FREE ON CINEGEEK.DE Dardenne - Rosetta 

At night, before she goes to sleep, Rosetta speaks to herself. "Your name is Rosetta. My name is Rosetta. You found a job. I found a job. You have a girlfriend. I have a girlfriend. Good night. "Rosetta is a young woman who wants to work at all costs. To escape her mother's world, who is an alcoholic and lives in a trailer. This is the precipice that lies before Rosetta, and she will do anything not to fall. The Dardenne brothers have turned this into a neo-realistic, very straightforward film. It's what you see that counts. There's nothing behind it that you need to interpret. To begin with, Rosetta gets fired. She beats the boss, is chased by the police, has to go back to her mother. We know; she was dismissed unjustly. Her lunch she fishes in a dirty river. She buys old clothes. She meets Riquet, who likes her. Maybe Rosetta likes him too. And she can't dance. And she often has a stomachache. Picture after picture, and slowly we get to know Rosetta better, who is actually still a child. The film is not about sympathy. It develops an almost magical power! I think Rosetta has no idea what it is like to be happy. She has never experienced it. That's why she thinks work is synonymous with happiness. Rosetta is proud. She will find work and live a normal life. She'll find a boyfriend. And she'll be happy. 

FREE ON CINEGEEK.DE The F-Word 

What was that again? Men and women couldn't be friends because sex always comes between them? The F-Word follows the tradition of intelligent RomCom (romantic comedy), which can even take the genre to new heights. I mean, the dialogue hits a note I've never heard before. This is mainly due to the great Zoe Kazan alias Chantry (yes, she is the daughter!). Her screen presence is stunning, cheeky, clever and attractive - always a bit strange. In short: You immediately understand that Wallace (Daniel Radcliffe) falls in love with her! But the way is still not clear for a happy ending, because she is in a firm relationship - with a lawyer who is as successful as he is unpleasant. A common dinner of all three suddenly turns into a loud, very funny slapstick and ends in the emergency room. The lawyer falls out the window, he gets what he deserves. Chantry and Wallace deny their feelings towards each other and this leads to secret lust & frustration. The F-Word seems completely unspent, the characters somehow peculiar, the location Toronto does the rest. Small but important shifts make The F-Word an insider tip of romantic comedy - for man and woman - and definitely belongs to the kind of film one likes to watch over and over again.

FREE ON CINEGEEK.DE Tom Tykwer - Lola Rennt 

The plot is simple. Lola gets a call from Manni. Manni lost a bag with 100.000 Marks. If he doesn't bring it to a gangster by noon, Manni is killed. Lola is supposed to help and runs away. Her plan: To find the money somehow, somewhere. Manni's alternative plan: Rob a bank. And in 20 minutes. That's why Lola runs all the faster. This story is told three times with a different ending. Very hip, sometimes Lola runs animated, sometimes in black and white and extremely accelerated. Each of the three plot variations differs in small details - and these determine fate. So it's about parallel time lines. All right? Even the smallest events can have serious consequences. Franka Potente became famous as Lola, although we hardly get to know her character and she is mostly out of breath. Maybe it's the style? Her hair is red, on her stomach a butterfly tattoo. Lola loves Manni and wants to save him from his own stupidity. There are also tragic events in Lola's desperate attempt to organize the money. For example, when her father refuses the money and immediately stresses that she was an unwanted child. Classic film sequences also find their place in the plot variants. The glass pane carried across the street, for example. Or gunfire. Sometimes the intertitle "Now And Then" highlights secondary characters. Essentially, Tom Tykwer's Run Lola Run is about FILM itself. (Because: films that offer us character studies are usually told linearly.) Run Lola Run is about the possibilities of cinema. Not about Lola.