"Wolke 9" or "Cloud 9" is a German movie from 2008, so this one will have its 10th anniversary next year. The writer and director is Andreas Dresen, one of Germany's most successful filmmakers and possibly the most successful from the former GDR right now. The title of this movie is a play on words (and numbers) with the German "Wolke 7", where you find people that are in love, so the translation Cloud 9 is not accurate at all as it should be Cloud 10 or 11 perhaps. Anyway, this movie here is about a woman slightly under the age of 70, who has been married for a long time, but falls in love with another man. This has drastic consequences of course on her life, on her husband's life and also on the new guy's life. This film received major awards recognition at several prestigious ceremonies, such as the Cannes Film Festival or the European Film Awards. At the German Film Awards, Dresen won for his direction, Werner won for her lead performance and the movie itself was picked as one of the top three of the year.
I personally felt as if this film needed quite a while to get going and become interesting. But from the moment on when her husband finds out about the affair, even if that is already pretty late in the movie, things get better quickly and I was mostly underwhelmed before that. I would also say that i was not too impressed by Werner here. She did what she had to and she wasn't bad, but it was nowhere near such an awards-worthy turn in my opinion. I guess they honored her because of her courage as she is in nude and sex scenes despite her age. The film is much more about the script here than about individual performances. The depiction of life and sexuality above the age of 60 is something that is just not done frequently in film, maybe because many don't find it too much of an interesting, let alone, aesthetic topic. So it's okay that Dresen did it I guess. But being different is not the same as being good, so you should not appreciate a film merely for the reason that it elaborates on a subject that has not been elaborated on that much. You still have to deliver quality. For example there are hundreds of Nazi-themed films out there and occasionally, they still manage to make convincing new ones despite the quantity of films existing already from this corner of the movie genre world.
Anyway, all in all, I recommend "Wolke 9" as it was a decent watch and there were no real weaknesses about the film. At 95 minutes, it is already pretty essential, even if it dragged on some occasions in the first half of the film. What I also liked, however, were the musical interruptions here that provided a strong contrast to the more serious scenes that came before or after these. "Freude schöner Götterfunken" is always a joy for sure. I give this movie a thumbs-up, but just a cautious one and I think the awards attention really may have been far too much.
I personally felt as if this film needed quite a while to get going and become interesting. But from the moment on when her husband finds out about the affair, even if that is already pretty late in the movie, things get better quickly and I was mostly underwhelmed before that. I would also say that i was not too impressed by Werner here. She did what she had to and she wasn't bad, but it was nowhere near such an awards-worthy turn in my opinion. I guess they honored her because of her courage as she is in nude and sex scenes despite her age. The film is much more about the script here than about individual performances. The depiction of life and sexuality above the age of 60 is something that is just not done frequently in film, maybe because many don't find it too much of an interesting, let alone, aesthetic topic. So it's okay that Dresen did it I guess. But being different is not the same as being good, so you should not appreciate a film merely for the reason that it elaborates on a subject that has not been elaborated on that much. You still have to deliver quality. For example there are hundreds of Nazi-themed films out there and occasionally, they still manage to make convincing new ones despite the quantity of films existing already from this corner of the movie genre world.
Anyway, all in all, I recommend "Wolke 9" as it was a decent watch and there were no real weaknesses about the film. At 95 minutes, it is already pretty essential, even if it dragged on some occasions in the first half of the film. What I also liked, however, were the musical interruptions here that provided a strong contrast to the more serious scenes that came before or after these. "Freude schöner Götterfunken" is always a joy for sure. I give this movie a thumbs-up, but just a cautious one and I think the awards attention really may have been far too much.