FREE ON CINEGEEK.DE The Naked Island 

During the production of The Naked Island, Kaneto Shindô was on the verge of bankruptcy and must have thought that under these circumstances he could just as well make a pure film without any commercial ambitions. This is exactly what would later save his entire company. We find ourselves on a barren island. A family takes centre stage. Every step on the island is a hardship. Even the simplest tasks there are a dangerous struggle. Then the sons catch a fish and hope to sell it for some extra money. But trader after trader refuses. The father emphasises how hard life is. Every drop of water that falls on the stones of the island evaporates immediately. This is everyday life before something really catastrophic happens... The Naked Island is a beautiful film. Not just visually. The soul of this film is beautiful! If you know a bit about Ozu's dramas, you'll find a lot of them in The Naked Island. The clash between tradition and modernity. Western culture meets Eastern culture and centuries-old traditions are overturned just like that. We experience all of this in The Naked Island and yet it is not a film about its time. It is a universal film for any time.

The Best Christmas Movies Of All Times 

The obese boy gives Santa Claus a carved pickle. Santa Claus complains that it is not green. Bad Santa (Billy Bob Thornton) is a professional burglar and alcoholic. He suffers from depression and seems to end up. The boy, on the other hand, is not one of the cute kids you are used to seeing in Hollywood movies, but an annoying stalker. Then there's the dwarf who has been cracking safes with Santa for years, but is now annoyed by his constantly drunk partner. Like every year they strike on Christmas Eve, disguised as Santa Claus with his elf - but this year Santa Claus is particularly drunk. Terry Zwigoff's Christmas comedy (produced by the Coen brothers) looks like an insane, twisted comic - and we don't have to worry about a conventional happy ending. Every unwritten law of American mainstream cinema (which, for example, prescribes how an initially puking Santa Claus would be purged in the course of the story) - Twigoff's film tramples it underfoot. Billy Bob Thornton is allowed to rage, tear a reindeer to pieces and do it with a woman who suffers from a Santa Claus fetish. Bad Santa isn't only successful because he's different and bizarre, but also because he's funny until the end! Santa Claus (in real life Willy) and the elf (whose real name is Marcus) use the same trick every year. As a Christmas duo they get into shopping malls to break into them. But this year the security boss has his eye on the two of them... Willy is also distracted by his new girlfriend with the Santa fetish. Then there is the lonely fat boy who promises Willy on the head that he is not Santa (but still follows him on his foot from now on). The boy's parents are not present and that makes him unhappy. Probably this is his childhood. The desperate child and the drunken Santa Claus: Imagine families who accidentally end up in this film - frightening children and horrified parents! But what if these families didn't let themselves be shocked, but simply enjoy Santa Claus because it's a successful black comedy?

CINEGEEK.DE Mindgame Movies II 

One of the characters in Sex And Lucia is writing a novel. What he writes also happens to him. Or he imagines it would happen. Him and his girlfriend Lucia. Or both are only in the novel. In any case, we - the audience - soon know connections that the characters on the screen don't even suspect. Additional connections are created because the actor (who embodies the novel author) plays two roles. One is real. And the other, too, I think. You notice that it is simply impossible to summarize such a plot here. Especially since I'm not sure I understood it at all. Is it possible to understand Sex And Lucia completely at all? Or is confusion simply part of the concept? Once Julio Medem staged a film that resembled a palindrome. The plot begins at both ends and meets in the middle. Consequently, its protagonists were Ana and Otto. Medem likes to play with our minds and can do that well. But he is not a boaster. Because it's about more than mere showmanship. And here the plot comes in very rough form: Lucia (Pax Vega), a waitress, receives a phone call which makes her believe that her lover Lorenzo (Tristan Ulloa) has died in an accident. She desperately drives to an island whose surface appears almost white, but under which there are shallows - caves. There Lucia meets the (naked) diver Carlos (Daniel Freire). He offers her a guesthouse near Elena (Najwa Nimri). In the prologue we learned that Elena is the mother of Lorenzo's daughter. Back then, during a magical night, Elena slept with Lorenzo. They never exchanged their names. They never saw each other again afterwards. Six years later Lucia meets Lorenzo. She tells him that she has read his novel. Lucia confesses to Lorenzo that she has fallen in love with him. Now the sex begins - and there are indeed explicit, great sex scenes (which even seem charming!). But then Lorenzo can't finish his second novel. Basically, his second novel is about Lorenzo finding out where his child is. He visits the child who is cared for by the sexy Belen (Elena Anaya). And now attention! There is a dream sequence that is crucial for the film. Look closely! However: Do these scenes only exist in the novel? And is Elena possibly on the island? On the other side? The characters appear in different combinations. Like in a triangle. And they don't know anything about each other. For example, Carlos, the diver, is also Antonio, Belen's mother's friend. So much for the plot. The pictures resemble those of sex films from the 70s. With a lot of nudity and passionate sex! A real adult film. And through the absurd plot the characters are freed, so that we can concentrate much better on them. Sounds crazy, but that's how it is. Until the end there will be so many alternatives in the plot that it would be unnecessary to commit to one. Sex And Lucia is a movie with a hole in the middle. Just like the island. And then it starts all over again. The single parts work, though. The characters anyway, especially Lucia. We like her and we admire how she deals with her grief. Lucia is for me one of the most sympathetic canvas figures ever! Everything around her is light. 

FREE ON CINEGEEK.DE Who's Singing Over There 

Here comes one of the films that were most requested by you at the Filmkunstbar Fitzcarraldo. On DVD unfortunately difficult to obtain, but a former employee regularly travels to Belgrade and tries on site. Who's Singing Over There (the film by bus) also runs in good quality with English subtitles on youtube. A drunk with a Slibowitz bottle claims the bus driver could drive this route blind. The guests protest not to provoke him! Bets are accepted. He ties a cloth around his eyes and his bus swings down to a pole. Everything falls and staggers, under and over. Then the provocateur with the Slibowitz bottle: "Did you know that he can drive two kilometres backwards?"... The atmosphere of Ko to tamo peva is just as exuberant and over-excited - and in 1941 we are in the Yugoslavian hinterland. There are no roads here. But passengers who act as a cross section of their time: Lovers, policemen, eccentrics, politicians, a hunter with a shotgun... (every character is embodied by real Yugoslavian movie stars!). Something happens again and again that stops the bus. Whether it's a burst tire or a fluttering bridge. But suddenly: A bomb from the Nazi Germans hits. All passengers except one gypsy couple die. The black comedy by Slobodan Sijan was shot in a very short time and on a correspondingly tight budget. In 1980, the year Tito died. A film from Europe? More likely from another universe!

FREE ON CINEGEEK.DE Die Fetten Jahre Sind Vorbei 

Freundschaft, Liebe und Revolution, darum gehts in Hans Weingartners The Edukators. Dabei ist es gar nicht so einfach, gegen etwas zu revoltieren. Denn: "Es war alles schon mal da und hat nicht funktioniert"; so Jule (Julia Jentsch). Warum sollte es also diesmal klappen? Die fetten Jahre sind vorbei, das ist der Schlachtruf ihrer kleinen Revoluzzer Gruppe, zu der ausser Jule auch noch Jan (Daniel Brühl) und Peter (Stipe Erceg) gehören. Manchmal hinterlassen sie auch eine Mahnung: "Sie haben zu viel Geld". Denn Jule, Jan und Peter brechen in Zehlendorfer Villen ein (einige Jahre später fanden tatsächlich ein paar Demos in Zehlendorf statt und nicht mehr in Kreuzberg). Das Trio bricht in Villen ein, nicht aber, um zu stehlen, sondern um kunstvolle Türme aus Möbeln zu bauen. Die Stereo Anlage landet im Kühlschrank, das Meissener Porzellan im Clo usw. So gehen sie vor gegen die Ungerechtigkeit der Welt, auf der Suche nach... ja eben etwas Neuem. Und wir schauen ihnen beim Denken zu. Darüber hinaus verliebt sich Jule, die eigentlich mit Peter zusammen ist, in den verbissenen Idealisten Jan. Mit Peters Lässigkeit kann sie immer weniger anfangen; sie entspricht auch so gar nicht dem Film. Wie sollen sie sich auch verhalten, in einer Zeit, in der Provokation immer schwieriger wird und Lösungen nicht in Sicht. Die Party ist vorbei als sie in die Villa Hardenberg einbrechen und Jule erkannt wird. Sie nehmen den Reichen mit nach Österreich und die Geisel entpuppt sich als gute Gesellschaft. Hardenberg (Burghart Klaußner) kifft, erzählt von damals, von 1968 und übernimmt mehr und mehr das Kommando. Was geschah mit ihm? "Und plötzlich ertappst du dich in der Wahlkabine, wie du das Kreuzchen bei der CDU machst ..." 

FREE ON CINEGEEK.DE Come On Come On 

Here comes producer Johnny (Joaquin Phoenix), who interviews numerous children about their future. Some of them are anxious, others hopeful and all of them want the world to see them as they are. Johnny thinks little about the future himself. He's just trying to get through the day (like most adults). In any case, people are the driving force behind everything we do. We love them and argue with them or rebel against them. So Johnny also comes to the aid of his semi-estranged sister, traveling to Northern California where she is struggling with her mentally ill husband. Johnny even has to look after his nephew and gets a taste of what it's like to be a father. As that is explored with sincere earnestness (and effortless charm). There are cute moments and missteps. And aren't all relationships8ngen messy experiments? This is one of those movies that makes us think and still works after the credits roll. If you want more, check out Mike Mills' earlier films! 

FREE ON CINEGEEK.DE Kundun 

In the middle of Kundun, the 13th Dalai Lama warns the 14th Dalai Lama in a letter: The culture of Tibet will soon be destroyed by China. What can we do about it, asks the 14th Dalai Lama. An advisor tells him that he knows this. After all, he wrote the letter himself. This is literally how the belief in reincarnation, in rebirth, works. Kundun recounts the life of the 14th Dalai Lama - but that in turn encompasses a larger life spanning centuries. And this is precisely the strength and weakness of the film, as its main character Kundun is not shown as a human being, but as an icon. It is a sacred life that stands above time. It is about perfection in the form of a human being. Before you look at Kundun, you should be aware of this: No human character is shown here. A sacred story is told in anecdotes, almost like in church. Scorsese's films always have a spiritual component. They are about characters who live in sin and are aware of it. So Kundun begins in 1937, at the time of the 13th Dalai Lama in Tibet. The monks find a little boy who they believe to be their reincarnated leader. They place a series of objects in front of the child so that he chooses the right one. As a result, the 13th Dalai Lama will even meet Mao, who proclaims that all religion has died (so that the Dalai Lama can no longer look this man in the eye and instead has to look him in the eye).

FREE ON CINEGEEK.DE The Crow 

The Crow became famous, of course, because Brandon Lee was accidentally shot during filming. And indeed, the film is also about someone who comes back from the dead - just as, in a way, Brandon Lee did with the film. A black irony of fate! The story begins with a resurrection from the dead. Rock star Eric Draven (Lee) is murdered the night before his wedding. A crow - so the story goes - transports his soul into the afterlife. But because of the unexplained incident of his murder, Eric's soul finds no peace and returns to earth a year later on Halloween. Eric swears revenge. Nothing more needs to be written about the story. In flashbacks, the murder is reconstructed and then Eric, led by the crow, wanders the streets at night. His make-up resembles a skull. No bullet can harm him, because he is already dead. The story serves as an excuse for the STYLE of the film, because here a very unique world is created that resembles that of Blade Runner. An abandoned urban wasteland where it is always night. Who remembers the gothic extravaganzas in Tim Burton's Batman? This is all so much darker! Obviously The Crow shows inspiration from a number of graphic novels of its time and their over-the-top architecture, and the underlying graphic novels in turn love 40s film noir. The editing and soundtrack of The Crow, however, are reminiscent of music videos, in which the villains like Myca (Bai Ling) again almost look like someone drew them. Those who love 90s grunge will find Stone Temple Pilots, Pantera or Nine Inch Nails here. Probably some even know the soundtrack better than the film! What is said about death and resurrection between the music video numbers is given a melancholic subtext by Brandon Lee's misfortune. Just like his famous father's career, Brandon's ends far too soon - only that Bruce Lee was never allowed to be part of such a great film as The Crow.

Nouvelle Vague Exzess 

The One Man Nouvelle Vague was the title of a retro at Berlin's Arsenal, which looked at Gerard Depardieu's early career. After four films by Maguerite Duras, he made his breakthrough in Bertrand Blier's Les valseuses. A rebellious road movie that takes everything that is understood by sexual revolution ad absurdum and, in its drastic nature, ushers in the French cinema of the 70s.

FREE ON CINEGEEK.DE Julio Medem - The Red Squirrel 

Most of the time I watch a movie and can finish it from the first scene. This film by Julio Medem is different. I never know what might come next. But La ardilla roja is much more than just a vetrickstes mindgame movie. It is a big love movie! The musician Jota (Nancho Novo) stands on a bridge to take his own life because his girlfriend left him. Suddenly a young motorcyclist (Emma Suárez) breaks through the railing and lands in the sand. He rushes to help her, but she can't remember anything. In the hospital he pretends to be a friend of the blonde and explains that her name is Lisa. They had been living together for four years. To remember, he suggests a camping holiday. La ardilla roja is the name of the campsite and from now on the squirrels will determine the fate of the couple. Julio Medem has succeeded in creating a highly unlikely, but very captivating romance. He has us until the last moment and surprises us again and again. Nothing is as it seems, except the fact that the two of them have a passionate love affair. The lies Jota Lisa tells about her "past" aren't just passively accepted by her. Finally Lisa's ex-husband Felix (Carmelo Gomez) comes into play, who identifies her as Sofia Fuentes... Maybe it's all filmed a bit awkward and even ridiculous towards the end? But that doesn't matter at all because of the great love couple. In the face of death, they try to find out the basics: Who am I? What does love mean at all? Within their web of lies they get to the bottom of life.

FREE ON CINEGEEK.DE Claude Sautet - Un Coeur En Hiver 

There are people who can't love. Why is unclear. Something is missing. They were simply born without this gift. In other areas they may be complete. But the gift to love is missing. Irreparable. Claude Sautet's "Un Coeur En Hiver" is the story of such a man. His name is Stephane (Daniel Auteuil) and he is a talented violin maker. Stephane admires Maxime (Andre Dussollier), for whom he also works. They are friends. Or is it not? In any case, Maxime's social skills serve Stephane as a shield against the world. In return, Maxime benefits from Stephen's extraordinary skill. A symbiosis. One day the beautiful violinist Camille (porcelain face Emmanuelle Beart) enters the shop. She needs help with her instrument. Soon she has an appointment with Maxime. Stephane observes this from a distance. Then Camille talks to Stephane about her instrument, but also about her life. Stephane is a good listener. And Camille has fallen in love with him. She is together with Maxime. She has to leave him and make an appointment with his partner. Stephane feels flattered. Yes, he desires Camille. That would be a nice ending for a French triangle story. Only Stephane doesn't stand up for Camille. He is not impotent in the physical sense. He lacks the gift to love. Claude Sautet shows this short story with great intensity. We become aware of how simple love is portrayed in the vast majority of films. And how annoying! Man meets woman. They fall in love. There is a conflict, then they reconcile. Rolltitel. But Stephane has needs that go beyond love. Needs like the convenience of staying alone. His daily routine. That counts more for him than the risk of an intimate relationship.

FREE ON CINEGEEK.DE Easy A 

What is the morale of Easy A? Don't sleep with anyone, but tell everyone you're doing it with everyone? We have to get involved in a very American film that comes up with virginal Jesus fanatics - but above all with a tremendously likeable Emma Stone. Olive Penderghast (Stone) is an inconspicuous girl in high school. Although we are in East Ojai, California, the biggest surprise of the movie is that virginity has the highest priority at this school! Olive is ashamed to have spent the whole weekend alone at home and improvises for her best friend the tale of a date with an older student. To increase her own popularity, she crowns this story with the loss of her virginity. A seemingly sure thing, because nobody knows her one-night stand at the university. But Olive is overheard by Marianne, an honest religious classmate. She tells Olive's story all around as a warning: "Not to end like the spoiled Olive! Easy A now plays through this basic idea in different variations. Olive's parents Dill and Rosemary (Stanley Tucci and Patricia Clarkson), who are as quirky as they are open, also find out about the news. Throughout the film they seem like Olive's strongest support, but also a bit like a parallel world from the time of the'68 revolution. There's been a lot of changes at school for Olive: She is no longer the girl that nobody notices (quite unimaginable with a beauty like Emma Stone!), but the one who has experience with sex! Olive is starting to take advantage of her popularity. Her best friend Brandon is gay. Everyone knows this and yet Brandon tries to hide it to live "normally". During a party she arranges a fake sex date for her boyfriend, so that he will also find recognition as an experienced young man in the future. It's hard to believe a gay man in California couldn't do that today! But let's just imagine this East Ojai as a place that serves primarily to make this high school comedy possible. Olive starts to lend her fictional sexuality to others: To the fat, the outsiders, those who perceive their school days as a nightmare. Thanks to Olive, they rise to men with sex experience. (Why is nobody really surprised that she only sleeps with gays and nerds?). Easy A works in itself, because we are well introduced into this East Ojai world. Overnight, Olive gains the power to improve the reputation of others and help those in need. Even the trust teacher (and wife of Olive's favorite teacher) is among her clients because she slept with a student and now suffers from chlamydia. From now on Olive borrows the "A" from Nathaniel Hawthorne's novel The Scarlet Letter. Similar to the novel character, Olive will get to know the dark side of people... In the course of the plot, Olive suffers from the increasing gossip and the fact that her life is unfortunately not staged like an 80s teen comedy. Easy A, this is the first role that really suits Emma Stone! Until then they had been underestimated - wrongly so, because you can only do justice to an actor when you get the right role.

Reality Stays Outside - Realität Bleibt Draussen 

SOOOON!!!! OUR OWN MOVIE ABOUT OUR BAR: REALITÄT BLEIBT DRAUSSEN! - REALITY STAYS OUTSIDE! Ich liebe Kreuzberg und mein Leben in Kreuzberg! Das war aber nicht immer so: Früher, als ich noch klein war und wir in einer eingemauerten Stadt lebten, da hatte ich Angst vor Kreuzberg. Dort war alles grau und die Häuser ganz verwahrlost. Und wenn du in die Hinterhöfe geguckt hast, dann hast du immer noch die Einschusslöcher aus dem 2. Weltkrieg gesehen. Eigentlich sah Kreuzberg genauso aus wie Ost Berlin. So dachte ich. Ich meine, das war 1985. Ich hatte immer diese Vorstellung, dass hinter solchen grauen Fassaden auch böse Menschen leben mussten. In Wahrheit lebten dahinter aber keine bösen Menschen, sondern Menschen, die einfach nicht so viel verdienten. Mein Vater hat mir das mal erklärt. In Kreuzberg war man immer umgeben von der Mauer. Ganz im Osten von West-Berlin. Und niemand wollte so nahe bei den Russen leben. So zogen alle weg, rückten nach Westen – zumindest innerhalb der West-Berliner Insel. Dann kamen die sogenannten Gastarbeiter. Die konnten ja dort leben. Jedenfalls endete Kreuzberg irgendwie immer an der Mauer. Sogar 20 Jahre später sah Kreuzberg noch so aus als ob die 80er nie aufgehört hätten. Eine Gegend, in der die berüchtigten SO36 Boys herrschten. Hauptberuf der 36 Boys: Rauben, prügeln, kaputt machen. Das war also Kreuzberg. Heute höre ich oft diese mittelalten Männer, die behaupten, früher und damals da gabs noch das richtige Kreuzberg. Und dieselben mittelalten Männer haben das damals auch schon erzählt. Mir war das eh egal. Ich lebte in meiner eigenen Welt und die bestand sowieso nur daraus, Filme zu glotzen. Meine eigene kleine Nerd Welt inmitten von Filmen! Und ich wusste, irgendwann würde diese Welt nicht mehr nur in meiner Fantasie existieren! - I love Kreuzberg and my life in Kreuzberg! But it wasn't always like that: In the past, when I was little and we lived in a walled-in city, I was afraid of Kreuzberg. Everything there was gray and the houses were run-down. And when you looked into the backyards you could still see the bullet holes from the Second World War. Kreuzberg actually looked just like East Berlin. That's what I thought. I mean, that was 1985. I always had this idea that bad people had to live behind such gray facades. had to live behind such gray facades. In reality, however, there weren't bad people living behind them, but people who simply didn't earn that much. earned that much. My father once explained this to me. In Kreuzberg, you were always surrounded by the wall. Right in the East of West Berlin. And nobody wanted to live so close to the Russians. So everyone moved away, moved west - at least within the West Berlin island. Then came the so-called guest workers. They could live there. In any case, Kreuzberg somehow always ended at the Wall. Even 20 years later, Kreuzberg still looked as if the 80s had never ended. A neighborhood, where the infamous SO36 Boys ruled. The 36 Boys' main occupation: robbing, beating, destroying destroy. So that was Kreuzberg. Today, I often hear these middle-aged men claiming that back in the day and back then there was still the real Kreuzberg. And these same middle-aged men said that back then told that back then too. I didn't care anyway. I lived in my own world and that only consisted of watching movies anyway. My own little nerd world surrounded by movies! And I knew that at some point this world would no longer only exist in my imagination! 

FREE ON CINEGEEK.DE Transamerica 

Transamerica presents Felicity Huffman as a man who feels compelled to become a woman. Only a week after the operation, Bree (as she is now called) learns that she had become a father 17 years earlier. "There was this one girl in college," Bree remembers, but also points out that the whole story was so tragic lesbian that she wouldn't count. But now she counts: Bree has to get to know her son and embarks on a journey from L.A. to New York. There she meets Toby (Kevin Zegers), who wants to become a porn star. This career choice is embarrassing for Bree, a ladylike middle-class conservative. She convinces Tobey to go back to L.A. with her. I suspect most transgender people have little interest in homosexuality. Bree has overpowered little sex as she earns the money for her operation with two jobs. Bree is not a particularly exciting person anyway. She spends a lot of time improving Tobey's grammar and is dressed like a housewife. 

The Edge Of Seventeen 

Do you like teen comedies that don't tax your intelligence? Like The Edge Of Seventeen? Then this is your film list! - Sure, I'm a child of the 80s. Maybe that's why I became a video librarian? Of course I still know the best dialogue from the teen comedies of the time - although I forget pretty much everything else. The brain just works in a miraculous way. The Edge Of Seventeen feels like an homage to the 80s with biting humour and a big bittersweet heart. Kelly Fremon Craig, who makes her directorial debut as well as writing the film, seems to remember all the difficult, angst-filled moments of being a teenager. That narcissistic phase where everything that happens to you seems so insanely important! The worst thing: to create an identity, to survive school! In this sense, The Edge Of Seventeen is much darker than its 80s role models. 

FREE ON CINEGEEK.DE The Guard 

It's a fact: if you put Brendan Gleeson in any role, he'll bring it to life. In this case, he plays a cop, the Gaelic word for policeman being guarda. His name is Sgt Gerry Boyle and we meet him as he searches a victim's clothes for drugs and quickly pockets everything. Boyle is not a bad cop, just a bad one. At least he loves his mum, which is a good sign. Her name is Eileen Boyle (Fionnula Flanagan) and she's dying, but whenever Boyle visits her, she comes back to life. And when they talk, they basically say the F-word incessantly, as if it were a sentence sign. Boyle drinks while he works. He never overstays his welcome and makes friends with prostitutes. But all this takes an unpleasant turn for Boyle when the straight-laced McBride (Rory Keenan) is transferred from Dublin to the country. He, of all people, is to become Boyle's partner (and Boyle hates everything from Dublin). A big drugs deal is on the cards. Half a million is at stake, give or take, and the FBI sends Everett (Don Cheadle) to Ireland. Everett is an even worse partner! Boyle, moreover, is not a real racist, but he is naive in his dealings with black people. He believes that Everett must be an expert on life in the ghetto, as Boyle has seen on television. Gleeson's gift as an actor lies precisely in his ability to make all these outrageous statements.

FREE ON CINEGEEK.DE Ida 

We travel back to Poland around 1960, to a rural area. There is a rather remote monastery where 18-year-old novice Anna (Agata Trzebuchowska) lives. Little is said behind the walls, neither while eating, nor during Anna's work on a statue of Christ. Have Anna take her vows in a few days. But before she returns to the city to visit her Aunt Wanda (Agata Kulesza). We experience her with curious eyes in the tram and finally Anna faces her exact opposite: Wanda drinks, loves men and wants nothing to do with family. Wanda explains to Anna that her real name is Ida and she is Jewish. But her parents were murdered. Although she would rather send Anna back to the monastery, Wanda decides to search for the traces of her relatives with her niece. Ida is a journey into the past: that of the German occupation, but also into the dark Stalin era. 

FREE ON CINEGEEK.DE Lilja 4Ever 

We know the story of Lilja from the newspaper. How a 16-year-old girl from Russia is abandoned by her mother and falls in love with a handsome stranger. Hoping for a better future, Lilja moves to Sweden, where she is imprisoned as a prostitute. Lilja is naive and innocent. We know that she is in danger. But Lilja thinks that this is necessary for her survival. The fact that the story of Lilja is not an isolated case breaks my heart all the more! Lukas Moodysson's Lilja 4ever is one of the saddest and most moving movies of all time! Lilya (Oksana Akinshina) grows up somewhere in the former Soviet Union. In a desolate prefabricated housing estate, as we do not know it as Berliners. Her best friend is called Volodya (Artyom Bogucharsky) and has to play basketball with a can because he doesn't have a ball. Lilja's mother confesses to her daughter that she is engaged again. Her husband would take her to America, but Lilja couldn't be the same. The daughter is to follow. The mother is heartless. A woman born in a society as cold as it is desperate. The scene in which she leaves Lilja and the daughter runs behind the car, screaming, I could never forget again. I have to think about it and feel a dumpling in my throat. The moment Lilja lives alone at home, her aunt comes to see her. She throws the child out; from now on Lilja is "allowed" to live in her aunt's barrack. Is there a better environment somewhere? Anyway, Lilja won't find them. Instead she is having sniff parties with her friends. Volodya also lives on the street since his father threw him out. He talks about sex, as children do, and Lilja adopts the six-year-old like a big sister. Her way into prostitution doesn't surprise us. Without money for food... 

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!

 Romantic Movies on CINEGEEK.DE - The film recommendation page of our FilmKunstBar Fitzcarraldo

Romantic Movies on CINEGEEK.DE 

cinegeek is our own website - from our own video library. there you will find recommendations for our customers in berlin, kreuzberg and everyone who loves films. and you will find over 3000 free streams. much more exciting than amazon or netflix.

FREE ON CINEGEEK.DE Lemon Tree 

There is a lack of empathy these days and instead of empathy there is a WE against THEM. A lack of empathy for the victims of the terrorist attack by Hamas on 7 October on the one hand and a lack of compassion for the civilian victims of the war in Gaza, led by Netanyahu's right-wing extremist government on the other. Only cinema can help! Films like Lemon Tree, which modernises the story of King Ahab from the Old Testament. Ahab covets his neighbour's vineyard. In this case, however, Ahab is the Minister of Defence of Israel, who moves into a house near a lemon grove. The lemons are the only source of income for a widow from Palestine. For security reasons, Ahab claims, the lemon trees are to be cut down. Unlike him, however, his wife sympathises with the widow. A parable of the daily insults, injustices and injuries that agents of Israel inflict on their neighbours from Palestine. An opportunity for us to feel what we at best read in the serious press and at worst on social media. 

Hippie Decade on CINEGEEK.DE 

Nothing is more unpleasant when adults behave like children in the movie. When it gets madly greasy, both romp through a park and feed the swans and giggle all the time. Michelangelo Antonioni has expressed his deep insights into how cultivated boredom sucks every life out of man in a series of masterpieces from the 50s and early 60s. Then he accidentally became world famous as a pop art icon. For Zabriskie Point he finally went to Hollywood. Antonioni had found his style. He staged movies of great emptiness, which probably nobody understood completely. They were movies from the upper middle class. Now he felt obliged to make a film about the hippie era. A victim of the late 60's which made so many great authors into "engaged" filmmakers. But Antonioni is not an activist and his talent is not to pick up political topics. Antonioni's figures always seemed so incredibly blocked - paralyzed. But in Zabriskie Point they raise their voices - and sound empty. The actors do not act together. They have narcissistic self-talks. The hero from Zabriskie Point makes a radical impromptu speech (without any motivation) and then decides to intervene personally (without any motivation). Maybe he killed a policeman (but we know what a murder of Antonioni can be like). He steals a plane, flees into the desert and picks up a beautiful girl. He circles her a few times, then both run into the dunes and love each other. In the lowest point of the USA, in Zabriskie Point (note the symbolic content). The sex scenes seem to have been copied from other movies, without any real feeling or even joie de vivre. We simply watch as a couple of lovers roll around in the sand. A ridiculously long sequence. What's the next step? Our hero paints his plane with psychedelic colors. He flies back to Los Angeles and is murdered by policemen. It's not easy to follow Zabriskie Point, but the film is basically that simple. Besides, Antonioni shows how corrupt and corrupt America is (to be noticed by public attacks). It remains to be seen that Antonioni has no feeling for how young people are. In his Italian films, he showed us adults. In Zabriskie Points we see kids rolling up and down the sand dunes.

Charlie Kaufmans Mindgame Movies on CINEGEEK.DE 

Charlie Kaufman ist der Erfinder unter den Drehbuch-Autoren! In diesem, seinem ersten grossen Erfolg, liefert er eine endlose Reihe solcher Erfindungen wie verruchter Paradoxien und überraschender Wendungen. Ganz listig und langsam - ohne billige Effekthascherei

FREE ON CINEGEEK.DE  

Ordell thinks long and hard. The camera lets him, just holds on to it. "It's Jackie Brown!" Odell is right. It was Jackie Brown who stole the $500,000. It's unusual that a black gun dealer in the movie even gets the chance to think. With Tarantino, however, things are quite different. He has filmed the novel of the same name by Elmore Leonard, in which all the protagonists are clever. A question of survival, the smartest one will make it. Jackie (Pam Grier) knows that she has to look naïve in order to survive. Ordell (Samuel L. Jackson) would kill her immediately. She's cunning, like everyone else in Tarantino's movie. The bail bondsman (Robert Forster), the AFT agent (Michael Keaton) - they all know what happens. Just ask if they're fast enough to keep up with Jackie. With Jackie Brown, Quentin Tarantino not only proved that he was more than a hype! His third film remains his best! Never again did he arrange such perfect scenes as those between the constantly stoned ex-Con (Robert de Niro) and Ordell's lover (Bridget Fonda) discussing a photo in Ordell's booth. Never again did Tarantino stage such a precise production! Although mistakes in suitcases have been popular since the 60s, it's not the plot that convinces here. It's the structure of the film. Jackie Brown, 44 years old, works for the worst airline as a stewardess. She also smuggles money for Ordell. Then Beaumont (Chris Tucker) is caught and the AFT (personified by Michael Keaton) is on her heels. She is arrested. But Ordell sends the bail bondsman Max Cherry (Robert Forster) to buy her out. Here begins the great love story, the heart of the film. Slowly the affection between the two grows (in a worse movie a sex scene would have spoiled everything). Jackie fears to be murdered by Ordell. She has to kill him first, but she's not a killer. In Gunde Max knows that Jackie is using him. Nevertheless, her feelings are real. Jackie is helpless. She can't help it. We get to know all these characters (and in most thrillers they just get to know each other). I think the fact that Tarantino lets us participate in his characters makes the difference! That's what makes his movies "cult movies". Tarantino's strengths are his dialogues and his timing. And of course his casting! Pam Grier, the sex bomb of the Blaxploitation cinema of the 70s, seems tired and desperate here. It still attracts everyone's attention, but Jackie knows life. Robert Forster as a security agent plays the role of his life! A quietly working professional and a sensitive, melancholic lover. Samuel L. Jackson seems even colder and more dangerous than ever before and Robert de Niro can be simply stupid. One of the best is the almost invisible performance of Bridget Fonda, who is only interested in one thing: being high. At the time, some people said Jackie Brown was too long. They're just the ones who can't cope with old-fashioned movies. On the other hand, I wish Tarantino's characters would talk to each other, cheat and live much longer.

Deutschland im Herbst 

In 1977, the end of the Republic was believed. The RAF terror reached its unique climax and therefore the German filmmakers of the New German Cinema also tried to take a stand. Germany in autumn is more than just a film. It is a document of the times. It begins with the (state) funeral service for the president of the employer Hanns-Martin Schleyer. Murdered by the RAF. Revenge for the suicides in Stammheim. 

FREE ON CINEGEEK.DE Alejandro Jodorowsky - The Holy Mountain  

If he looks back today, I think he'll be able to say he did anything. His name is Alejandro Jodorowsky. He went around with a circus, drew comics, worked with the greatest surrealists and made movies. He's not organized, he makes the kind of movies that Hollywood shouldn't make anymore. Not because of the success, but because he has to! Jodorowsky is a driven one! Holy Mountain resembles an explosion of images, filmed with burning intensity, so they will be remembered forever! A thief climbs the high tower and meets the alchemist at the top of the rainbow room. The alchemist has gathered a kind of sect around him to set off for the holy mountain to become gods there. It was John_Lennon who convinced his manager Allen Klein to support Jodorovsky's film financially. It was a fatal deal because Jodorowsky lost control of his work. But Jodorowsky used only half of the budget and returned the second part! It is said that he had lived with the crew in a commune, taken LSD and been looked after by a Zen master. The film begins in a white room that looks like a mosaic. The alchemist (Jodorowsky himself) in a black coat and two women kneeling are present. He shaves their heads and the opening credits begin. Then we see a gang of little boys with green genitals throwing stones at a tied man (Jesus?). In the first part the characters are introduced episodically, while in the second part the journey to the holy mountain follows. The first part looks like a walk through a colorful, explosive labyrinth, the second part seems almost contemplative. Finally we are awakened from our dream by Jodorowsky. Unfortunately, because we would have liked to sleep even more!