and Climax develops into a group number. Some will have noticed that Climax is less ambitious than earlier Gaspar Noe movies. But very effective! At least for those who wouldn't mind being trapped for a limited time in a house with stumbling young people.

FREE ON CINEGEEK.De Pieces Of April 

Here comes a Thanksgiving movie! It's about loving each other in the family and getting together again. In spite of everything. Pieces Of April was the role model for a whole indie direction that is about dysfunctional families. They argue, but in the end they reconcile - somehow. In the end it goes well for everyone. Only not for the turkey. - Two and a half parallel stories are told. The first is about how the Burns family travels from the suburbs to New York. At Thanksgiving they want to visit their daughter April. She lives as a punk in N.Y. Story two is about how April, who has never cooked anything in her life, tries to do just that. Story Three sends her boyfriend on an almost hopeless mission. Katie Holms plays the tattooed April, the shame of her family. Derek Luke gives her boyfriend - one of a kind with whom nothing ever works. The parents are Jim Burns (Oliver Platt) and Joy (Patricia Clarkson), but the film focuses entirely on the mother and daughter relationship. Joy suffers from breast cancer and in all probability this will be her last Thanksgiving. But her own mortality is a nice opportunity for Joy to spread her own humor. After the punk rock rebellion, April's apartment looks like a dump, but her boyfriend convinces her that it's enough for Thanksgiving Dinner. It's just stupid that April's oven is broken, which leads to a mission through the broken neighborhood. Whose stove still works? A nice and funny odyssey, which reminds us that in America everyone is an immigrant (whether Chinese or "American"). But then the movie ends abruptly, just as if the money had run out. Maybe it was like that? on wikipedia you can read that Pieces Of April only cost 300.000 Dollars and Holmes renounced her fee. The pictures also seem as if the cameraman didn't have time. Apart from that, however, it became a lively and likeable comedy that even conveys human insights! I think Pieces Of April was a matter close to the heart of director Peter Hedges. He (who also wrote the script) wrote something about his liver. Beautiful!

FREE ON CINEGEEK.De Jim Jarmusch - Down By Law 

Down By Law is about cheap whiskey and black coffee. About taking any dirty job and living the life of a complete loser. Only girls offer some variety. Together: a pimp, an unemployed DJ and a confused tourist from Italy. They escape from prison, make their way through the swamps of Louisiana and search for a breakfast place. Filmed by copy & past from blues songs, prison movies and old thrillers. "It's a sad and beautiful world," someone noticed. Right. Can you choose not to be a loser? Can you buy the American dream? Tom Waits, John Lurie, and Roberto Benigni will explore these questions. They will meet in a prison cell and become victims of a whole chain of misfortunes. Two of them hate each other. But what is hatred against this all over happy and satisfied Italian? In any case, they escape together, drag themselves through the swamps and encounter every single cliché that seems possible. They may be there in Louisiana, but in reality they're in an art world borrowed from "pulp novels" and "film noir" classics. A grim film, but infused with serenity. Are we even supposed to take all this seriously? Like every Jim Jarmusch film, Down By Law sometimes suffers from lengths. And by being too busy with its hip surface instead of actually trying to have some real conversations. But Down By Law is an original and probably gets better with every run!

FREE ON CINEGEEK.De Charles Burnett - Killer Of Sheep 

Nothing is more difficult than the depiction of normal life in a movie. Especially because we are used to "storytelling" from so many other works: ...patterns of narration and certain actions that come up again and again. Or do film characters behave like real people? Charles Burnett, however, shows the normal everyday routine. He demonstrates a life in poverty that leaves people no freedom of choice. He shows the life of a family from Watts, which is bound by strong values but without opportunities. The life of this family ends in nowhere. Just like the movie. Stan (Henry Gayle Sanders) works in the slaughterhouse. He works to the point of exhaustion. In the evening, at home, he repairs the sink and the like. His wife (Kaycee Moore) is beautiful but tired. When Stan comes home, she freshens up her make-up for him (which he doesn't even notice). In a casual sequence of episodes we get to know her children, her neighbours, her life. We see nothing and everything at the same time. Filmed in black and white, which gives us a feeling of resignation. This is how Killer Of Sheep became a classic - which hardly anyone knows. Take a test and enter it on Netflix. Of course no hit. Our colleague Thomas Groh, however, created the DVD version in a cardboard cover for our video store. As a USA import with a regional code 1, which you can see with a code free player (for example a very cheap DVD player) or by getting instructions on DVD-sucht.de. Burnett's movie was made as a graduation film. For no money. That's why you could hardly see it already in 1978. You can find the whole story of its creation on www.killerofsheep.com. Now when you watch our DVD, you should be prepared. Relaxed. One scene follows the other with no apparent pattern. In addition, the music of the great Dinah Washington is played, because on a deeper level Killer Of Sheep also wants to be a film about African-American music. Music by and about Afro-Americans. Again and again the life of the adults is interrupted by the playing children. But they are playing in a wasteland full of garbage! A child is beaten and bleeds. Stan's work is also bloody, because he kills sheep in the slaughterhouse. A terrible job. Stan slits their throats and watches the blood flow out. Then two strangers come and try to implicate Stan in a crime. They are sent away. Charles Burnett himself grew up in Watts. He's one of America's greatest filmmakers, but not one who ever made a hit. Like no other, he is able to capture the empty hot summer days in Mississippi. When the windows are open and the dust settles in. A life in the ghetto, but not the ghetto with guns and drugs that we know from other films. The ghetto is a place for good, hard-working people who try to make ends meet, raise their children and get some sleep.

FREE ON CINEGEEK.DE Jean-Pierre Jeunet - Amelie 

Amelie Poulain, a cheerful fantasy about a girl with a sad childhood, who grew up to be a shy woman, to cheer up the needy and give herself the greatest joy. It's one of those movies that makes you smile, you think about it afterwards. Amelie Poulain, this is Audrey Tautou. She looks like someone who knows a secret (but can't keep it). As a girl, she hungers for love because her father never kisses or caresses her. As a doctor, he only touches her when he examines her daughter, which in turn makes her tremble with happiness. Her mother committed suicide in Notre Dame (but that doesn't reveal as much about the plot as we would expect from this symbolism). Anyway, Amelie grew up lonely and alone. She works as a waitress in a bistro. It was the death of Princess Diana that changed her whole life. Amelie is shocked to drop a teapot and knock a hole in the floor. She finds a boy's box that traces his whole life. Amelie decides at this moment to make other people happy. And in every respect! That in turn would give her a life full of joy. Who still remembers how Amelie wasn't allowed to run in Cannes (too little serious, according to the serious explanation), but then the audience was enraptured at festivals and rated number 54 of the best films on imdb. That says a lot about Amelie, who gives people so much pleasure and kindness. Virtuously staged in a Paris that is not the "real" modern one, but one we know from fairy tales. A clean, colourful, luminous Paris as it was designed in Hollywood in the 50s and never existed. So Amelie gives the owner of the box his happiness and decides to do it with other people. Then she meets Nino (Mathieu Kassovitz), who works in a porn shop. Nino has a strange hobby: he collects the pictures of photo machines that have been thrown away and makes missed collages from them. Nino sees Amelie in her cafe and she literally dissolves (in the true sense!). She is in love with Nino, but much too shy to talk to him (Amelie instead becomes a true stalker). Amelie Poulain, a masterpiece full of ideas. For example the picture Amelies on Montmartre. She wonders how many Parisians have an orgasm at the same time? Then we see them all in an amusing montage. Of course, as a video store I don't produce films myself, I just watch them. Nevertheless, I can imagine that there is nothing more difficult than to make such an agile and charming comedy! A tightrope act full of kitsch and quirks and Jean-Pierre Jeunet manages everything! Amelie Poulin becomes our girlfriend, the film becomes a single invitation. 

FREE ON CINEGEEK.De Yorgos Lanthimos - The Killing of A Sacred Deer 

Yesterday my Cinegeek partner called me just to let me know that the new Lanthimos movie is not as good as the previous ones. The time has come: Yorgos Lanthimos, the most original auteur of recent years, is now being sawed! Wrongly, of course. My Cinegeek partner should polish his glasses and look at The Killing Of A Sacred Deer again. It's about a man who plays God and a boy who decides to give the devil. Everything is metaphorical here. Lanthimos creates an impossible situation to make human fears perceptible, even clear. The result is a hypnotic horror film that asks questions we simply can't think of any good answers. Is something like a happy ending possible in this bizarre situation? Lanthimos unites really great actors in front of the camera and proves once again his love for detail. Not as good as his previous movies? Nonsense, the best movie of the year! Colin Farrell, a little gray, plays Dr. Steven Murphy, a respectable surgeon. Murphy's side, his gorgeous wife Anna (Nicole Kidman). He has two children too. Murphy is friends with Martin (Barry Keoghan), a 16-year-old boy whose father died years ago on Murphy's operating table. Now Murphy feels like the boy's fatherly friend. Their relationship becomes clear right at the beginning. Both seem strangely distant, then Murphy gives the boy an expensive watch. We don't know anything about either of them at this point, we think it might be about sexual services. But it's even worse... We don't know exactly how Martin's father died. Lanthimos also leaves open how Murphy and Martin got "closer". Murphy introduces the boy as his daughter's friend, but he's not. It is true that Martin makes friends with Murphy's children and probably also has feelings for his daughter. But here too we feel a dark undertone. Something in Dr. Murphy's household just doesn't seem right. One morning Murphy's son tries to get up, but his legs don't work anymore. He refuses to eat. Martin enlightens the doctor: Justice prevails. Murphy took his father, now a member of the doctor's family has to die in return. The doctor may choose: Either he kills one member of his family or a curse hits the rest. They will refuse food and even bleed from their eyes. It almost seems as if a balance is being created here between science and the supernatural. Murphy plays God. He creates and he takes life. His world is black and white. Martin destroys this controlled world and demands something that is rarely demanded of gods: A personal sacrifice. The Killing of a Sacred Deer plays in a world of clear lines and white spaces. In a hospital world. Later, the title of the film is also revealed when one of the protagonists writes an essay on Iphigenia. Who else knows it from school? Well, we are almost a Greek bar, so many Greek colleagues work for us. All keen on Greek mythology and ready to help out briefly: It was Artemis, the god of hunting, who imposed Agamemnon to sacrifice his daughter Iphigenia. It is said to be Agamemnon's "Sacred Deer". Agamemnon was the ruler of Mycenae and leader of the Greeks against Troy. In fact, he enjoyed a similar status to Murphy within his family. Does that make Martin Artemis? But even here clear lines are missing. Lanthimos plays with the Greek myth and uses his black humor for his psycho-horror. What remains in the end? I think if you choose to play God, you have to be willing to take the consequences.

FREE ON CINEGEEK.De Krzysztof Kieslowski - A Short film About Killing 

It was in the late 80s that Krzysztof Kieslowski, together with Krzysztof Piesiewicz, created one of the greatest works in film history: The Decalogue, including A Short Film About Love and A Short Film About Killing. Structured like a TV series in one-hour episodes, but undeniably in the visual language of cinema, The Decalogue transcends the boring debate about whether cinema or television (and today streaming) is better. In our box set, you now get all the episodes and get to decide for yourself whether it's big screen or small screen. Even harder: try to put the Decalogue into words. A ten-part series based on the 10 Commandments but going far beyond its structure. Some episodes deal with several commandments and it is never explicitly explained which one exactly. Commandment No. 5 "Thou shalt not kill" forms the basis for episode 5 "A Short Film About Killing". A harrowing episode that questions the death penalty as well as murder. But is it even possible to make films about individual commandments in an increasingly complex world? Won't everything be connected to everything else? It is. Kieslowski films like a good teacher. Like a good father. A decent man who takes care of all of us as if we were his children. And so we too feel something like parental affection! He creates just such a character in the Decalogue; a kindly professor who programmes together with his son. Is he playing God? But Kieslowski would never turn his own characters into villains. He always shows compassion. We feel this compassion for all his characters. He never wants to show us something like sin in the modern world. All of Kieslowski's characters are deeply flawed, but always traceable to something greater than themselves. Kieslowski is interested in general human experience, not in any kind of denigration of the godless. Try watching several episodes in a row. An act of almost overwhelming power! All the episodes take place in the same apartment complex. So sometimes we meet the characters from episode 4 again in episode 2. Then you start to notice thematic lines.... Those who, just like me, are exhausted by films that don't really like their characters deserve to enjoy Kieslowski's cinema! It's always about kindness and compassion! A togetherness! Kieslowski gets involved with the people in his films. And so we are also allowed to discover something of ourselves in his characters. And what we see changes us. Even more: The Decalogue changes with us as we grow older. Look at the work again in ten years and you will see it from a completely new perspective. You discover something new! Dekalog was indispensable in the 80s, just as it was in the 00s and just as it is today. Dekalog will always be indispensable! 

FREE ON CINEGEEK.De Jean Paul Belmondo - La Viaccia 

Foggy, rainy Florence; we stroll through the narrow streets and piazzettas and end up at Maison Tellier, lovingly re-constructed with its plush curtains and upholstered sofas. A wonderful picturesque charm! But what is behind it? What can still hold our attention today? Quite simple; Claudia Cardinale, who was at the height of her fame in 1961, and Jean-Paul Belmondo, who triggered what was called "Belmondomania" in France. The young star of the Nouvelle Vague! The story goes like this: a young peasant goes to town and falls in love with a girl from the Maison Tellier. He tries to convince her of the depth of his love, takes on degrading jobs. Then it comes to a showdown, a knife fight with a suitor.... Both live in an impoverished society, made greedy and mean by their hardship. The love relationship, however, remains vague. We can never let ourselves fall and feel this love. Perhaps it is also because we always imagine Belmondo casually grinning, always with a cigarette between his teeth, even when he slumps down dead? Do we really believe him as a sad lover? Claudia Cardinale, on the other hand, embodies the ideal woman. She is cool, reassuring, beautiful - but uncritical. She knows no answers. In the end, her Bianca is just as hopeless as everyone else. In the thoughts of the sad lover, however, she transforms into a comforting muse. What love is like.

FREE ON CINEGEEK.De Dardenne - The Unknown Girl  

Usually there is genre cinema on one side and what the Dardenne brothers represent on the other. They look to the side of the losers in the world of work. Bitter, but never cynical. It's not about motivating them, it's about the people. In the Dardennes' films they are in social predicament and this is presented in a realistic style. La fille inconnue, however, is above all strange, somewhat artificial and completely without passion. Dr. Jenny Davin (Adele Haenel) is a young doctor about to take an important step in her career. She examines patients, writes prescriptions and there is no question how much this work means to her. Then comes that fateful night. She already finished her practice when there was a knock. Usually it often works far beyond its opening hours. But this time she won't. The next day we find out that an African woman was murdered on the riverbank who had been looking for entry shortly before. Davin has a serious accusation. She cancels a lucrative job in the clinic and takes over her predecessor's practice instead. She also sets out in search of the identity of the dead. Suddenly we're in the middle of a thriller. Previously friendly neighbours drop their masks and a few shady characters appear... The problem with the film: Davin's character is so meaningless that the camera can't tell us anything about her inner life. Is there a trial in her life? I don't think so. She's too clever. It's a bit disappointing when you think how passionate Dardenne films usually come along! But everyone who loves her as much as I do should make up his own mind about La fille inconnue. After all, even a slight misstep by the Dardennes is even more interesting than most of what happens in the cinema. 

Film List 90's Romantic Comedies 

The genre of romantic comedy demands a whole range of obstacles that stand in the way of true love. And nothing is funnier than love itself! The biggest difficulty in itself: girls never tell you what to do next. Basically, what is commonly called "life" works the same way: love, friendship, happiness and the loss of all that.

FREE ON CINEGEEK.DE David Lynch - The Straight Story 

On the surface, of course, David Lynch's The Straight Story is about Alvin Straight's odyssey through the Midwest and its sleepy communities. But there is much more! The Straight Story is also about all the people who care about Alvin and listen to him. So much kindness among strangers? But The Straight Story is based on a true incident. Yes, it does exist, this kindness among strangers! 73-year-old Alvin Straight (Richard Farnsworth), for one, is from Iowa. He learns that his brother is dying. Alvin wants to see him one last time! But neither he nor his daughter Rose (Sissy Spacek) own a car. The only thing they have is a tractor-like lawn mower. One look at the vehicle and Alvin knows how he will get to Wisconsin to see his brother. 300 miles lie ahead of him to Zion - the name of the town where his brother lives. On the way, we learn some secrets about Alvin, including some very painful ones from the war. Alvin is a cultured man, but when he talks, we notice how rarely he has had any conversations at all in his life. Yet he always finds exactly the right everyday words full of calm and conviction. Back when The Straight Story was released, the David Lynch community was waiting for something new and bizarre from him. I'm sure everyone thought The Straight Story was about to go off the rails. But it never does. Not even when Alvin meets Spinner. He simply follows the country road and there are never any shoals like in Blue Velvet. It is a journey into the past. Alvin remembers when he (and his brother) were young and full of wonder! Back when they sat together and looked at the stars. Then Alvin got engaged and married. He joined the army, lost many years to drunkenness and meanness. But he came out of it all a better man. The people along the way seem to sense that. The greatest thing about The Straight Story is the FACE! Alvin aka Richard Farnsworth looks like an old leather rag and you could do a whole Italo Western trilogy with this ensemble otherwise! Men sitting at the end of the bar or serving behind the bar. Just like proper good old-fashioned bartenders who always hit the right note. even David Lynch always hits the right note. Who do you think the dying brother will be? What will he say? And one thing we learn: Just because you haven't seen someone for ages doesn't mean you have much to tell them.... 

FREE ON CINEGEEK.De The Motocycle Diaries 

If Ernesto Guevara de la Serna hadn't later become the pop star "Che", who adorns countless T-shirts and I'm afraid even coffee cups etc, nobody would be interested in this trip from Argentina to Peru. It's one of the countless movies about young men who wake up sometime and then are "Che", Dalai_Lama or anyone else. For those who weren't too interested in Che Guevara, he is a folk hero. If you read his "Philosophy" in more detail, you will notice that he was also repressive and authoritarian. Just like his fellow fighter Fidel, I would assign him to the right spectrum and not to the "communists". Che claims he loves his people. Their freedom to express or write down their own opinions was never meant! In the end, Cuba became more or less what someone like "Che" dreamed it would be... In Walter Salle's film Ernesto and his friend Alberto are planning a road trip. Neither of them ever sat on a motorcycle, let alone ever left Argentina. First stop: Ernestos girlfriend Chichina (Mia Maestro), whose rich father doesn't agree with the guest. Chichina may love him - but she doesn't know for how long. Would she wait for him forever? The shy Ernesto still owes an answer. Walter Salles turns the trip into a wonderful picture film. Mountains, lakes, forests and deserts are crossed and the two travellers are always dependent on strangers. Both are basically broke. On their journey they make good friends like the doctor from Lima or the farmer and his wife, whom they meet on the road. The farmer, an expellee from his own land by the capitalists. Again and again Ernesto looks at the suffering of the poor and in the end he confesses to his friend that something has changed in him. In the credits we learn how he joined the Cuban Revolution, later fought and died in Bolivia and the Congo. Now his legendary status was allowed to develop, courted by the left. Salles occupies the almost inhumanly nice Ernestu with Gael Garcia Bernal, the woman's favourite, and thus donates another piece of the puzzle that serves the myth. His film lives on the political correctness that it is simply not appropriate to be against the "Che". However, the political is weakened in the movie and sometimes Salle's work even seems a bit tired. We understand that Ernesto and Alberto are friends, but beyond that both are not developed and we also don't get to know anything about them. Quite different from good road movies! Their dialogues are quite limited for the fact that they should later mature into radical intellectuals. Everything they say serves the plot. There is no deeper insight. Ernesto isn't the "Che" yet, but a student. Maybe the journey changes him, but we don't experience that. At least Salles lets the poor farmers and workers pose for the camera, like stills in black and white. We understand that here we see the memories of the "Che". Imagine Salles trying to tell us that the "Che" would have helped these people later. I'm afraid the opposite was the case: he just inflicted more suffering on them.

FREE ON CINEGEEK.DE Ghostbusters 

Ghostbusters combines something that should be repelled according to the laws of Hollywood: 1) A blockbuster full of special effects. 2) A comedy with clever dialogues, just as if a clique of students were joking with each other - because that's exactly what the Ghostbusters troupe seems to me. So while a (para)psychological earthquake hits Manhattan, everyone is talking to each other as if the professor had just disappeared from the seminar for a moment. Fortunately, Ghostbusters breaks the rule that effects ruin a good comedy! Isn't it true that a comedy needs spontaneity, while an effects storm consists of painstaking detail work? Ivan Reitman's film can do both! Ghostbusters offers a whole host of effects - at the height of 1984's technology, and who doesn't like to remember a green-transparent slobber monster devouring a few hot dogs? But these arts are all in the service of the actors without exception. Here come Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis - second generation graduates of National Lampoon and Saturday Night Live. They are funny, but also witty. At high speed they play on American clichés, combining irony and cynicism with very banal nonsense. If you are looking for a definition for the cultivated humour of the 80s - here you go! And how many films are there that can boast such a large number of one-liners that are still in the vernacular today? The plot, if there is one at all, sends this parapsychological task force all over Manhattan. Things get difficult after Sigourney Weaver discovers some strange eggs in her kitchen. Her neighbor, Rick Moranis, also meets some real hell monsters. Apparently both live in apartments that function as a gateway to a parallel world. It's a location for the Ghostbusters, who are arming themselves with nuclear weapons. A lot of obscure stuff has to be discussed until the showdown, in which a monster the size of a skyscraper leads the fight of evil against good... In Ghostbusters, the fragile original idea actually survived a multi-million dollar production - again, good obviously succeeded! That's no justification for blockbuster comedies, but I'm thankful for every cent invested in Monster!

FREE ON CINEGEEK.DE Alain Resnais - Night And Fog 

Over 90 years old he became. His career lasted over six decades and he always had his finger on the pulse of his time: Alain Resnais. He became famous in 1955 with this documentary about the German concentration camps. Even today my father tells me how they showed Night And Fog at the film club. Some long-time members resigned as a result. They felt attacked by the young "Beatnicks" and their disrespectful films. Especially in Germany of the 50s Night And Fog must have been a brutal experience. And it still works today! Resnais was one of the very first to take up the subject of Nazi concentration camps. He invented a new technique to combine black and white images from the archives with color images of the abandoned camps. Right at the beginning we lose the ground under our feet. A supposedly safe room turns into a dangerous one. Crash. Below an idyllic landscape a barbed wire comes to light. Finally this barbed wire is the foreground. If we previously felt a feeling of satisfaction, this is now lost. The narrator comments: "A concentration camp is built like any stadium or a hotel". Even a church can lead to a concentration camp. We understand: Any place can be charged with hate and anger and xenophobia. In the following there will be nothing else but the Holocaust. No way to distract our gaze. The catastrophe becomes tangible and accompanies us through the montage of the film until the present day: "Are their faces really so different than ours?

FREE ON CINEGEEK.DE Die Beste Aller Welten 

Adrian Goiginger experienced everything himself, just as he told it in his debut film. Together with seven-year-old Adrian we stroll through Salzach with firecrackers and a dug-out spearhead. His mother Helga and her friend Günther are also there and all celebrate together. But then we notice how neglected the celebrants actually look. At some point, the mother is hardly addressable. But Adrian is used to it and doesn't mind. He grows up in this world. This - for him - best of all worlds! Helga (Verena Altenberger) loves Adrian (Jeremy Miliker) idolatrously and is the most caring mother he can imagine. The whole film can be understood as a declaration of love to Goiginger's mother! She always supported him, she always stood by him! Helga's apartment serves as a refuge for sad characters hiding from the police. In the middle of it, Adrian, reading or watching TV. Sometimes the guy from social services comes by and then all the mess has to be cleaned up. But this situation inspires Adrian and he decides to become an adventurer! Of course, he must also defeat the demons who persecute him... Goiginger makes this milieu study something very special, not damn anyone, but describes how drug addicts and petty criminals fight for survival. He shows the edge of society. And now? Well, Goiginger wants to finish his film studies, then he can start his second. What if this isn't a career story?