REVIEW: Aus dem Nichts [In The Fade] [2017]

Don’t ever say that about my husband. Writer/director Fatih Akin makes sure we get a sense of the potentially volatile world he’s created (with co-writer Hark Bohm) from the first frame of Aus dem Nichts [In the Fade]. It starts with a handheld video recording of a wedding wherein the groom (Numan Acar‘s Nuri Sekerci) is receiving applause and hugs from friends and family—or so it seems. As he continues to move forward his surroundings take shape. Suddenly we see jail cell bars as the walkway culminates onto a room…

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REVIEW: Schlafkrankheit [Sleeping Sickness] [2011]

My fate is in your hands. Is colonialism dead? It’s a question for which you would instantly answer “No” and yet still wonder if perhaps such a binary response is too simplistic. You would have to define colonialism and whether or not actual, recognized control of a land is the same as a more insidious relationship wherein you’re the puppet master of a “free” nation. Think missionary work or medical aid. Think money flowing in to improve conditions and introduce new ways of living yet unseen on its own. Let’s…

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REVIEW: Die göttliche Ordnung [The Divine Order] [2017]

But here at home time stood still. The opening transition from credits to film of Petra Biondina Volpe‘s Tribeca Film Festival Audience Award-winning Die göttliche Ordnung [The Divine Order] is absolute perfection. With Jo Jo Benson and Peggy Scott-Adams’ “Soulshake” playing atop images from America spanning women’s liberation, civil rights, Woodstock, and more, we begin to see the impact of political revolutions changing the very fabric of first world societies. And then with a record scratch we’re transported to a rural village in Switzerland at the exact same time: the…

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REVIEW: Das merkwürdige Kätzchen [The Strange Little Cat] [2014]

And onions are my cats. We’ve all felt paralyzed at one time or another, fearing existence and responsibility as opposed to external forces and death. Life becomes our burden, the rote machinations to remain an upstanding member of society and the myriad social imperatives endured to be seen as a person worth ignoring—someone who neither demands attention from being abnormal or overly exceptional. To simply be can prove exhausting because the act of stasis comes with more minutiae than you may think is necessary. Our minds race to decide whether…

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TIFF17 REVIEW: Licht [Mademoiselle Paradis] [2017]

“If you cannot see, you are not seen” Maria Theresia von Paradis was the daughter of Empress Maria Theresa’s Court Councilor and thus a young woman of standing despite the blindness that took her eyes before the age of five. Her father Joseph Anton and mother Maria Rosalia had the means to therefore teach her the finer things such as piano—a vocation to which she found expertise. The Empress allowed her a disability pension as financial assistance to help offset the strain of raising a daughter in the eighteenth century…

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FANTASIA17 REVIEW: Tiere [Animals] [2017]

“Animals don’t kill themselves” Discovering that screenwriter Jörg Kalt committed suicide before bringing his script Tiere [Animals] to life adds a lot of context to how one deciphers Greg Zglinski‘s film. The director had read it the year before Kalt’s death, lauding it while on a Zurich Film Foundation committee in the hopes of helping secure its finances. Now a decade later, Zglinski’s adaptation graces cinema screens with a perplexing puzzle of emotion and time. We watch its stunningly non-linear plot move back and forth between characters real and imagined,…

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REVIEW: Jerichow [2009]

“You can’t love if you don’t have money” The titular town of Jerichow as shown onscreen by writer/director Christian Petzold is hardly one of paradise yet still very much of “home.” It’s where dishonorably discharged ex-Army man Thomas (Benno Fürmann) runs to without a word to his employer (in part due to stealing a few bucks), his mother’s death sparking the return while her empty house provides a reason to stay. And it’s where Turkish immigrant Ali (Hilmi Sözer) has set-up shop with wife Laura (Nina Hoss), their snack shack…

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REVIEW: Yella [2007]

“I want you to love me again” There’s a glimmer of hope in Yella Fichte’s (Nina Hoss) eye when things finally seem to be going in the right direction. She’s earned a new job starting the day after tomorrow, one that should fill her empty bank account and lead her towards prosperity. But before she can enjoy the good news, she must first endure that which she yearns to escape. This comes in the form of Ben (Hinnerk Schönemann), a man putting a chill down her spine with an unpredictable…

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REVIEW: Gespenster [Ghosts] [2005]

“And I walked towards the music” Three women caught in disparate existential crises are converging in Christian Petzold‘s Gespenster [Ghosts] to seek answers despite reality only supplying opportunity to exacerbate their already volatile shortcomings. Nina (Julia Hummer) is a late-teen orphan hopeful to discover an avenue towards a brighter future that will assist her in escaping the present. Francoise (Marianne Basler) is a middle-aged woman searching to retrieve something she lost years ago, her past-fueled desperation causing present strife. And Toni (Sabine Timoteo) is a displaced young woman hopping from…

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REVIEW: Der blaue Engel [The Blue Angel] [1930]

“Beware of blondes. They’re special, every one.” It was interesting to discover Josef von Sternberg‘s career started in Hollywood, directing many late-silent era pictures. I assumed the Austrian-born auteur began in Europe because he was the man behind the camera for Germany’s first feature-length talkie, Der blaue Engel [The Blue Angel]. But his helming it was actually at the behest of German star Emil Jannings who—despite reportedly clashing on set of their previous film together, The Last Command, where he won the Oscar for Best Actor—wanted Sternberg to guide him…

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REVIEW: Die innere Sicherheit [The State I Am In] [2001]

“She’s translating menus now too” With his theatrical debut Die innere Sicherheit [The State I Am In], German writer/director Christian Petzold proves his most recent pair of Barbara and Phoenix were born from a mind that had always been ready to tell stories of personal emotional strife within complex circumstances. The way in which he presents them have always been unlike anything you see in Hollywood too, their dissemination of information meticulously planned for maximum impact both in terms of the audience watching and his characters onscreen. We know from…

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