Reviews

This is a beautifully filmed portrait of different people in Berlin and a young woman in Marseille. More little scenes than a story. Very atmospheric and melancholy. The best film from Angela Schanelec so far.

In the first half we follow Sophie a German woman in Marseille on her ways through the city. While the second half is set in Berlin with scenes out of the life of an actress and a photographer. Every dialog is very well written and has a subtle sense of humor, which was often missing in the earlier films of Schanelec. But still there a long scenes and repetition even if the overall atmosphere is amazing.

Maren Eggert as Sophie gives a wonderful performance. New German wave cinema at its best.

This is a film to proof that there are different ways to tell a story. We are so used to watch the Hollywood style. This film incorporates animation, kabuki and Butoh, colorized experiments, collapsing sets, animal masks (where you realize it is your fantasy which makes the illusion complete and not a perfect computer animation!). It's a crazy colorful tale about a court fortune teller driven mad by a murder, who ends up marrying a fox in human form. Erika Gregor, the formal Berlinale-Forum curator said about the film: "No film in recent years has surprised, fascinated, and also moved me as much." The beginning is a bit dry but it is worth waiting until the magic begins.

A masterpiece about a working-class family in the late twenties in Berlin. You see Mutter Krauses fight for survival shown in such a modern way that you feel close even if it is nearly ninety years away. The way the camera (operated by the director himself) films the scenes and sometimes just the everyday life on the streets of Berlin is so energetic and real. The actors are playing very physical and natural (which was surprising for me as i expected acting in silent movies as much more stiff and awkward). All characters are very pure and just like in a documentary. Ilse Trautschold as the daughter is unforgettable. Whenever you get the chance to see this film go and watch it. Faßbinder once said it was his favorite film.

The film shows several people who arrive in a Parisian psychiatry. Compared to other documentaries this film is not portraying one person and his life, Raymond Depardon gives a portrait of a building. And in this building he stays in the entrance area as if this was a place which separates the normal from the sick. And while you listen to these different stories, see these very different life's and how they try to express their situation you get a strong feeling about our society and how it works. There is a bus driver who got a nervous breakdown. An old man who wanted to kill himself in the hallway of his house. A woman who gives a really strange explanation why she smashed a shop window. And a man who can't even tell his age nor what happened to him. The film rests on these people telling their story and then jumps into the next story so that the only thing which stays is the room and the psychologists who are asking questions and trying to help. After this film I want to see more of Depardons way of looking on our world.

It is about a girls everyday life at the and of her school days, trying to find a way into society and her own life. But the way Valeska Griesebach is telling this story is so full of moving moments and funny little dialogues that my heart was jumping all the time when I first saw the movie. This is one of the best new german movies you can see at the moment and was followed by others like "Bungalow" by Ulrich Köhler or "Klassenfahrt" by Henner Winkler which are nearly as good as this one and can be seen as a new direction for german independent film. If you want to know what german cinema really can do you have to go and see this movie.

This is not just a film, it is more a way of looking on a city and its inhabitants. I remember myself being a bit bored while watching the film at Berlinale. But now nearly a year later I have to admit that I was often thinking about it. All these views into illuminated windows. Busy people trying to live in the dark. There are some pictures which are hard to forget even if you have not noticed them for the first time. If you accept that there is no story at all just "life" than the film can start creeping into your mind.

This is a film-essay about the word "glaneur" (which means "collector" and much more). And what Agnes Varda finds on her filmic search through france and collects to this little film is just a masterpiece. Moving, funny and clever. Every scene adds something more to the words meaning and opens new ways of thinking obout it. By that the film introduces us to people we would never meet in our lives (unfortunately including the charming director Agnes Varda) and can not forget anymore.