Blog
Die Unerzogenen
[ 8. Mai 2008; Filme]
Ein Mädchen versucht aus dem asozialen Leben seiner Eltern und deren Freunden auszubrechen. Die Existenz der Eltern ist geprägt durch Faulenzen, Drogen, krumme Geschäfte und einer berechtigten Angst vor der Polizei.
Echte Trailer-Trash Drögheit, wie man sie aus amerikanischen oder osteuropäischen Filmen kennt, kann der Film leider nur begrenzt vermitteln. Da hilft es auch nichts, dass einer der Freunde der Familie nicht müde wird, immer wieder zu sagen, wie sehr er sich langweilt.
Die Integrationsschwierigkeiten des Mädchens sind aber recht hübsch dargestellt. 3 out of 5
Havanna, die neue Kunst, Ruinen zu bauen
[20. Dez 2007; Filme]
Die Eindrücke sind nur schwer zu beschreiben. Die Einwohner leben in Häusern aus der Zeit vor der sozialistischen Revolution, die inzwischen völlig ver- und zerfallen sind, weil sich niemand darum kümmert. Der Verfall wird als selbstverständlicher natürlicher Vorgang akzeptiert.
Die ehemals stolzen Bauten wirken wie Meisterleistungen einer lange vergangenen Hochkultur. Die primitive Gesellschaft, die ihr folgte, lebt nun in deren Ruinen, weil sie nicht die Kraft hat, sie zu erhalten oder vergleichbare neue Bauwerke zu schaffen.
Unglaublich sprechende Bilder. 5 out of 5
Satyricon (Fellini)
[30. Nov 2007; Filme, Englisch]
It usually works good for me to wait one or two days before writing about a topic. Well, this time it didn't. Satyricon is very surreal, causing my memories to become blurry after just one night.
To give a rough idea of the plot: It takes place in ancient degenerated Rome where two brothers go through various bizarre adventures, which only vaguely relate to each other. For details on the story go to wikipedia.
I do remember some parts as being disturbingly noisy, but the whole thing as quite impressive and distinctive. Watching it is definitely worthwhile if you can handle the stress. 4 out of 5, I think.
The Dreamers
[22. Okt 2007; Filme, Englisch]
An introverted movie-loving american student in his early 20s who is spending a year in Paris runs into an apparently open minded and well educated girl and her brother of the same age. At first he feels lucky to be accepted by these people and to be allowed to take part in their lives. They challenge him a lot and he has a hard time to keep up. But eventually he gets to think about the situation and it dawns on him: The two are not open minded, they just never grew up and live in a imaginary world provided by the movies. Knowing this he is suddenly taking the lead and tries to help the twins. But he is asking too much from them and leads them into disaster.
I have to admit that I suspected bad acting in the first few minutes because of the way the twins presented themselves. Something wasn't quite right. But as it turned out, it was intended. They perfectly played two children imitating adult behavior. This disguise gets more and more flaws throughout the movie and is totally destroyed when they almost starve after their parents left for a couple of weeks.
Scenes like a childish suicide attempt make the movie even more lovable. 5 out of 5.
Fahrenheit 451
[23. Sep 2007; Filme, Englisch]
Every litte boy knows what firemen are there for. Their job is to put things on fire.
This sounded weird enough to me to go and see this movie. For most part the movie depicted a 1984-ish world with focus on books, or rather their absence.
Books are forbidden and considered to have a bad influence on people as they confront the reader with too complicated thoughts and emotions. The fire department is called whenever books need to be destroyed. Our hero, a fireman himself, secretly rescues some books to take them home and read them. He does so to escape from his boring drug addicted wife who does nothing but watch a silly TV soap called TV family. She represents the average person in this world. The drugs are actually provided by health care, as unhappiness is seen to be an illness.
Of course there is an embedded love story. The girl, obviously a book reader too, is removed from her job as she does not fit into the system. When the fire department finds the books in the girl's house, the two of them flee into the forest of the living books. The living books are people in the forest who each memorized the contents of a single book to protect it from being destroyed. With this happy news the movie ends.
It would have been interesting to learn where the boss of the firemen had all his detailed book knowledge from. He summarizes their contents to our hero to make clear how bad they are, before burning them. But apart from the hero and his girl all characters remain shallow. This shallowness may be intended to demonstrate the dullness of this world.
The movie tends to be praising books beyond the bearable at some points, especially in the forest. Considering its age I'll give it a 3 out of 5.