The Unpolished (2007) User Reviews

Broken homes

[richard_sleboe · 6/10 · 7 January 2008]

"Unpolished", a snapshot from a 14 year old girls' troubled childhood, is based on a true story. Writer-director Pia Marais has drawn heavily on her own experience of growing up in troubled times: "My parents' chaotic life was a major source of inspiration for this movie". As a result, her movie is as touching as it is personal. Yet it is also strikingly similar to Christian Petzold's "The state I am in" (2001). While Marais' lead character Stevie (Ceci Chuh) is raised by a marauding gang of flower power slackers, Petzold's Jeanne (Julia Hummer) is going from town to town with her fugitive terrorist parents. But from the girls' point of view, it doesn't make a big difference that Stevie's family gives peace a chance while Jeanne's parents are blowing up the neighborhood. What matters to them is that they are their parents' second priority at best. When the very people you look to for good sense and guidance have their heads in the clouds, you end up feeling you have nowhere left to run. Outstanding performances by screen débutante Ceci Shuh as Stevie, Pascale Schiller as her hapless mother, and Birol Ünel as her drug-smuggling father.

Astounding first feature

[youngadam-4 · 10/10 · 21 January 2008]

What at first could be seen as an exercise in visceral coming of age style/form -- transcends its usual structure and overarching style with extreme wit, scenes of truthful observation, fine and natural performance and occasional bursts of unexpected fantasy.

An average director could have made this story less than riveting, but in the hands of talented newcomer Pia Marais, we are left with something brutally hilarious, alienating and tender. Never sentimental.

The casting is superb. Textured faces and unexpected choices. They drift across the kinetic editing style like ghostly apparitions unaware of the camera's close proximity.

Best German feature I have seen in the last few years.

It's like someone stealing 90 minutes of your life you'll never get back

[seraphin-3 · 2/10 · 11 June 2007]

Just saw this at the Sydney Film Festival. Awful just awful! I have absolutely no idea how this film won any awards. The acting wasn't too bad, Birol Ünel who played Axel and Georg Friedrich who played the long haired Ingmar deserve special mention. But Ceci Schmitz-Chuh who played the central character Stevie was wooden and lacking in sympathy. But given how bad the script must have been, it's no surprise.

The film jumped from scene to scene, with no explanation what had happened and where we were now. It was like having anterograde amnesia. The audience kept looking around at one another wondering if they were the only ones who had missed something.

My partner counted four times that the camera could be seen in windows and mirror, the music was jarring and the whole thing dragged. I started looking forlornly at the aisle about half an hour in. Some lucky buggers left! The moment it ended there was a stampede to get out of the theatre with my partner demanding I give him back the hour and half of his life back. I felt the same way.

Describes the state of things, but never makes a difference really

[Horst_In_Translation · 4/10 · 14 March 2019]

"Die Unerzogenen" or "August und alles danach" or "The Unpolished" is a German full feature film from 2007, so already over a decade old. This one runs for slightly over 1.5 hours and was directed by Pia Marais, who was born in South Africa, and she is also part of the writers who came up with the screenplay here. It was her first full feature film and definitely a success if you take a look at the awads recognition this film got. Lead actress is Ceci Chuh, but the more known names in this mostly German-language movie are Birol Ünel (playing the father), Georg Friedrich (playing the potential lover) and Johanna Gastdorf. It is the story of a teenage girl who lives with her parents, but the latter are simply not capable of bringing up a child because their heads are everywhere except where they should be. The result is something like a commune consisting of people whose biggest (and maybe also only) worries are where to get their drugs. We watch the protagonist hoping she would eventually get the love and affection she needs from her parents, but it is a hopeless endeavor and calling them free-spirited is certainly a big understatement. Apart from that we also watch her meet all kinds of other people. She somewhat feels attracted to Friedrich's character (and this actor is fun as always I like him), but that ends in a mess as well, even if you must give the character a thumbs-up for acting mostly reasonable and not going for the young girl as she clearly wants him. And she is definitely not unattractive and neither is the actress. But yeah me writing about all this shows you what I thought about the film. I cannot say I was well entertained here for the most part. It is a movie where not too much happens, which is not to be understood as a negative criticism, but if you take that approach, then you probably need to dliver in other areas like atmosphere, character study or for example making a film on how bad decisions and bad luck can change everything. But I would say that Marais and her team have not delivered in any of these fields really, which is a bit of a disappointment to me because as a consequence the film drags quite a bit on some occasions. Still, it is certainly not a falure, but a bit of a missed opportunity and overall a disappointment, even if there are positive things to state, such as the actors still making the most out of their roles and you cannot really blame them. I thought the ending was decent too, not great or anything, but superior to pretty much everything before that. So my opinion here is that you should skip the watch. I give "Die Unerzogenen" a thumbs-down. The title is not too abd though, the final "n" adds quite something overall here.