User Reviews

Germans are unsurpassed when it comes to depict whatever is grotesque, bizarre, monstrous or disturbing. This tendency was best illustrated by the trend called "expressionism", an art movement of the nineteen twenties that applied to painting (Dix, Grosz), cinema (Fritz Lang, Murnau) and theatre (Bertold Brecht's "Threepenny opera"). The movement was dismissed by the Nazis as "degenerate art" and abruptly ended with Hitler's rise to power. As a movie, "The Tin Drum" is a unique modern tribute to expressionism.

Before it was adapted for screen, "The Tin Drum" was already a classic of German modern novel. The author, Gunther Grass, was born in Danzig, now Gdansk, Poland's major port on the Baltic Sea (where the "Solidarnosc" movement actually appeared the very year the movie was released). During the interwar period, Danzig was officially a "free city", but was claimed both by Germany and Poland, and it was the German invasion of Danzig that was the official cause for the outbreak of World War II. So no wonder the hero of "The Tin Drum", little Oscar, is born to a German mother and two different fathers, a Pole (the natural one) and a German (the adoptive one).

When little Oscar is born, his mother predicts that when he turns three, he will be given a tin drum. Prediction comes true, as little Oscar turns out to be a very naughty sort of Peter Pan. Disgusted by the world of adults around him, he attempts suicide at age three by jumping from the top of the cellar staircase. He survives but his growth is stopped. The eerie gnome and his fellow drum become inseparable, and if one ever tries, little Oscar has a lethal weapon : he can shout so shrill that his voice breaks any glass around. So don't mess with little Oscar, who keeps drumming and drumming for any reason, and remains a sarcastic and outcast witness of his time : the rise and fall of Nazism.

The Third Reich is depicted here as background for Oscar's adventures. Since he can't attend school because he will never give up his drum, he makes a career in a troop of circus midgets where his glass-breaking talents can bloom. Most of the time, Nazism is mocked here as a ridiculous farce with a humor à la Lubitsch. At heart though, "The Tin Drum" is far from being just a satire, as tragedy is often underlying under the dark humor. After little Oscar has lost his two fathers at age twenty one, he decides to bury his fetish toy in a pit, and embarks on a westbound refugee train as Germans are massively evicted of their former eastern territories.

This movie has an unusual amount of excellent scenes, but I'd rather not mention them, because there are just too many, and the surprise effect makes them all the more grasping. Needless to say that several of them deal with Oscar's glass-breaking exploits, which soon develop on a massive scale. Many of them are also voluntarily disgusting, but I guess it's the name of the game here. Should you eat before or after seeing this? In case you don't eat before, you might not feel very hungry afterwards, and if you do... well, if you're faint of stomach, better you avoid this movie anyway.

If you get a chance and you don't mind subtitles, the original version seems like a good option. Little David Bennent's mischievous and cringing voice is an excellent performance, and gets enhanced by the rasping sound of the German language. The movie is almost two and a half hours long, and if it's no wonder that many will find it absurd or offending, it is neither slow or boring

A well deserved Palme d'Or in Cannes for 1979.

"Die Blechtrommel" or "The Tin Drum" is a German movie from over 35 years ago that managed to win an Academy Award in the Foreign Language Feature category as well as winning the Palme d'Or in Cannes. I cannot really see why though. I watched the director's cut of this film and it runs for almost 2 hours and 45 minutes. Certainly sometimes a case of quantity over quality here. David Bennent was actually a good choice for the main character as his face was truly memorable, his bright blue eyes (that were lenses though). However, the solid acting by him and established actors like Adorf, Winkler, Olbrychski and the young Katharina Thalbach was not enough to turn it into something gigantically good as the awards attention implies. It seems critics agree because the reception is not too favorable overall, still positive obviously, but compared to other films that took home similar honors definitely a bit on the sub-par side. A few more words about the cast: Adorf was already almost 50 here and they did fine in making him look younger early on. His dying scene is also pretty memorable, not because of the shots, but because of what he swallows before that. And also how the same icon is one that they have babies play with earlier in the film as if it was something really harmless. The irony is fairly priceless that moment. Winkler I am usually not a big fan of because she rarely seems as authentic as they want audiences to believe, but is often a bit on the over-the-top and ham side (also on other occasions where she worked with Schlöndorff), but like I said, here she is okay and it may be among her best career performances overall. Then again, some of the stuff she did does not require huge range, like when she keeps stuffing all the fish inside her and generally how she runs around and cheat. It is not a challenging performance. Maybe, especially when it comes to all the grown-up folks, not the most challenging movie in terms of acting. Thalbach may have had a more difficult time in the second half and it is funny how she looks exactly like her kids and grandkids now in the 21st century. But actually really stunning. She was also in her mid-20s when this was made, so almost a decade older than her character. And one I need to mention 100% is Bennent. Yes, again. His character is not only the center of the film, but really the heart and soul. It is no story about a kind boy struck by the cruelties of Nazi Germany and the war that destroyed his character or so. He is pretty feisty and knows exactly what he wants. And he does what he has to. Take all the scenes in which he won#t give away his beloved drum or of course when he starts to scream, which was featured very prominently in the first half, but only there and in the second not really. My ears are grateful. And one I should also not forget is Charles Aznavour. His role is not too big, but he is sort of almost the only likable character here. He may let the boy get away and the child sees what his mother does, which was maybe not the best move from him, but other than that he is kind and gentle. The other protagonists are not. There are so many films about resistance fighters in Germany from this dark era, but this is nothing the Matzeraths are. They are devout Nazis for the most part. And they pay for it in the end, especially Adorf's character. So a different take on the subject here and a good one.

Occasional scenes with soldiers or speeches by Hitler and other Nazi officials are not enough to make a film a convincing political/war movie. The focus is somewhere else than that, probably like it was in the novel. And apart from that, the stories were simply really more absurd than authentic, but sometimes even in a good way. This goes for the main character's mother having several men at the same time or at the depiction of pedophilia later on, which wasn't even shown as something bad here. Maybe the reason is because this film is so strictly against Hitler, his politics and World War II, so pedophilia something bad that even the Nazis despised was not depicted as really evil for that reason here. Or of course the logical response that the boy was indeed the same age as the girl. Is it the film's worst aspect? Up to you to decide. Very subjective what to think of all that. The storyline that the boy stopped growing because he decided to do so? Does it make sense that he did not want to be like adults in this world? Maybe. But don't all kids would like to stay young at some point? Why can't they do it? Nonsense or an exaggerated truth? The inclusion of dwarf people that apparently made the same decision was also closely connected to this plot. Pay attention to how the boy absolutely stays silent and does not scream although he easily could have ruined the lead dwarf's stage show with all the glass on the table there. Also pay attention to how it is really unusual that Nazi audiences would enjoy a show by such "unfulfilled" creatures in reality. Back to the basics: I am not sure to what extent this film is based on Nobel Prize winner Günter Grass' work and how close Schlöndorff stayed to the original. But I can say that it's a bit of everything, but maybe not enough of anything: family movie, war movie, political thriller and as consequence I am not sure if it is a good choice for people wanting to see it for the historic context. Maybe it could be considered fantasy. But if you hear about a fantasy movie set in Germany during the first half of the 20th century, you knew you're in for something that is guilty pleasure material to some extent too. This description really does not fit either somehow. Still here and there it is somewhat fascinatingg and that is why I recommendit cautiously, but I still feel that it is one of the weaker Foreign Language Film winners in Oscar history, at least taking those into account that I have seen. Admittedly there's still worse ones like the reccent winner from Hungary set during the same era. Also they could have kept this easily at around 120 minutes without losing too much of the film's value. I would not say it dragged gigantically, but still it was maybe a bit too long for its own good, although running time is also always a challenge when adaptaing a book (that was released 20 years earlier by the way) and a pretty famous one at that. But I guess they wanted to go for bloated here for whatever reason. Oh and one final thing: I like sherbet or effervescent powder whatever you may want to call it, but the way it was handled here was just gross I think. But to still end the review on a positive note, I want to say that I can understand the boy, also in the 21 century now many decades after the film is set. It's impossible to stop the body from aging, but not too difficult to really stay young in the mind. I encourage you to take this approach. They may laugh at you because you're different. You laugh at them because they are all alike. Go for it! By the way, the bis music scene was pretty cool too. But sadly there are as many moments that are not that good such as Oscar's "romance" with the considerably older chubby woman. That is all now. Without Bennent, it really would not be worth seeing I suppose (you see all his power on the imdb poster here too) and also I feel that the film would be considerably more forgotten nowadays without the Oscar win. It's not a movie that ranges between good and great, but between mediocre and good with the occasionally weak moment even. Schlöndorff has never been on the same level for me like Herzog, Wenders, Fassbinder... the other defining Germany directors from this era. Kinda surprising that he is the one who got the Oscar and everybody else did not. If you want to see what for, then you can check out this film. It is not bad admittedly, but I just cannot be enthusiastic about it whatsoever, even if I like it more now I guess than after the first (or second) time I saw it.

Not devoting so much attention to the well-known literary background of the film, I would like to point out three vital aspects which discern this piece of art.

First, this is a very physiological work, full of intense, sometimes disgusting scenes (the frog soup drinking or the famous episode with eels) that will strike a blow into your sensual perception. However, we should bear in mind that European and, especially, Eastern European art simply HAS far deeper traditions of portraying those "ugly" and "dirty" natural physiological processes such as urinating, puking, spewing sputum and so on, in which The Tin Drum abounds and which therefore will leave more lasting impact on the Western viewers who belong to sterility-centred cultural environment.

Second, the film is not an easy one to watch and comprehend, as it totally screws up your brain, not fitting into any of genres you would like to stick it. The most precise genre perhaps would be called – a grotesque gradually being won over by a tragedy. The first scene where we meet Oskar is rather light and comical one, as he looks to us from the womb with a gaze full of suspicion and sarcasm. Yet his character is not a role of a comic dwarf, he is a metaphor for the prosecutor of mankind and his time. Another scene includes his mother gobbling raw fish, because she has turned out to be pregnant again – so grotesque a scene, you feel amused. In a minute, she commits suicide. So it is impossible to watch the film in a stable, consequent mood; in the end, The Tin Drum leaves you disharmonic, disillusioned and unbalanced, just as you should feel about life itself.

Third, we come to the obvious conclusion that The Tin Drum as all remarkable works of art must be viewed as a symphony of symbols and metaphors. The character of the little drummer Oskar evidently is the most powerful one, as he embodies the true attitude we each have for ourselves somewhere deep inside. We all feel so small, so willing to be pitied and protected, so not-belonging to the dreadful world outside, so humiliated by our comrades, so naive and so terribly lonely. And in the same time our inner selves are just as cruel and self-centred as Oskar is, and we hold so tight to our little tin drum (should it be our surroundings, people, money, status, looks or anything else which we believe to be constituting our identities from), and we yearn so keenly and so unsuccessfully to return back to our mothers' wombs and hide forever from the fierce and violent meaninglessness of this life.