FREE ON CINEGEEK.De David Fincher - Zodiac  

This is the biggest of all serial killer movies! The Opus Magnum of the genre! Not only is the movie based on the murders of the Zodiac Killer; it even spreads the same feeling! The Zodiac Killer, that was a case that stank! One who provoked people! Never could you catch the killer, so many resolutions and feints he laid. In the end, it was a cartoonist who was stubborn enough to assemble the pieces of the jigsaw puzzle and put together a man who was MANY guilty. Zodiac combines the motifs of the cop thriller with those of the journalist thriller, but fortunately is free of clichés of both genres. He leads us deep into a labyrinth of facts and suspicions until our blood freezes. Somehow director David Fincher and his screenwriter James Vanderbilt have managed to find their way through this darkness. So many characters are summoned that we are no different than the eyewitnesses in the case: we remember faces we once saw. Zodiac opens with a sudden and extremely brutal murder. More will follow. In five cases, the police are certain that they were committed by the Zodiac Killer, but other murders also bear his signature. However, Zodiac is not one of those movies that resemble a single bloody path. All murders are committed at the beginning. Then the killer writes his cryptic letters to various newspapers, which in turn have to be translated by journalists and the police. David Toschi (Mark Ruffalo) and William Armstrong (Anthony Edwards) are the two cops. Toschi works according to the textbook, because he believes in the textbook. Armstrong, on the other hand, trusts his instinct. Next to that he appears: The journalist Paul Avery (Robert Downey Jr as the epitome of the chain-smoking reporter) and the cartoonist Robert Graysmith (Jake Gyllenhaal). They all really existed. And in fact, it must have been that journalists at their desks opened the bottle of schnapps and smoked and smoked and smoked. We expect journalists who solve a murder to do the same! Graysmith, whose book the film is based on, is still new to his editorial staff. He looks like the new guy in his class. It's Graysmith who is obsessively working on the case, even as interest in the Zodiac Killer begins to decline. Zodiac seems extremely authentic and this is due to the chases and gunfire. The police work is precisely recreated - and that's what makes a good cop thriller. Graysmith is an unarmed civilian and this is the suspense of Zodiac: "We worry about him and we have to! Graysmith is naive and can't assess risks. David Fincher follows him and gives him room. In general, he takes his time. He doesn't show nine shots where even one reaches. Zodiac seems like a protest against modernity. A classic that also looks like one! Fincher has understood that the real crime doesn't belong to the same genre as "Crime Action".

FREE ON CINEGEEK.DE Jim Henson - Labyrinth 

Jim Henson's production began with a real inspiration: a fantasy fairy tale based on the pictures of M. C. Escher: In one of his works you can see a room from which stairs branch off in all directions. A labyrinth. Combined with David Bowie's soundtrack and impressive images, Labyrinth is missing something: real life. Sarah (the young Jennifer Connelly) is supposed to take care of her little brother. She lives in her own magical world and curses the fact that she once again has to look after the child. She wishes Goblin would take the child away. Her wish should be heard: Jareth (David Bowie), the ruler of the dark world, pays her a visit. The world of mysticism remains closed to normal eyes, but not to Sarah. To get her brother back, Sarah has to make her way through the labyrinth of the underworld. Our first look at the labyrinth is impressive. Jim Henson at the height of his form! His dolls look more real and scary than ever before. The world full of nightmares seems almost arbitrary. Everything can happen at any time, the underworld of the labyrinth follows no logic. In contrast to his Muppets productions, Henson's puppets enter a human world in Labyrinth (and are not human guests of the Muppets). David Bowie convinces as Jareth, although he himself almost mutates into a comic character. But basically he plays a real Bowie character: A being from another world. Unfortunately, Labyrinth is too long. The red thread is missing, a coherent plot. The journey into the labyrinth, like a marathon run through different dangers. But the adventures lack structure, they follow each other like a chain of accidents. Sarah is sometimes almost killed, then caught, she does this, then that happens... Henson put all his energy into the pictures, the story can't keep up.

FREE ON CINEGEEK.DE A Christmas Carol (1951) 

Scrooge, portrayed by Alastair Sim is exactly like the dour and morose creature of the original. A Christmas Carol is above all a ghost story and Brian Desmond Hurst's version also carries nightmarish overtones. We experience visions of Scrooge's life story and impressions of poverty and misery in 19th century England. Human baseness and the torment of a shabby soul. This is in keeping with Dickens' template and accordingly the atmosphere of Hurst's film is bleak and chilly. This is not a jolly Christmas film, but underscores Dickens' moral. For by "Dickensian" we mean stories of poverty, lousy working conditions and injustice, especially against children. That is the world of Charles Dickens.

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FREE ON CINEGEEK.DE Asghar Farhadi - About Elly 

One of Asghar Farhadi's guiding themes is to challenge sexual politics in contemporary Iran. Perhaps that is what makes his films so disturbing? But it is also what distinguishes him from the great directors of Iran who began their careers twenty years earlier. So you will find the role models of About Elly here with us in Europe. Do you still remember Roman Polanski's very first feature film? Or Michelangelo-Antonioni's "L'Avventura"? What these films had in common was that they closely observed the dynamics within a group. How does something like group guilt arise? Here it is a circle of friends from the Iranian middle class. They all come from Tehran. Together with their children they went to the sea. A weekend vacation. It was the lively Sepideh (Iran's biggest star Golshifteh Farahani) who invited Elly (Taraneh Alidoosti). No one in the group knows Elly any closer. She is the teacher of her children, that's it. Of course, Sepideh had something in mind and that was to set Elly up. Perhaps to the recently divorced Ahmad (Shahab Hosseini), who has just returned from a business trip from Germany? Elly and Ahmad even have a longer conversation with each other. But the story won't be that straightforward. It strikes a right angle. The group giggles, people talk about Elly's forthcoming wedding. Even Sepideh is involved and we feel uncomfortable. We - the audience - witness something unpleasant. All this seems to go beyond mere blasphemy. Elly leaves the room. There is a crisis and then Elly just disappears. Without a trace. Ellie is just gone. Now all the lies and secrets that exist beneath the surface come out. Elly's bizarre disappearance is said to have had repercussions... And we're already in the middle of a major psychogram!

FREE ON CINEGEEK.De Zhang Yimou - The Road Home 

Everything in Zhang Yimou's tender The Road Home is so perfectly composed and seamlessly put together! The Berlinale winner is a simple, lyrical ballad with a score reminiscent of James Horner's Titanic soundtrack. If you pay close attention, you will even recognise a Titanic poster right at the beginning of the film - so we may speak of a quote here. Zhang Yimou, who belongs to China's famous 5th generation of directors, began his work as a cinematographer. His feeling for the colours and moods of nature give the love story something universal. The action takes place in the hilly, untouched nature of northern China. Only a dirt road serves as a connection to the outside world. There is no electricity. Water is pumped from the well. We experience the change of seasons. The winter is grey-blue and when snow and cold threaten to swallow up everything, troublesome everyday thoughts recede into the background. It is a world of childlike wonder! We know this way of filming nature from Iranian cinema and its parables, which convey a similar awareness of nature. Outrageously beautiful are the camera shots of the village and the grain fields glowing in late summer. A sense of nostalgia takes hold of us, a touch of spirituality. The Road Home is about the purifying return to nature. This is where the two humble lovers live (while the cultural revolution rages outside somewhere). Time Jump. China here and now. The story begins with young engineer Luo Yusheng (Sun Honglei) returning to the village where he was born on the occasion of his father's death. His grieving mother insists that his father be buried according to the old custom. The wrapped body has to be carried on foot from the hospital back to the village. Via the only road that connects the village with the outside world. As Yusheng reflects on his father's death, he begins to remember his parents' marriage, their great love. While the China of today is illuminated in gloomy grey, the past now shines in the brightest colours. The mother Zhao Di (Zhang Ziyi), just 18 years old, falls in love at first sight with the handsome new village teacher from the city. His name is Luo Changyu (Zheng Hao). Di is the prettiest girl in the village. She resisted an arranged marriage. Changyu notices her interest and shyly returns it. The villagers now begin to build his schoolhouse. Meanwhile, Di lovingly weaves the red cloth for the curtains. Later, she will visit the school every day to hear his voice as he teaches. Zhang Ziyi plays Di, behind whose innocent façade lies obsessive passion. Di has realised her destiny and does not let anything or anyone stop her (certainly not advice that the gentleman from the city is nothing for a country girl). The chaste courtship turns into painful waiting when Changyu has to face a political interrogation in the city. Di waits and all her hopes are pinned on his return. She almost dies of fever while waiting by the road for the teacher to return.... But The Road Home is not a political film. It merely shows how political changes affect people like Di. The revolution may have turned the whole of China upside down, but here it is only a faint flicker on the wintry horizon.