FREE ON CINEGEEK.DE Wim Wenders - Faraway, So Close 

Six years after "Wings Of Desire" (1987) Berlin was no longer the same city. Lucky for Wim Wenders, who had announced in the last picture of "Wings Of Desire": to be continued. This sequel - Faraway, So Close! - Wenders could now shoot in the reunited Berlin! That was 1993. Berlin, an adventure playground. While districts like Prenzlauer Berg or Mitte still looked like after the war, all over Potsdamer Platz construction cranes were growing into the sky. You remember; in "Wings Of Desire", Potsdamer Platz was still a green meadow. In part 1, an angel was left behind, alone on the Victory Column. His name is Cassiel (Otto Sander) and just like his friend Damiel (Bruno Ganz), who transformed into a human being in the first part, Cassiel has only one goal: To be close to people. He would love to be one of them! Just as both parts of Berlin were reunited, so it is with the angels Cassiel and Damiel. What does it mean to be alive, especially in Berlin 1993? When the material and spiritual worlds merge? Damiel became human because he loves the beautiful artist Marion (Solveig Dommartin). Cassiel transforms himself to save a little girl from falling off the balcony of a typical prefabricated building on Alexanderplatz. Cassiel, whom we see in colour after his incarnation, simply calls himself Karl Engel. He soon realizes how difficult it is to be human. He feels lonely and desperate. He has no money and no apartment, drowning his sorrow in alcohol. He complains to his beautiful girlfriend Raphaela (Nastassia Kinski), her sign Engel, that he no longer recognizes what lies beyond the horizon. By the way, Cassiel can no longer see or hear Raphaela as a human being. He still feels her, sometimes something tickles him. That's why Cassiel is sitting at the Hackescher Markt station, begging - when he meets Lou Reed. Lou Reed certainly knows the feeling of being at the bottom of the ladder: "You can do it"; says Lou. And Cassiel is still a guardian angel with a mission! He watches the girl he saved being shadowed by private detective Winter (as always as Philip Winter: Rüdiger Vogler). Is Winter looking for the girl's guardian, the chauffeur Konrad (Heinz Rühmann)? Here the trail leads back to the Nazi era in Berlin. Then the windy businessman Tony Baker (Horst Buchholz) appears, who is also related to Konrad and the girl... While Cassiel is confronted with moral decisions, the eerie Emit Flesti (Willem Dafoe) shadows him. I understand him as a kind of guardian of the universe. Or a fallen angel? He confronts Cassiel; "You are irregular". They exist, the former angels. Wenders is parading some of them. Mikhail S. Gorbachev, who thinks about the meaning of life, or Peter Falk, who can no longer see the angels, but feels their presence. Just like a child. "Wings Of Desire" was about love. "Faraway, So Close" was about the age-old struggle of good against evil. A fable that comes to life by showing the effects of this struggle on Germany in 1933, but also on Germany in 1993. Wim Wenders, whose "Wings Of Desire" had been banned in East Berlin at the time, is now allowed to balance his portrait of the divided German city with all its historical scars. With pretty good music by Lou Reed, Laurie Anderson, U2 and Nick Cave: "Cassiel's Song" and even more beautiful pictures than in the first part. P.S. At that time Wenders was accused of "Leni-Riefenstahl aesthetics". And that he offered the comedian of the NS era, Heinz Rühmann, the opportunity to present himself as a courageous man. I never shared this criticism. For me Faraway is, So Close! THE Berlin film par excellence. My memory of the exciting Berlin of the post-reunification period!

FREE ON CINEGEEK.DE Rudolf Thome - Pink 

How does a beautiful love story work? A couple looking deep into each other's eyes? Not enough. We have to feel their love. Or even better: fall in love with ourselves. Rudolf Thome films work like this: Thome himself is in love with his characters AND his actresses. That's why Hannah Herzsprung is omnipresent in pink. The camera loves her. Thome loves her. So do we. She sits in a pink shirt against a blue background. Or in the purple part in front of poison green. Thome does everything to put Herzsprung in the right light. He is just in love. And Herzsprung can be narcissistic, because she is a diva! In addition, there is music that could also come from a French film of the 60s. And isn't Thome the only worthy descendant of the Nouvelle Vague? Pink alias Herzsprung therefore has three admirers. A businessman and typical dream man with a winning smile and a somewhat tranquil eco farmer. Who will she choose? The organic farmer has somehow become rich. Like that we experience as little as the first encounter with these men. But Pink doesn't need any money. She earns her own with readings. "I'll write until I'm dead" is one of her poems. Does that sound like Thome? I would wish it for him, because for some time now nobody has been financing the works of this greatest German independent filmmaker! What a shame! Please look at Pink and change that! Says the filmkunstbar Fitzcarraldo.

FREE ON CINEGEEK.DE Britney Spears - Crossroads 

I have never been particularly interested in the "Free Britney" movement. Until today, when excerpts of Spear's testimony appeared on the record in the Times. Now I am very much interested in how it can be that a person has to take medication against their will and be locked away for more than a decade? Then I searched for Spear's feature film Crossroads and was pleasantly surprised. Crossroads is far from a bad film! "I'm Not A Girl, Not Yet a Woman." It's really not easy growing up. Spears famously never succeeded. Her entire career functioned as an extended adolescence. She was a child star in the Mickey Mouse Club, precocious schoolgirl pop star, then a punchline in the gossip columns of repulsive magazines, and finally the ward of her own father's tutelage. When Spears was just 20, she sang "Not A Girl." Of course, critics at the time trashed her film; but fans knew better. It almost seems like a revelation when Spears belts out her song at the climax of the film! Crossraods is a cute coming of age story about three girls. They cross the southern states of the USA in search of what is called "being grown up". They're threatened by a guy who everyone wrongly thinks of as a bad boy. The stuff of many a teenager's dreams! And wasn't it really a cursed era for young girls back then? In Crossroads, everything is pastel. The colours of Britney Spears. With eyeshadow, mica and endless cleavage. This is what the boom of misogynistic pop star culture and uncomfortably sexualised female singers looked like. Fortunately, Crossroads escapes this trap. Crossroads shows serious sympathy for the problems of the three girlfriends. If you play around with imd a bit, you'll notice that director Tamra Davis is a serious feminist. Spears Lucy always seems innocent, even when she is lolling on a dance pole or singing Madonna's Open Your Heart in the bedroom. In addition, pressing issues such as rape, teenage pregnancy or the body image of young women are not left out. Quite playfully and incidentally. Quite openly, without judgement. Crossroads is a friendly film and when Spears Lucy slowly finds her voice, we genuinely rejoice with her. She has to emancipate herself from her overbearing father (Dan Aykroyd), gets support from her friends. She will find her way. At the time, it seemed like there was hope for Britney Spears....

FREE ON CINEGEEK.DE Bill Forsyth - Gregory's Girl 

Somewhere I read this in the newspaper and it sounds plausible: a study that says that physically good-looking men are less good at business. They earn less money, marry less "desirable" partners earlier than men with average looks. What conclusion can be drawn? Do the handsome men try less at school because they invest more time in social contacts? Do they rely too much on their charm than on pushing ahead at university? And do they end up marrying women who look more married than career-oriented? Bottom line: the acne-ridden youngster, the geek, does better in the long run than the super-athlete. That's what Bill Forsyth's charming comedy is about. It's an almost forgettable, very funny film about a weird guy. Gregory's Girl is set in Scotland and at least some customers of our video store claim that teenagers in Scotland are calmer and more relaxed. At least than here in Berlin. Gregory (Gordon John Sinclair) is one such guy. A lanky boy who runs around the football pitch in a completely uncoordinated way and suddenly shoots. Totally out of context. He looks like a bird. Then he loses his place on the football team. Dorothy (Dee Hepburn), of all people, replaces him, because she is much more athletic. And Gregory? He falls in love with her at first sight. For those who remember their own school days, Gregory experiences romance in much the same way as a physical illness. Dorothy is sweet to him, but also remains distant. She suspects how much he is in love with her. She is simply far ahead of him in analysing the whole situation and knows how to behave. All this takes place in a suburb of Glasgow. There, where the kids hang around bored and discuss endlessly. They speculate about the impossibility of being happy at seventeen. So Gregory turns to his young sister. She has no interest in boys at all, although Gregory compliments her that although she is only ten, she already looks thirteen. Gregory also comforts his best friend. He is fifteen and a half and has never experienced true love.... Anyone who watches Gregory's Girl notices how much we tend to forget all those things from adolescence. We remember how pointless it is to explain to teenagers what mistakes they make. What for?? After all, every teenager has analysed every single little mistake down to the last detail. Boys in particular are hopelessly overwhelmed in the turmoil of first romance. Lost. Girls, at least, still reserve their own perspective. They react more pragmatically. For it is an unwritten law of the universe that no seventeen-year-old ever immediately falls in love with the "right one". Forsyth's comedy pokes gentle fun at such insights. The film contains much wisdom about what it's like to be young and vulnerable. And it's no great help when, in a situation like Gregory's, you realise that you're not only going through extraordinary agony but, moreover, that you're not even unique. I would give Gregory's Girl a 35+ release. This is a film for adults only. The kind of people who have successfully lived through their first agonies of love. Those who have successfully overcome the pain of unrequited love (hohoho).

FREE ON CINEGEEK.DE Bound By Honor 

Bound by Honor tells the story of Miklo, the son of a Chicano mother and a white father, who struggles to be accepted by the barrio gangs of East LA. He earns respect and spends much of his life in prison. He grows up with two cousins he calls brothers. Their lives all develop in different directions: Miklo goes to prison, Paco to the police, Cruz becomes an artist and takes drugs. And if you know enough gang films from the 90s, you'll even think you're familiar with the East L.A. milieu. And who doesn't remember when Miklos and Cruz sit in front of a mural that sums up their entire lives as the camera glides skyward? Bound By Honor is one of those films you watched as a teen and never forgot! The epic contains some effective actor performances and moments of deep truthfulness. Presumably, things are the same in prison as they are in the film. If nothing else, Taylor Hackford teaches us a lesson with his work, as the life of a hero leads us to realise that power corrupts. But if power had not corrupted Miklo's life, it would still have been wasted... Are there any role models at all in this story full of nihilism? No. One notices this especially during the passages of prison life. The guards stand on the sidelines while gangs run the institution. They make their own rules, which they execute by force. In prison there are: 1. Chicanos, 2. blacks, 3. whites. They are all portrayed in a racist way. In general, hardly anyone in this film can portray themselves outside the role imposed on them by their skin colour. Miklos' dilemma. The gangs rule through alliances and truces. Miklo's central concern is to bring about a truce between Hispanics and blacks. This way he can break the power of the whites. At first, he works together with the Chicano leader, only to become the leader himself through betrayal. Is it ever possible for a protagonist to rise above himself? To discover what it means to be human? To find out that there is more to it than allying oneself against those one hates (with those who are like oneself and in turn hate the others). The principle of the Other seems to be ghetto reality. Hackford's drama seems realistic. But does it make any sense? A vision? Does it even have to? Life may be meaningless, but isn't it up to art to find ways out? Or am I thinking in Hollywood terms? Bound By Honor is well directed and remains utterly meaningless. Basically, the film lacks a hero, although everything revolves around this hero. There is a zero number at the centre.

FREE ON ARTE John Carpenter - They Live 

They Live is a perfect B-Movie! Maybe even one of the best B-Movies ever! The plot itself is absurd: the story of a homeless guy called George Nada (and surprisingly well played by Roddy Piper, who is not an actor, but a wrestler). Nada walks through Los Angeles and finds sunglasses one day. Through the glasses he realizes that the whole earth is populated by aliens who have taken control. They resemble us - apparently, as Nada notices through sunglasses. Signs like "No Individual Thought" cannot be seen without the new lenses either. Their central effect is the television station and Nada has to switch it off. Without the television station all people are able to see the true face of the invaders. On his way to destroy the station, he kills some aliens without any worries - just like it was usual in the 80s. Sounds like a freak? Well, that's because he's crazy. But John Carpenter's film is a lot of fun, because he doesn't take it too hard, but knows exactly: The metaphorical level is a cheek! But if you compare They Live with other 80s action films, there's this satirical quality that makes Carpenter so special. Fortunately, the parable is not Carpenter's main concern. They Live also has weaknesses, so nothing happens in the first third except that Nada is looking for the sunglasses. Surprisingly, the soundtrack (as always composed by Carpenter himself) is annoying because the motifs are constantly repeated. After Carpenter had unsuccessfully spent some big budgets during the mid 80s, They Live shows how little the film cost (and Carpenter proudly pointed that out at the time). As noted, They Live is not an A-movie, but a B-movie. At no time does Carpenter's work run the risk of reaching the heights of a masterpiece. But considering the low costs, the absence of great actors and certainly the haste in which it was shot, it has become a really good film! Entertaining, frolicsome and unpredictable! A "Hidden Gem" and of course undervalued. You amuse yourself when Nada chews gum and aliens polish your face? Then you're a B-movie friend.

FREE ON CINEGEEK.DE Sonnenallee 

 It takes about ten years until events such as German reunification find their way into the cinema. Remember, most German films of the 90s were set in Cologne or Munich and the characters in them were architects or journalists. Finally, Thomas Brussig wrote the script for "Sun Alley", which was realised by the theatre director Leander Haussmann. That was in 1999 and the "Ostalgie" developed. That's why it's so funny in this musical about the border area. The Berlin Wall looked like this: There were always two concrete walls, between them a sandy strip of about 30 meters with a tarred road for the border vehicles. Every three hundred meters there was an observation tower. In the west there were also such towers, but for tourists, to take a look over into socialism. Sometimes the tourists also threw a "Mars bar" over. Like in the zoo. In general such "Wessies" were something very unpleasant. Leander Haussmann built the wall like this. Like in the theater. Not real, more symbolic. And so everything seems much more ironic than if the real grey concrete wall had been shown. The camera stays mostly down in the border area. In an East German perspective, in Friedrichstrasse or in Prenzlauer Berg. The film throws a look back. It shows a private life that could be painful, but also exciting and moving. It is the life of Micha (Alexander Scheer). Micha is seventeen and in love, who cares about the SED or FDJ? Micha's family is typical GDR: They watch West German television, complain about the state and play the good GDR citizen in front of their Stasi neighbours. Fortunately, this attitude is not denounced in "Sun Alley". After all, almost all of us would have lived exactly the same way. And it works because we experience it from the perspective of a 17-year-old. And 17-year-old boys are actually only interested in girls. Like Mario (Alexander Beyer), who is deflowered by Sabrina (Elena Meissner). Unfortunately, Sabrina is then pregnant and Mario has to cooperate with the GDR state. Because otherwise there is no good job. Mario works from now on for the Stasi. Micha can't believe it, hits his best friend. But he is an opportunist himself and gives a flaming speech during the FDJ meeting, just to impress Miriam (Teresa Weissbach). Maybe the most important change in the life of the GDR kids is called rock music. It starts in the GDR with a delay. You have to know, that the GDR youth listened to 60s rock music even in the 90s. Simply because in the GDR there was more "Cream" than "Depeche Mode". The most important record: "Exile On Main Street" by the "Rolling Stones" - and it can even save lives in "Sun Alley".

FREE ON CINEGEEK.DE Hans Christian Schmid - Requiem 

The horror lives in the German province, where people are poisoned with God. It must be sometime in the 70s, in a nameless Swabian village. The student revolt never took place here, the vicar rules his community. Education has never been given to this region. Here lives Michaela Klingler (Sandra Hüller), an inconspicuous girl in her twenties. All her life she suffered from an illness, this "thing", but finally she found a place to study pedagogy in Tübingen. This "thing" is called epilepsy in medicine. For mother Klingler (Imogen Kogge), however, it is certain that Michaela will be haunted by the devil. But that seems to be behind Michaela, who is now moving into the dormitory and is finding a bosom friend for the first time. Only on the weekends she has to return to her homeland, which is colder and colder from time to time. Michaela desperately tries to get the love of her mother - but in vain. In Tübingen Michaela falls in love for the very first time, celebrates exuberantly and experiences a relapse into epilepsy. On an election drive she tears the rosary during a seizure. The bond between her and God seems cut forever. "Why doesn't God leave me happiness?"; she asks the priest Borchert (Jens Harzer), who is slowly becoming obsessed with the idea of driving Michaela out of the devil... Michaela is not only lost to her parents, but also to medicine and religion. Hans-Christian Schmid shows her torments discreetly, often from behind. Michaela suffers quietly, she fights. We do not see her with a distorted face and yet her body seems to react to everything religious with twitches. Requiem is interested in what exists outside the social norm. Michaela, a victim everyone thinks is insane. She thinks she is the successor of Saint Katherina and bears the suffering of all mankind. Michaela believes she is serving a higher cause - and slowly we understand how the fanaticism of Evangelical Christians or radical Islamists works. 

FREE ON CINEGEEK.DE Abbas Kiarostami - The Taste Of Cherry 

Who remembers the drama in Cannes 1997? Abbas Kiarostami was allowed to leave Iran at the last second to get to the premiere of The Taste Of Cherry. There were standing ovations for Kiarostami before the film. In the end he won the Golden Palm. Today at the video counter of the film art bar Fitzcarraldo I discussed the film with two customers. Both thought The Taste Of Cherry was a great masterpiece. I felt as if I had seen a half-finished film. A parable about life and death, which could be performed wonderfully, so that it sounds like a big movie after all... The story: A man in a Range Rover turns through a landscape near Tehran that looks like a huge construction site. The man's name is Mr. Badhi (Homayon Ershadi). He wants to commit suicide and is looking for someone to kill him. The first one he asks, however, runs away. Suicide is forbidden by the Koran and so the undertaking doesn't seem that easy. But finally he meets an old man who needs money and agrees. Nevertheless, the old man argues why suicide is not a solution: Could he, Badhi, live without the taste of cherries? Kiarostami tells this in long monotonous shots. You almost never see two figures in one shot. The Range Rover drives through the devastated landscape for quite a long time, then Bahi smokes again in an equally long sequence. The two customers at the video counter praised Kiarostami, who films so slowly and intensively. At a time when our attention span is getting shorter and shorter (that's how I learn), The Taste Of Cherry would be a healing antidote. Due to the slowness of the film one could get fully involved in the existential dilemma of the man. I don't have a problem with slow movies at all. I love the Japanese classics, yes I am addicted to them! Kiarostami's style, however, seems to me to be affected. His subject doesn't demand this monotony at all! And Badhi? Can we really concentrate better on his character, his dilemma? But wouldn't it be helpful to know him a little better? Do we even know anything about him? Kiarostami makes no attempt to bring this man closer to us. He only lets him look into the distance pregnant with meaning. And is it necessary that we sometimes see Kiarostami's camera team in the picture? Is that supposed to make us aware that everything is just a film? However, I have some bad news: The Taste Of Cherry is so lifeless that I can never really immerse myself in the movie. Basically, I agree with the two customers: It's good when movies aren't just an action storm! It's good when a Persian director secretly shoots and risks a lot! Yes, we all support artistic freedom in the Islamic Republic! Yes, there are great films from Iran! But is The Taste Of Cherry an experience I wouldn't want to miss? No.

FREE ON CINEGEEK.De Luc Besson - Subway 

Subway wants to be a subculture, but it's not. Christopher Lambert and Isabelle Adjani have dressed up as punks and are chasing through the Paris Metro. I used to think it was stupid - after all, I wanted to see "real" subculture and not theatre. That's exactly Subway - but today I enjoy it! Fred (Christopher Lambert), with blond hair, flees with a stolen car from pursuers in black suits. He jumps out of the car and runs into the metro. The Paris Metro is the world of the drummer Jean Reno plays. Here live "weird" guys who know every corner of the subway network. Fred calls Héléna (Isabelle Adjani), because at her party he blew up a safe with documents. Now he suggests an exchange. This "plot" takes place between different music or action interludes that make use of the fund of film history. Nothing is real, we are in the "Cinema Du Look": Style Over Substance! Subway is a reflex to the trends of the time: Punk, New Wave, Neo-Noir and so forth. A spawn of the 80s. He could run for hours on MTV; a walkman for the eyes. Eric Serra's musical carpet to it looks like a self-service store. Subway is Luc Besson's second film, whose strength has always been images, but never dialogue. We can enjoy a few samples, for example when Isabelle Adjani talks to her husband's friends at his dinner (exchange of words like from the school performance of some high school students). But Subway won something else (and maybe Besson can't help it): The charm of nostalgia. This is one of those movies that seem like a journey through time. Subway is hopelessly biased in his time and therefore we are forced to go back to the 80s with the film. If you want to start this journey, watch Subway!

FREE ON CINEGEEK.DE James Cameron - Titanic 

These are moving scenes of the Titanic lying at the bottom of the sea - encrusted with algae and silt. A camera travels through the corridors and cabins, which are now inhabited by shellfish. Sometimes you think you hear voices from the past, as if from a grave. They talk about the glamour, the hype of the past, because that is what this ship represented. The most monstrous ship in the history of mankind, they boast (as if the pyramids had never existed). The camera moves from bow to stern, once again illuminating a ship that was considered unsinkable. Until the tip of an iceberg found an irrefutable answer. James Cameron's blockbuster is about the last voyage of the Titanic and takes its cue from the greatest Hollywood epics of the past. We notice that he has no intention of adding anything new to these classics. Above all, Titanic wants to be perfect in filling the old formulas with new life. We all know that the Titanic must sink. But what will happen before then? James Cameron shows off his ship; we are absolutely convinced that it is real. Now we experience a love story across social classes and we learn something about the arrogance of the builders of the Titanic - but also something of their dignity. All these elements are well balanced until it comes to the sinking scenario. The Titanic sank in a period of two and a half hours. Time enough to carefully stage the catastrophe. The love story is about poor Rose DeWitt Bukater (Kate Winslet). Rose from the best family and yet penniless. That is why she is forced by her mother to marry the rich snob Cal Hockley (Billy Zane). This fate seems inevitable; Rose believes, which is why she wants to throw herself off the deck of the ship to commit suicide. She is watched by an Irish lad who has not much more than what he wears on his body. His name is Jack Dawson (Leonardo DiCaprio) and he rescues Rose. They fall in love in the short time they have left. This brief love is in the foreground, with the magnificent prop of the ship discreetly behind it. Jack is asked by Rose to dinner in first class, later they flee from her promised husband's henchmen into the engine rooms. Titanic's management demands that they break the transatlantic speed record. The warning that icebergs could float in and be noticed too late at high speed is disregarded. The Titanic could easily break the speed record, but the ship is too massive for a short turning manoeuvre. We witness this theoretical treatise in an agonising sequence. The narrative technique is ingenious, because we know exactly what is happening -how the iceberg cuts the ship open. After all, the entire voyage has been explained scientifically beforehand thanks to modern narrative techniques. Brock Lovett (Bill Paxton), An underwater explorer, introduces us to the sinking of the Titanic with all the details. We realise that the opening scenes, showing off the wreckage of the sunken Titanic, are set during an expedition. Meanwhile, an old woman watches the images on television and recognises herself. It is Rose, who is now 101 years old. She is taken to the expedition team by helicopter and the old woman is able to bring Brock's research results to life. She remembers everything very clearly: "I can still smell the fresh paint". The computer animations that Brock creates also serve as a briefing for us viewers. We learn everything in detail and know exactly what will happen next. I can imagine that it is incredibly difficult to make films like Titanic. It takes a great director not to forget the story in the midst of all the technical sophistication! Drama and history have to be in the right balance. The most exciting thing about it: how do the individuals behave in the face of the sinking? The passengers are forced to make impossible decisions, so that even the villain still reveals a human side. He just loves the girl! Then the terrible images after the sinking. The water is completely still. Dressed in the latest fashion, hundreds of people drowned - and all this after having bought tickets for an unsinkable ship for an enormous amount of money.

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 Fritz Lang - Hangmen Also Die  

Bertolt Brecht was drawn to Hollywood only once, and that was for this collaboration with his friend Fritz Lang, who turned Brecht's short story into an anti-Nazi film noir. Hangmen Also Die is vaguely based on a true incident and retells the story of the executioner Heydrich, who was homosexual. Most importantly, the film captures the mood of the Czech people under the Nazi reign of terror. If you read a little more about it, you will learn that the former friends had a falling out over whether Fritz Lang had left out some of Brecht's ideas, for example. The Germans in Hangmen Also Die are ruthless, hateful ideologues. In contrast, there is the defiant spirit of the Prague resistance, captured in neat sets and picturesque black-and-white photography. It all begins with the murder of the bestial Reinhard Heydrich. In broad daylight in Prague by resistance fighter Dr Svoboda (Brian Donlevy). But before he can escape, his driver (Lionel Stander) is arrested by the Gestapo. Prague is sealed off; there is no place left for Svoboda to hide. A curfew is imposed and an intensive manhunt begins. Svoboda, however, manages to hide in the flat of a stranger, Nasha Novotny (Anna Lee), who does not betray him to the Gestapo. She hides him, even though this threatens her with execution. The Nazis threaten to cause a bloodbath in Prague if the fugitive is not caught. The Gestapo seem to enjoy intimidating people and Prague is full of traitors like beer brewer Emil Czaka (Gene Lockhart). So the resistance hatches an elaborate plan to convict Czaka as a murderer.... Hangmen Also Die works as a taut Hollywood thriller with typical Fritz Lang images, which in turn are influenced by German expressionist silent film. Above all, the film noir offers an intelligent commentary on the bloodthirsty fascists, so that the scenario only seems all the more like a horrific nightmare. And hadn't the Expressionists been denied precisely this political depth?

Latino Comedies 

FREE ON CINEGEEK.DE Fritz Lang - M 

The true horror has two faces: It's the face of Franz Becker (Peter Lorre), the child murderer. I always misremembered M and thought Franz Becker was the center of the movie. If you look at M again, it quickly becomes clear: That's not true. The focus is on the hunt for the child murderer by the police and the underworld. The hunters, these are terrible grimaces, just like those of Becker. When Fritz Lang staged M in 1931, he lived in Berlin. The right-wing mob of the Nazis was already raging in the city, while the left-wing mob was fighting against it. In this mood Lang combined two genres: M is a serial killer thriller as well as a police thriller. One that is grotesquely exaggerated! Let's look behind the surface of M - can we guess what would happen in Berlin after '33? M is a film full of hate. Lang must have hated Germany! It shows men in half-shade, in catacombs of the underworld, where they hold smoky conferences. They are ugly men who plan terrible deeds. Lang must have hated the Germans, the Nazis and again the Germans who levelled the ground for the Nazis. Already in his films of the early 30s the villains are clearly Nazis. Joseph Goebbels banned Lang's sound films later, but offered him to take control of the German film industry (in the sense of Goebbels). Lang fled. M is the portrait of a sick society. Lang's characters have no virtues whatsoever. Lang simply ignores the Berlin of nightclubs, the Cabaret-Berlin. Only once a bar is shown in M, but the camera doesn't concentrate on the glamour of such a bar, but shows greasy sausages in close-up. His thriller was inspired by a child murderer from Düsseldorf, who offered chocolate and sweets, promised friendship to his victims and then killed them. Lang ignores these murders. We don't see them, just hear about them. Once we observe a balloon that the killer bought a child. Now he hangs in the electric cables above the street. Long it is not about the identity of the killer (he does not try to build up suspense). Already at the beginning of the film we see Becker looking into the mirror. Peter Lorre was still at the very beginning of his career, with his baby face and the big Glubschaugen. Often his presence in the movie is hinted at rather than shown openly. Meanwhile the whole city is in turmoil. In the streets you see more policemen than girls, but without success in the search. The underworld therefore decides to catch the murderer on its own. Cops and gangsters become one. Both groups meet at long conference tables, smoke so much that their faces are no longer recognizable. M was Lang's first sound film and yet the dialogues remain sparse. He much prefers to show sausage-thick criminal fingers holding cigars, while people are advised how to take the child murderer down. The faces seem hard and cold and inexorable. Finally the Inquisition and Peter Lorre's long monologue. He screams out to kill his inner demons, the voice that commands him. He howls that he doesn't know how to help himself! Who knows what it is like to be HE? A performance that cemented Lorre's image forever. While Fritz Lang in Hollywood later delivered many M copies, Lorre played Becker again and again. Lorre, the eternal psychopath. No wonder that Lorre's most successful Hollywood movies were his Film Noirs. Again and again one demanded a movie like M from him. But nobody is as scary as M! Nobody so tormenting! M requires us to show understanding for a child murderer. As Becker himself admits, it is impossible for him to overcome evil. During one scene we see a mob throwing itself at an old man who is supposedly the murderer. Nobody in this mob is able to tell what is right or wrong. No one can control his actions. Neither can Becker. In the end, the mob is just as greedy as Becker to kill. It is not difficult to draw parallels to the Germans after 1933.

FREE ON CINEGEEK.DE Intermission 

Here comes one of these movies that pretend to be something really great! It's happening overnight: A TV producer demands more "reality" during a rabbit race. A cop's car is stolen while he's investigating a drug case. And so forth. Something GREAT is always happening! Like the author worked on pills. Intermission offers enough ideas for three bad movies. But the result is a good film. Intermission is a black comedy or an extremely black comedy set in Dublin. leading role Colin Farrell (whom nobody likes today, although he plays in so many great movies as no one else). Leading part? In Intermission this is not so easy to define, because there are so many characters that we lose Colin Farrell's track more than once. In any case, even more tracks are set than in the big role model, Pulp_Fiction. A mix of romance, fraud, kidnapping, bank robbery (...). Just like his role model, Intermission begins with cute dialogues and then turns to violence. Everything comes from Lehiff (Farrell), but his companions are also introduced immediately. John (Cillian Murphy) hates his work at the supermarket. Oscar (David Wilmot) is desperately looking for a friend (his goal: older ladies). Deidre (Kelly Macdonald) dates a bank manager (with wife wife) and Noeleen (Deirdre O'Kane) meets at a single party for older ladies - of course Oscar. To summarize the whole plot must be regarded as something of impossibility as described. Somehow everyone is connected with everyone - often also romantically. Ah, very important, Sally (Shirley Henderson) must be mentioned, who plays a nice variant of the Hollywood motif that an ugly duckling just has to take off his glasses to become a swan... Of course Intermission is a debut by John Crowley. At first I tried to bring order into intermission, but then I just let him get away with it all. The best thing about Crowley's production is the ease with which he simply shifts gears. From romance to kidnapping, then back to moments of cruel truth (for example, when an elderly lady talks about her deepest feelings). His stars like Farrell or Macdonald he effortlessly integrates into his ensemble. All in all, intermission functions virtuously, combining farce and outbreak of violence, self-confidence and happiness. But does brown sauce really taste good in coffee?

FREE ON CINEGEEK.DE Andrzej Wajda - Kanal 

Canal is a film that plays underground, in damp dark sewers. The canal symbolizes the Polish resistance against the German occupying forces during the Second World War. A group of 70 - most of them will die. A hopeless undertaking, which we are as aware of as the protagonists. The underground scenery seems like a nightmare. For Wajda, his second feature film was an international breakthrough. The war trilogy stands in stark contrast to the optimistic propaganda films of the Stalin era. In the West, attempts were made to copy Polish pessimism - unsuccessfully. Kanal, a film that gives voice to the dead of war. We see the film and understand it, the bitter feeling of powerlessness.

FREE ON CINEGEEK.DE Hirokazu Koreeda - Shoplifters  

A man and a boy in a shop. They have eye contact. They have done this before and they will do it again. It welds them together. They steal to survive. No jewellery and no gold either, but food for their family. It's cold outside. On the way home they notice that they have forgotten the shampoo. But it's too cold to go back and get some more. The man is called Osamu (Lily Franky) and the boy Shota (Jyo Kairi). Although they are poor, they offer a girl a croquette and take her home with them. Later that night they will bring the girl back. They hear the girl's parents arguing loudly. Did they even notice the daughter's absence? More importantly, will they really let her go? One could call what Nobuyo and Osamu are planning a kidnapping without a ransom. We could use a similar moral justification for their shoplifting. And what exactly does family mean? Does the birth of a child automatically make you a mother? Nobuyo and Osamu are more caring than their biological parents and yet not "family". If you watch all of Hirokazu Koreeda's movies, you get an impression of his broad concept of "family". In Shoplifters we get to know his characters so deeply and intimately, that we feel ourselves as belonging to the "family". Koreeda's protagonists belong to the lower class and slowly lose their ground under their feet. The finale is one of the most powerful, the most emotional, the most moving you'll see this year at the cinema! This is mainly because you feel so close to the characters. These characters aren't just a mouthpiece for Korea's issues of family and social inequality. They're real people, as if they existed long before the release. If you get addicted to your cinema (and it's almost impossible to avoid it), you go down to our video store. There you will find all his films.