Archive for the ‘Germany’ Category
Author: Otilia
A spiritual journey
Argentinian-born French director Gaspar Noé – I Stand Alone (1998), Irreversible (2002) – challenges the impossible once again with Enter the Void (2009).
Author: James
Playing for his life
One that I have been meaning to do for some time – without doubt, one of the finest films ever made about the Holocaust and one that, in differing its approach from the similarly superb Schindler’s List (1993), manages to convey the unique horrors of those anti-human times in a way that is peculiarly intimate and personal.
Author: James
Gods and monsters
Picturenose had the pleasure of meeting renowned Antwerp-born director Harry Kümel during BIFFF 2010 - a little background then on Malpertuis (The Legend of Doom House) (1971), a film which, along with Kümel’s Les lèvres rouges (Daughters of Darkness) (1971), resulted in the director quickly being labelled a master of fantasy and horror.
Author: James
Gone to the dogs
German director Werner Schröter, an official ‘New Wave’ director, has been previously too confrontationally ‘strange’ (Deux (2002), Die Königin – Marianne Hoppe (2000)) to stand four-square with the other greats of his country (such as Wenders, Fassbinder and Herzog) when it comes to his work being distributed outside his home land. The disturbing Nuit de Chien (2008) doesn’t show much deviation from his previous path, but it’s nevertheless something of a must.
Author: Colin
Put doubts aside
German cinema and I have never seen eye-to-eye. I don’t really get why this is – I am not a man who is fearful of the odd subtitle. If a non-English-language DVD is to be found in my player, it will almost certainly not have dialogue in German. And yet, nearly every time I happen across a piece of German cinema, I’m impressed.
Author: James
Making the difference
A worthy examination of a Nazi who did the right thing.
John Rabe (1882-1950) was a German businessman who is best known for his efforts to stop the atrocities of the Japanese army during the Nanking Occupation (and massacre) in 1937-38 and, failing in those efforts, his work to protect and succour Chinese civilians subsequent to the event.
Author: James
Fitting tribute
Gerald Loftus returns with his thoughts on a gritty, based-on-fact war story…
The lump that was in my throat during the 139 minutes of L’Armée du Crime, Robert Guédiguian’s dramatization of the ‘Manouchian Group’ story has subsided, but the emotion remains. This is a good, old-fashioned, based-on-fact war story that needed to be told, and in the veteran French-Armenian director’s hands, it has been done justice.
Author: James
Suffer the children
Directors before Michael Haneke have asked the same fundamental question that permeates his elegiac, trenchant study of darkness and light, Das weiße Band (2009) – namely, with specific reference to Germany, from whence did the affiliation with fascism rise, and how did a people turn a blind eye to the atrocities in their midst during the 20th century?
Author: James
Secrets and lies
In what was, quite remarkably, German writer-director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck’s first feature, we are taken inside the dark heart of East Germany in the mid-1980s. Communism still rules with an iron grip, the fall of the Berlin Wall is five years away, and Hauptmann Gerd Wiesler (Ulrich Mühe) is a high-flying member of the Stasi, the secret police agency of the former German Democratic Republic.
Author: James
The boy who would be Khan
Writer-director Sergei Bodrov’s Mongol (2007) fell victim somewhat to a less-than-helpful advertising campaign at the time of its release, depicting the film as being largely about Genghis Khan’s military conquests, but Bodrov’s work (and an epic, impressive piece of work it is) in reality takes us through the life of legendary Mongol Emperor Genghis Khan from the age of nine until the battle that would cement his position in history, showing not so much how the man rose to power, but rather (and rather more interestingly) how he in fact gained the strength to become a world-beater.
- Colin: Mike: the Matrix was utter toss. Don’t go there. Anyhow, I’m right with you on Aliens –...
- Colin: James: Why not do ten more and see if you can avoid putting the god-awful travesty that is Independence Day in...
- CD: The Day the Earth Stood Still (it’s about an alien who is Jesus…but better than ET) Soylent Green...
- James: Hello Chris, and welcome to Picturenose!
Many thanks for your comment – I thought, in fact, that... - James: Colin, good points, both on Westworld (which should really have been included, I know, I know) and otters.