As I'm a fan of contemporary German cinema (Becker, Tykwer, Wenders), I was thrilled to find a copy of this unknown work. The first 10 minutes sets up a fantastic premise (not your usual boy-meets-girl in a coffee shop), and the next 30 minutes draws us into the odd lives of 4 mysterious, unemployed dreamers who meet each other in equally strange ways. Sounds great, right? Add to this the creative style of Wolfgang Becker and Tom Tykwer, and how can it go wrong?
Well, I'm not sure how it went wrong, but it definitely did.
In a classic example of "good idea, no substance", this film begins to deflate around the halfway mark with no backbone to hold it up. The interesting lives we had been led to anticipate turn out to be rather commonplace. Dialogue is so sparse it's negligible. And the plot falls back to a series of boring clichés--the kinds which you can overhear in any bar at closing time if you're patient enough to listen. It reminds me very much of Wim Wenders' early unscripted work (Paris Texas) which begins famously but thins out into oblivion. Or maybe it's like a Lenny Kravitz song that starts with a cool guitar riff but goes nowhere but boredom.
I would recommend this film to fans of "mood" rather than "substance". If you are a fan of Godard, Bela Tarr, or movies where Ethan Hawke plays the lead (Reality Bites, Before Sunset), then you may enjoy this. However if you're a fan of Kieslowsky, Kubrick, Herzog or typically the filmmakers who pack a hidden message, I would suggest you pass on this one.
Well, I'm not sure how it went wrong, but it definitely did.
In a classic example of "good idea, no substance", this film begins to deflate around the halfway mark with no backbone to hold it up. The interesting lives we had been led to anticipate turn out to be rather commonplace. Dialogue is so sparse it's negligible. And the plot falls back to a series of boring clichés--the kinds which you can overhear in any bar at closing time if you're patient enough to listen. It reminds me very much of Wim Wenders' early unscripted work (Paris Texas) which begins famously but thins out into oblivion. Or maybe it's like a Lenny Kravitz song that starts with a cool guitar riff but goes nowhere but boredom.
I would recommend this film to fans of "mood" rather than "substance". If you are a fan of Godard, Bela Tarr, or movies where Ethan Hawke plays the lead (Reality Bites, Before Sunset), then you may enjoy this. However if you're a fan of Kieslowsky, Kubrick, Herzog or typically the filmmakers who pack a hidden message, I would suggest you pass on this one.