Reviews
Dolphins (1999)
Boring, obscure and besides seen a thousand times before, but better
My girlfriend and me were very disappointed about that film, because we had expected more - especially if we thought of the long time the director has needed to make it. But first, we didn't really understand why the title is "Dolphins", for the animals are just seen in two scenes, each of them not longer than perhaps one or one and a half minute. It could be called as well "Nuts" (if this title wouldn't already exist), "insane", "Lara" or just "Without words": each of those titles would tell the same about this movie, and that is to say: nothing. Second, the film itself didn't tell us a story with which we could do anything. Yes, of course we got that it's about love and dreams and pressure and so on, but: what precisely? Perhaps it was a mistake to use not even a single word, for this would possibly help to clear the darkness of the plot. Many things can be said and shown without words, but in our opinion this mediocre film doesn't belong to them. Too many things are well-known, as in films like "One flew over the cuckoo's nest", "Awakenings" or "Der Krieger und die Kaiserin" (Germany), but these films are very much better and have a message one can understand. "Dolphins" shows us nothing but many symbols we have do decipher, and if we cannot, we stand alone and ask us: What does the author want to tell us? The only bright spot of the film is Julia Brendler, a really beautiful girl with a very, very poetic personality. But the film as a whole is extremely boring and in our opinion need not to be seen.