User Reviews

There once was a German film, in the silent times. It was so famous that people like Murnau or Leni had been invited by Hollywood to learn from them how to make masterpieces. But soon, the industrial organization of Hollywood outstripped the German film that was stuck, probably because of the desperate financial situation between the two World Wars. While in the 30ies a good number of highlights could be produces, the outbreak of World War II and the emigration of the Jewish directors and actors meant De facto the end of the German film tradition. After Second World War, high quality was only produced in Austria, although the Heimatfilms were not to everybody's taste. In Germany, it took until the sixties, before TV stations got enough money to produce the garbage for which the German post-war film is still famous: mostly the Lederhosen films and the Krimis (Edgar Wallace and copies). Only in 1969, a galactic star arose whose fame has never ceased, and it was him who brought the German film back to international hight: R.W. Fassbinder. However, his time has been too short, and when Fassbinder died in 1982, many leading film critics announced the second and final death of German film. What came in the years after Fassbinder's dead, was just apt to confirm these croaks. So, in 1997, Christoph Schlingensief made his genial, chaotic and wonderful parabola "The 120 Days of Botropp", by its title an analogy of Pasolini's Revelation, mainly cast with Fassbinder actors. A leading Fassbinder actor is also in "Der Gesang Der Toten Dinge" (2009), directed by the young Austrian director Thomas Roth who may have a bright future. How many people did realize that the "Maria Hilf"-song that Irm Hermann sings whenever she drives on her bicycle through the dark forest of München-Tiergarten, is the clue-song of Fassbinder's "Die Niklashauser Fart"? Story, dramaturgy and acting of this movie reveal it as a true highlight on international level. However, it is not without irony, that the Augias stable that Fassbinder had to clean out in the 60ies consisted to a good deal on Krimis, and in the form of Krimis the high potential of quality of the German movies seems to come back half a century later. Make such "TV movies" available for the international public! What comes out from Germany on international DVDs is practically exclusively belonging to one of the three thematic groups: Nazi time, Stasi time, guy movies. From this second kind of trash we have gotten enough, too.