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!