Review of Elementarteilchen

(excuse me for the lousy use of the English language) A bit in a twist about this one... My experience throughout the movie was a mix of astonishment and confusion. The actors are absolutely brilliant (especially Moritz Bleibtreu and Martina Gedeck) but the story line is a bit of a mess. Must confess that I haven't read the book though, but as an "outsider" i feel as if the director wants to put as much book material as possible into a predefined certain amount of celluloid and thereby losing most of the unprepared audience. It just doesn't work. There are too many loose ends that are never tied together (SPOILER WARNING) e.g. the student that Bruno hits on, Bruno's Oedipus complex, Bruno's father who is introduced and the quickly abandoned again, Bruno's wife and daughter who completely disappears from the plot, Annabelle's ex (who is mentioned to be a serial killer). All together there are "chapters" in the movie but they are not connected well enough - it all just falls short of something great. The main theme (in my eyes) that Bruno himself pursues sexual satisfaction leading him beyond the line of sanity and his brother Michael as the ultra-virgin pursuing a life of fidelity in the name of science suffers quite a bit on this behalf.

The use of humor is (to say the least) debatable - and even as confusing as the story line! You never know when to cry or laugh, for example when Bruno masturbates to his own mother and then kills a kitten - too twisted and sad to be really funny - too twisted not to be. This is a major inconsistency. When the nature of a scene is to feel pity for a character, the episode is ridiculed by a somewhat lame (and not very) funny oddity, totally killing the intimacy. This happens several times.

All in all the movie is worth seeing but it is definitely the work of the actors who carry the load.