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Probably the best Mafia movie ever, it is told from the perspective of Henry Hill (Ray Liotta), an Italian-American with Irish roots. Since he was a teenager, he has only pursued one goal in life; he wants to become a "wise guy", a mafioso. The story is also told from the perspective of Karen (Lorraine Bracco), a Jewish girl who married him and suddenly finds her life amidst the "mob". The Mafia's values seem quite normal to her, in the end she is just proud of her husband for not lying around lazily at home. There is a real Henry Hill, who dictated his story to a reporter and thus achieved a bestseller. Scorsese translates these notes into a kind of documentary style, but he also adds fictional moments. The film achieves the frightening claustrophobic mood that Karen also describes: The Mafia world as reality. Scorsese is probably the only director to realize this material. Born in Little Italy, he has been an observer since childhood. We know from him that he often stayed at home as an asthmatic, and Henry Hill also observes the wise guys doing their business outside his window. Goodfellas takes his time, explores his profession and spreads it out in front of us. The good and bad times in the Mafia. The first date of Henry and Karen in a Copacabana nightclub expresses strength: When Henry gets past all the folders into the club, we see a man who has head water. The slow narrative style of the movie possesses method, characters are introduced quite casually and don't necessarily develop further in the course of the plot. We meet Don, Paul Cicero (Paul Sorvino) or Jim (Jimmy the Gent) Conway (Robert De Niro), a man who steals out of love for crime. Tommy DeVito (Joe Pesci) is a basically lovable guy who can explode within seconds - with fatal consequences. We follow them over a period of 30 years - the first with unbridled power, finally the descent. Finally, their common history leads to decay and fraud. Goodfellas is not simply underlaid with a soundtrack from oldies, but emphasized precisely with the appropriate songs. In none of his movies did Scorsese dive so deeply into the character of one of his characters as he does with Henry Hill. How he sets up a cocaine deal, soothes his lover and cooks for his family - we are in the soul of a killer! Not only the cocaine business has to be run, also the right sauce for the family dinner should succeed - Hill is already out of control. It's scenes like these that get stuck and exceed any sequence, no matter how full of suspense! Scorsese has always worked with the best actors of her generation, and in Goodfellas Ray Liotta and Lorraine Bracco position themselves to take on De Niro's legacy. Like Scorsese's best films, Goodfellas also functions as a kind of parable of guilt. But the movie isn't just moral. Guilt can be felt when the Mafioso distances himself from his Mafia Codex, just as Henry surrenders to the sin of betrayal. Goodfellas creates his own value system and this is the same as the Mafia. Goodfellas makes us a seductive offer...

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Films of inertia, exhaustion and alienation - Antonioni has perfected this style. The critics and film lovers got lost in endless debates about Antonioni's art (don't we all miss it: intellectuals blowing endless amounts of smoke into the air, dressed in black and having an espresso about Antonioni's bulky art?). La Notte, but his second famous film also met with rejection, even hatred: Pauline Kael wrote in 1961 what new insights this film would bring us about failed communication, where the characters on the screen would give nothing of themselves? So we don't learn anything about their inner life, whether they have anything to say at all - whether they could talk at all? Antonioni does not tell conventional stories. He uses apparent coincidences, secondary reasons, to show developments. Does he simply follow his characters in their contradictions and carelessness? Antonioni himself stated in an interview in 1969 that he often did not know the meaning even during a shoot and that he was not necessarily in the picture afterwards. Under certain circumstances, a film is simply a whim or depicts a certain lifestyle (?) Antonioni often gets his ideas on location during the shooting and instinctively improvises. Without thinking too much about it, Antonioni says, he only decides what to do with the material during editing. Even after more than 40 years, La Notte still seems bold and modern when cool architecture and strangely absent people meet. People and their surroundings are mirrored time and again - and the result is almost something like a world of ghosts. Lidia and Giovanni Pontano (Jeanne Moreau and Marcello Mastroianni) are stuck in traffic jams on their way to a reception for his latest book. Later, Lidia will set out alone on an exploratory tour towards the outskirts of the city. We see the couple in their apartment, at a nightclub and finally at a party. Both perceive the events differently, maybe they don't love each other anymore? We can interpret gestures and glances as signs of disappointment. Encounters with other people suggest a downward spiral. Not only the couple is strangers to each other, but also the area in which they once lived has lost its face. In Antonioni's film there is neither an inner nor an outer movement. The first sequence determines everything. The characters never move, an emotional outburst would be unthinkable. Nothing really can occupy Lidia, that is the plot of La Notte.

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Guillermo del Toros Pans Labyrinth is one of the great cinema fantasies. Dark and terrifying, like the stories that frightened us as children. Deep in the heart of Pan's labyrinth they are hidden, the fairy tales from our childhood. Pan's Labyrinth is not only enchanting and enchanting, but also brutal and horrifying. A fairy tale for adults. The film itself is a narrative labyrinth with different narrative levels, which are brought together with dreamwalking certainty. It opens in 1944 in Spain. Rebels have hidden in the forest to fight against Franco. Suddenly we are seized by the voice of the faun (his name can only be pronounced by the wind), who announces the voice of a dead princess. Her father awaits her to take the empty seat on the throne at his side. The film introduces us to the turbulent imagination of Ofelia (Ivana Baquero), an eleven-year-old girl who loves books. We arrive at an old mill in the forest, where Ofelia's soon-to-be stepfather, the evil Franco Captain Vidal (Sergi Lopez), leads his fascist troops. Just a few steps further, a path leads into an ancient stone labyrinth where you can easily get lost. Ofelia tells of a rare blue rose that blooms at night on a hill surrounded by poisonous spines. The camera shows an enchanting insect that flies from the rose, past the moon, into the sleeping chamber of Ofelia and her mother. The rhythm of Pan's labyrinth is so elegant, multi-layered and yet seamless. Entire worlds open up before our eyes; dimensions of time and space. 

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Who knows the hierarchy of the great car chases in film history? I'm sure William Friedkin is in it twice. Not only with "The French Connection", but also with To Live And Die In L.A., his comeback from 1985, a film that is hardly in demand in our video store and I want to change that! The big chases always reflect their city and since Friedkin's film is set in L.A., the hunt MUST go over the freeway. The Secret Service has to catch a counterfeiter who's been tricking the law for years. On the side of the law is Richard Chance (William L. Petersen), the film's hero. Friedkins Plot revolves around friendship, loyalty, arrogance and anger - central emotions. Then it's time for the car chase. By the way, it is not one of those useless hunts that were supposed to breathe some life into unsuccessful films in the 80s. Hunting is part of the plot. An impressive ballet of timing, speed and imagination! In general, the large car chases are never simply a means to an end. They add something to the film; a strange vehicle, an unexpected challenge or an unusual situation. In To Live And Die In L.A. Friedkin is not satisfied that the hunt takes place on the freeway. It takes place against the traffic on the wrong side of the freeway! Today, in the digital age, as one can soon expect animated cars, Friedkin's choreography is all the more astonishing. How much fender bender would that cause? The best thing is the shots from the air, so we see hundreds of cars over four lanes! They're all heading for the escaping car! The key to everything is Friedkin's direction. He had made great but very disappointing films during the New Hollywood era and can be considered a pioneer of blockbusters. In the 80s, the veteran of action cinema could now also teach the next generation how to film action. Great also the actors, especially the young Willem Dafoe, who teaches us his craft of faking in a cool and professional way. I like films that have obviously researched their subject! To Live And die In L.A. knows as much about the counterfeiting trade as it does about the Secret Service. Friedkin's film is not simply about policemen and robbers. It is about two systems, how to do business and how one system always tries to defeat the other. That's interesting! So is the hunting. 

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I wanted to watch John Frankenheimer's The Birdman Of Alcatraz with my girlfriend (she refused, no Prison Break please) - but in the end, we both loved this unusual intimate play! Because The Birdman Of Alcatraz is really no Prison Break in the traditional sense! The film simply reverses the usual formula, bringing depth and humanity to this film adaptation of the life of Robert Stroud. After a true story. For 53 years the over 70 year old "Birdman" was in prison. Burt Lancaster vividly shows how this time leaves deep scars, how one forces something like privacy in prison. Highlight of the film: Birdman's clash with the vindictive prison warden. Robert Stroud, convicted of murder, continues his education behind bars, dedicates himself to bird breeding. In fact he discovered cures for bird diseases, which he eventually published. Like in the biggest and most important movies of Frankenheimer during the 60's, The Birdman Of Alcatraz is about the dignity of man. The redemption of the dignity of the individual in an inhuman system. Because true freedom, it always comes from within! By the way, the hateful prison warden finds out the opposite. One day he must realize that he has grown old with Birdman. Just like his inmates, he has spent most of his life behind bars. Both men, the Birdman and the prison warden, have to realize that they spent their lives on Prison Island of Alcatraz...

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A harrowing documentary by Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor, who previously garnered attention with No Other Land. Naza is a film difficult to describe and even more difficult to watch. Based on revelations by The Guardian, corroborated by 24 Israeli intelligence officers, Naza is not told from a Palestinian perspective, yet it features Palestinian voices, recorded on their mobile phones. After October 7th, the intelligence apparatus of surveillance was running at full speed, and we witness how revenge turned into genocide. Many reject films shot from the perspective of the oppressor (see Claude Lanzmann). Although Naza features exclusively Israeli voices, it doesn't fit into this category, as it is an investigation into state violence. A journalistic piece in real time. We hear from those involved not years later, but while they are still carrying out the orders that led to genocide. We learn just how intensive the surveillance was. We learn that someone who inflicts such massive harm on the population of Gaza is indifferent to its destruction. Many deny their guilt, claiming they are merely following orders. Few confront their actions. Naza will anger and disappoint many. Israel has already questioned the authenticity of the images, and Palestinians will criticize the fact that only the oppressor is given a voice. NAZA refers to the unit of measurement used to count Palestinians killed as collateral damage. The film attempts to refute genocide deniers who (as was the case during the Nuremberg Trials) rely on subjective arguments. In an ideal world, a film that has to prove the existence of genocide wouldn't even be necessary. Why don't we simply believe those who have lived through hell in Gaza?

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*Sound Of Falling* spans a century and several generations of a family from the Altmark region. The film is set entirely on this family’s farm. We first see the farm around 1910. This might sound like a linear narrative, but that is precisely what director Mascha Schilinski avoids with her extensive material. She does not tell the story chronologically. Instead, she interweaves the generations and links them once again through the setting – the farm. Almost like an Impressionist painting. The timeline unravels, the past overlaps with the present. Almost like a ghost story featuring a haunted house and a ghost – that is the story. In every generation, there is a curious young girl surrounded by death on all sides. And every generation struggles with unspoken, forbidden longings. Our task is to find out who these people are and what era we are in. It always comes down to the ‘life lived in vain’ – an expression that crops up time and again. Floors creak, flies buzz, a deafening silence. What is it? The feelings we never admit to? Time in all its relentlessness? Time does its work, people are forgotten, and yet... something remains. Something around us.