Critical Film Condition

It is official: Austrian Cinema seriously rocks of late.

After seeing „Revanche“ not long ago, „Der Knochenmann“ (lit. trans: “The Bone Man“) is another Alpine country shocker. I don’t want to give too much away, but this one reminds me of Sweeny Todd: “We have shepherd’s pie peppered with actual shepherd on top.” Not for the faint of heart or stomach, especially stomach!

Private Investigator Brenner (played by Josef Hader) gets involved a case at “Löschenkohl”, a grill chicken station. People disappear and the food is strangely tasty – this is just about the extent of what my still nervously trembling stomach will let me write. I have been a Vegetarian for 25 years now, so cannibalism is as far from my mind as removing my own brain through my nose or joining the Republican Party.

“Der Knochenmann” is based on the novel by Wolf Haas, published in 1997. The movie is part of a crime thriller trilogy revolving around private investigator Simon Brenner (the other two are “Komm, süßer Tod” and “Silentium!”). Wolf Haas also wrote the screenplay, making major changes for the screen version.

Director Wolfgang Murnberger plays on the morbid charm and laconic way of life typical for Austria and spices it up with social criticism. The depiction is realistic but occasionally bordering on comical, wisely. The satirical wit is translated well onto the screen with an extra topping of suspense. The photography is well done. Throw in an interesting (however sometimes over-present) score by the Sofa Surfers, some great acting by Josef Hader, Josef Bierbichler (Löschenkohl) and Birgit Minichmayr (Birgit) and you get something that tastes a lot like chicken – or murder.

Tasty!

Popularity: 4%

The guys and I recently
were discussing “Un chien andalou” (1929) by Salvador Dalí and
Luis Buñuel. It seems that everyone collectively was traumatized by
one scene or another. I could not even remember the eyeball scene
until Renny mentioned it (- denial isn’t just a river in Egypt!).
My favorite scene was always the eyelashes turning into a tree.

Then this comes
along. Jazz, Freud and avant-garde shape three exceptional artists:
Salvador Dalí, Luis Buñuel and Federico
García Lorca. I love history-porn, but this can go wrong so many
ways. I am especially worried about Robert Pattinson (yes, the
Twilight dude) playing Salvador Dalí, since Twilight was such a
tedious, tedious affair. Actually, it deserves another tedious.

The MPAA R rating mentions
a brief disturbing image. Let’s hope there is more than one.

Here are two short clips from another interesting collaboration – Dali and Disney (to find out more: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Destino)

Popularity: 4%

“Revanche” is a play on words meaning revenge but also a re-match or second chance (in sports). This movie was Austria’s 2009 official submission for the Academy Awards Foreign Language Film category. They lost to the Japanese entry “Departures”. Admittedly, I didn’t have very high expectations, but I have to say, this is a really good one.

Alex (Johannes Krisch) is an ex-con working as a handyman in a brothel in Vienna (strangely or possibly totally appropriately named „Cinderella“ – tacky!). In this squalid environment of human trafficking and crime he is having a secret love affair with Tamara (Irina Potapenko), a Ukrainian prostitute. They are planning to run off to, well, anywhere really. To supply the financial means Alex robs a bank near his father’s home, a miserable farmhouse on the borders of modern Austrian society. The heist goes awry and Tamara accidentally gets shot by Robert (Andreas Lust), a police officer, while Alex manages to escape. He takes refuge at his father’s farm, submersing himself in physical labor. By chance Alex meets Robert’s wife Susanne (Ursula Strauss) and learns that Tamara’s killer lives close by. He starts to plan his revenge.

Writer/Director Götz Spielmann delivers a moody, chilling and very real piece of work. Every scene is meticulously planned and executed, down to the smallest detail, however he manages to make it look random and the threads don’t weave together until the nerve-racking ending.

The visual language provided by DOP Martin Gschlacht is very powerful and at times even poetic. The sets are capturing Austria incredibly well and there are some great dialogues (in dialect) bordering on monosyllabic, especially when Susanne and Alex get involved with each other.

Overall this movie could have been a little shorter.

And one more word of caution: The sex scenes are quite graphic and possibly traumatic for American audiences (where the sight of a nipple can spontaneously cause a collective national trauma). This one might cause viewers to snap into catatonic shock. It probably wasn’t a good idea to see this the same day as “The Reader”. Note to self: watch Disney movies for a week.

Popularity: 2%

For this I am handing the baton or rather magic wand over to the harshest of critics, my 6year old goddaughter Lena, the smartest, most adorable little devil on the planet.

According to her, the irresistibly and wildly intriguing thing about Princess Lillifee is that she is not only a princess, but also a fairy. I so get that. Just as every little girl in the whole wide world secretly wants to be – and incidentally many, many of the guys in my circle of trust. It all started with a series of children’s books by Monika Finsterbusch, selling like hot cakes (or Princess Lillifee muffins) in more than 20 countries, and subsequently expanding into a glittery-pink franchise selling pixie-themed media and accessories from t-shirts to Tupperware.

Lena’s room is every fairy-frenzied marketing manager’s dream and it has become quite difficult to score with Lillifee-themed gifts, because she has everything they have ever manufactured, which is a colossal amount – trust me! So after the books and the CDs and the board games and the clothes and the picture frames and the makeup and the glitter and the sparkling crayons, well you get the picture, with a fanfare avec a pink cherry on top: it’s Lillifee – the movie. So far it is only available in German but my guess is that little pink princesses the world over won’t be denied the pleasure.

This sneak preview is different from all the others because there are about 50 miniature size head-to-toe pink kindergarten princesses with complimentary rose-colored crowns running around and then all heading to the bathroom simultaneously. Not Lena and I – we are prepared and find the best seats. Sitting down right on target, the room is deserted, except for precisely one totally lost boy who was dragged there along with his sisters (gotta love the gratuitous insights). He is running through the aisles screaming and running after other (regrettably) imaginary boys. That’s about a conservatively estimated 50 hours of psychotherapy right there. I am dying to find out exactly how badly this dude will be traumatized. So this will be entertaining after all.

When finally all the princesses are seated and the credits start, there is a muffled cry of wonder at the pink and glittering titles. Can this crowd be actually this easy to please? Lena so far is not impressed with her first movie, I can tell. But she has totally gotten the hang of eating popcorn.

The story is simple. Princess Lillifee is the, well, princess of the fairyland “Rosarien”. Along with her friends Pupsi, the pig and Carlos, the frog among others, she lives happily ever after. She has a walk-in closet (she actually walks into a small closet that extends into an entire room filled with pink dresses – gotta love that!). And this is where even Lena is awed. Score!

But wait! Many of the residents of “Rosarien” are not as happy as it seems. Pixies, trolls and goblins are unhappy at the state of the land and chaos is imminent. Wow!

And they do not appreciate everything being turned pink at the wink of Lillifee’s magic wand every morning and pigs flying around. Oh dear!

And then Lillifee loses her magic powers. Yikes!

Can Lillifee restore the peace and harmony? Her plan is to reunite everyone with a great music show. Can this concept of distracting everyone with powerful words, showbiz tunes and fireworks actually work? Hmmm.

The movie has a running time of 72 minutes, which is pushing it for such a young audience. But I am happy to report that no one puked, fainted or wet themselves for the entire span of the movie. Not even the little lost boy. He was doing all right, I am happy to say.

The animation is ok, the movie overall a little too sugary (or more like caramel sticking to teeth), however I doubt that any adults will go see this of their own volition, so that does not really matter, does it? It moves at a slow pace and there is absolutely nothing scary about it, it is very suitable for children. Take your daughters, nieces, sisters (up to age 10 I would say), they’ll love it: the music, the pixies, the singing, the flying around, the pink fairyland. They will have fun.

When I questioned Lena about the movie afterward she told me she really liked it. And that she will totally go see other movies with me now. And I can see why.

Aside from the obvious question: “Can we go again tomorrow?”, I leave you with these two conclusions by Lena:

a) Together is better and.

b) there is such as thing as too much pink.

Pure genius.

Popularity: 10%

Only in the world of fast paced British poker-faced farce mob comedies can seeing Gerald Butler’s butt cheeks be not as much fun as it sounds. Actually, it is hilarious.

A mobster from the old school, Lenny (played by the ubiquitous Tom Wilkinson) knows the right wheels to grease and has his hand on the throat of any bureaucrat, broker or gangster that matter. With one phone call, Lenny can make the red tape disappear. But as Lenny’s right-hand man Archy (Mark Strong) tells him, London is ground zero for the changing times, with big-time mobsters from the East, hungry criminals from the streets, and everyone in-between, all vying to change the rules of commerce and crime. With millions up for grabs, all of London’s criminal underworld conspires colludes and collides, amongst them a band of thieves known as the Wild Bunch, consisting of One Two (Gerard Butler) and Mumbles (Idris Elba). But as high rollers and petty criminals alike jockey for dominance, the true prize of the multi-millions-dollar deal will fall into the hands of a junkie rock star (Tony Kebbell) – Lenny’s stepson, presumed dead but very much alive.

It takes a while for the story to unfold. However the laid baits do deliver. The writing is sarcastic, vitriolic and sometimes downright human. The movie also stars Thandie Newton (Stella), Jeremy Piven (Roman), Ludacris (Mickey). Overall the cast does an excellent job.

Guy Ritchie, a triple threat in this movie, wrote, produced and directed – and finally reverts back to his old form. RocknRolla is a comedy thriller that is almost (but not quite) as accomplished as his similar early work (Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch), but without doubt a witty, adrenalin-fuelled blast from beginning to end. There is a fine line between showing off as a director and being creative. And Guy Ritchie waltzes it perfectly throughout the movie. It is visually interesting, well-balanced and sometimes just f***ing cool. And it sports one of the more interesting love scenes recently. It will be interesting to see how and what he does with “Sherlock Holmes”.

Watching this movie I could not help but wonder whether this movie served as some kind of psychotherapy for Guy Ritchie. It must have. It is just too blindingly obvious. During the 2009 Golden Globe ceremony Sacha Baron Cohen said something to the tune of: “The economic crisis has even hit celebrities and Madonna has to fire one of her personal assistants. Out thoughts are with you, Guy Ritchie”. RocknRolla is a cathartic answer to that.

Boys will be boys.

Popularity: 3%

Alejandro Amenabar proved with “The Others” that a Spanish director can enter the savage jungle that is Hollywood without losing his own style, acquired in his homeland. But now THIS?

“Agora”, starring Rachel Weisz (“The Constant Gardener”), promisses to be one big epic, set in Roman Egypt, 400 B.C. It tells the story of a slave, who with the invasion of Christianity gets a chance at his freedom, but is torn between pursuing it or staying with his master, with whom he falls in love. His master just happens to be Hypatia of Alexandria, a famous phylosopher professor (Weisz).

It is not the type of trailer that I like, with collages of scenes from the movie (I like to get at least some notion of the story without having to read the tagline), but this specific trailer manages to give you an idea of the scope that the final film is trying to achieve. It’s HUGE, and with Amenabar’s storytelling skills, this promises to be an early contender for next year’s Adademy Awards.

Enjoy watching the trailer.

Popularity: 4%

Michael Ballhaus is Germany’s most famous DOP. For those of you who have been living with a bag over their heads, here is a list of his works: Der Zauberberg, The Age of Innocence, Dracula, Goodfellas, The Fabulous Baker Boys, Working Girl, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, The Last Temptation of Christ, The Glass Menagerie, The Color of Money, The Departed, Something’s Gotta Give, Gangs of New York, Primary Colors, Air Force One. And this is just a selection.

Now at the age of 74 he is a first time director. The subject of his documentary is his place of birth and hometown: Berlin. He joins Argentinean filmmaker and fellow cameraman Ciro Capellari in this declaration of love for Germany’s capital. In an attempt to comprehend and explain the city, they interview residents, mostly comprised of friends, including Berlin’s governing Mayor Klaus Wowereit, Federal Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, Alexander Hacke (of “Einstürzende Neubauten”), TV journalist Maybrit Illner, actress Angela Winkler along with her daughter Nele among many, many others.

This is charming, although the arts are slightly overrepresented. But since Berlin is just buzzing with creativity and so diversified, there is just not one way to tell it like it is. If you have never been to Berlin, first of all: go! Second of all: this movie is not a tourist guide. It illustrates very Berlin-specific topics like the rebuilding of the Berlin castle in the middle of downtown. It is a snapshot comprised of a selection of residents telling about the city they have great love for.

Berlin has evolved so much since the collapse of the Berlin Wall and gone trough so much before, it was about time to muse on the subject of this history-laden city. It is beautifully shot (which really is a given), but it is really, really beautifully shot (although according to producer Arndt Potdevin Michael Ballhaus never touched any of the cameras). If you happen to like or even love Berlin you will like or possibly love this movie.

Popularity: 3%

Beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder.

Cheri is a romantic drama set in 1920s belle époque Paris, where Cheri (Rupert Friend), the son of a courtesan (Kathy Bates) is forced to marry and end the six-year relationship with the older woman (Michelle Pfeiffer) who educated him in the ways of love.

Director Stephen Frears in my opinion can do no wrong after “Dangerous Liaisons” and “High Fidelity”, two of my all-time favorites. More than 20 years after “Dangerous Liaisons”, he reunites with writer Christopher Hampton and actress Michelle Pfeiffer for “Cheri”, an adaptation of the 1920s novel by French author Colette, mostly known for her novel “Gigi” (later turned into the 1958 Lerner-Loewe musical, which starred Leslie Caron and Mauriece Chevalier – including that dreadful song “Thank heaven for little girls” that just makes me squirm every time I hear it, which is not too often, thank heaven!).

Colette actually had quite an interesting life herself: Aside from writing novels, Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette (1873 –1954) performed together with her lover Marquise de Belbeuf (known as Missy) in a pantomime entitled Rêve d’Égypte at the Moulin Rouge. Their onstage kiss nearly caused a riot, which the police were called in to suppress. During the war she converted her husband’s St. Malo estate into a hospital for the wounded, and was made a Chevalier of the Legion of Honour in 1920. She divorced Henri de Jouvenel in 1924 after a much talked-about affair with her stepson, Bertrand de Jouvenel.

Now that’s a movie!

Cheri is a truly beautiful flirtation. Much like a prostitute, it proposes fantasy, charm and pleasure. It seduces with witty conversation, beautiful designs and exquisite costumes but in the end offers only fleeting satisfaction. It is just a fact that this movie will be compared to “Dangerous Liaisons” and it is simply not as superb, it pains me to say.

Michelle Pfeiffer as Lea de Lonval is breathtakingly beautiful and blissfully subtle in her performance, in every scene. To watch her as the aging courtesan practice the art of self-denial is enchanting. Beauty simply isn’t timeless and it is perfectly clear what will happen, but she manages to make it electrifying. She carries this movie, much more than Rupert Friend as the bored, superficial and hedonistic dandy Cheri in their ill-fated and highly improper union. They both don’t have a concept of love so they are unable to really recognize it. When Cheri’s mother wants him to get married, he obliges. Pride and defiance tear the lovers apart, reunite them and tear them apart again.

And that is where the problem lies (much as beauty does in the eyes of the beholder). It is just not enough of a story. I would have liked to see it as more than eye candy. It all gels very well together, directing, acting, editing, photography and especially the amazing score by Andre Desplat. Wonderful. But in the end it just lacks substance. It is not a lasting love affair, but a beautiful flirt.

Popularity: 3%