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Reviews
Luise - Eine deutsche Muslima (2007)
Enlightening and emotionally involving portrait of more than one family
A very enlightening documentary portraying a 25 year old German woman (Luise) who converted to Islam at 19 yrs., gradually conforming more to the rules of her newly found belief. She is married to an Algerian man (Mohammed) who went to Germany to avoid military service (meaning: possibly killing other humans in a politically turbulent Algeria) and to study software engineering. While the documentary was made, the couple was living in with Luisa's parents in their house in Germany.
Much of the film's potential stems from the intense emotional and intellectual controversy that is due to the tension between Luise's parents' rather progressive style of living, and Luise's and Mohammed's Islamic belief system. There is deep love between the parents and their daughter, that's probably what keeps them together and prevents their connection from breaking.
Luise's mother earns the family's income, while her father (Mateng) works as a dadaist performance artist. Mateng's 'Theatre du pain' is at times considered funny by Mohammed and Luise, yet both are deeply offended by some of the Theatre's material (of which excerpts are shown), letting the young couple conclude to never again visit any of their father's performed art.
Faced with Mohammed's views, Mateng feels his sense of manhood questioned. Luise's feminist mother, fearing to lose her daughter to this unknown and strange religion, is totally perplexed and helpless when confronted with her daughter's firm belief in a paradisaical afterlife, where she will finally be able to enjoy all the things that she refuses to indulge in this present world (like e.g. swimming at the beach), the refusal being a necessity due to her submission to god.
While this portrayal of a western convert might not be representative, it helps me as a German agnostic with only few acquaintances of Islamic belief (none of them really strict believers) to get an idea of what can happen when these cultures get in touch, and when so much seems to be at stake.
21 (2008)
Powerful authentic event, but turned into a superficial flick. On video.
In the end of 2007/ or early 2008 I have seen a BBC documentary on exactly this case. I believe the documentary run for about 90 minutes, just as long as the motion picture.
The documentary was pretty exciting. It showed at least two of the (some of them now former) MIT students involved in the events. One of them was a gorgeous woman - so different from 'Jill' in the movie. Apart from being the more exciting film, the documentary told so much more about what happened, what they did, how it worked, where the money went, what different strategies had been applied before, the whole history behind it. The BBC documentary already was pretty cool. Back then I thought: "What a great feature film would this make?".
I even adore Kevin Spacey since American Beauty. I was biased to rate '21' high. But not this movie. I gave it four points. Everything above 6 points I'd consider unacceptably high.
By the way: I have the impression this movie was not filmed on chemical film but that it was in many parts, or even fully, recorded on video - is that so? I can't really say what gives me that videoish impression. Maybe some motion blur or other motion related artifacts? Or a deep field of view?
Duplex (2003)
Don't watch this if you are out for an anarchic Ben Stiller comedy!
Don't watch "Duplex" if you are out for an anarchic Ben Stiller comedy, like e.g. the following: - Flirting with Disaster (1996), - There's something about Mary (1998), - Meet the parents (2000), - The Royal Tenenbaums (2001), - Meet the Fockers (2002), - Along came Polly (2004). These I love and value for being totally hilarious. These made me laugh hysterically til every next laugh had me wince in pain.
But Duplex is different. Duplex is timid. Duplex is very foreseeable. It isn't even really funny. The characters impersonated by Ben Stiller and Drew Barrymore just don't let it loose. Maybe the movie company wanted a Comedy for both conservative preschoolers and conservative elderly people. Yeah, that's probably it.
I haven't even fully watched it, didn't want to - I fast forwarded the last 30 minutes for most of it.
Catch a Fire (2006)
A really good movie. Pre-previous poster usenet69 appears to be dishonest about his color of skin
I have given this movie 10 points, even though I would have liked some deeper exploration of the motivations behind some characters ...
***Possible Spoiler following:***
... especially Nic Vos' (Tim Robbins), the anti-terrorist squad leader's, decision to take the captive Patrick Chamusso (Derek Luke) to his home, have him have dinner with Vos' entire family.
Along with Richard Attenborough's "Cry Freedom" (1987) this is one of the most gripping and believable depictions of the apartheid RSA that I've come across.
And now for usenet69, whose postings don't cease to puzzle me - for like a chameleon usenet69 is at times WHITE, and then he/she is BLACK.
The following comments were written by registered user usenet69 (click his name to view all of his comments):
'Catch a Fire' (2006) comment 'You are all ignorant', 17th January 2007:
"(...) You have NO idea what you are talking about. (...) BY THE WAY. I AM A BLACK south African (...)"
'Into the West' (2005) comment 'Has America Apologized?', 6th November 2006:
"I am a South African. I AM WHITE. (...)"
'Losing Isaiah' (1995) comment 'Very difficult issue', 18th March 2006:
"Living in South Africa and being WHITE (...)"