Jakob, a young theater director in Hamburg of Icelandic descent, goes blind after having a serious car accident. He doesn't accept his fate and wants to kill himself, until he meets Lily who was born blind and who was sent to him by a rehabilitation center for the blind. Together they somewhat accidentally set off to Russia, where Jakob wants to visit his sick mother.
Jakob's origin is the one confusing thing in this movie - the way I figured, he must have grown up in Iceland because of his slight accent, to an Icelandic father and a German mother who was of Russian descent.
Even though I'm not a big fan of love stories and of German movies, I really liked this movie because it's a very unusual, strong kind of story. It's hard to describe it, you could say it's a very visual movie, though not in a visual sense. Since it's about being blind, you somewhat empathize with the characters and their way of seeing with all their other senses. Also, I watched it with the audio commentary for the visually impaired, just for fun ;) The dialog in this movie is as mediocre and clumsy as in any other German movie, but the physical acting is definitely brilliant! It's gotta be very hard playing a blind person, but those two actors are doing it perfectly with their gestures and their rigid gaze.
An affecting story, outstanding performances and an excellent, award-winning soundtrack make this in my opinion one of the best German movies ever. I was very touched by this, and I can definitely recommend it.
Jakob's origin is the one confusing thing in this movie - the way I figured, he must have grown up in Iceland because of his slight accent, to an Icelandic father and a German mother who was of Russian descent.
Even though I'm not a big fan of love stories and of German movies, I really liked this movie because it's a very unusual, strong kind of story. It's hard to describe it, you could say it's a very visual movie, though not in a visual sense. Since it's about being blind, you somewhat empathize with the characters and their way of seeing with all their other senses. Also, I watched it with the audio commentary for the visually impaired, just for fun ;) The dialog in this movie is as mediocre and clumsy as in any other German movie, but the physical acting is definitely brilliant! It's gotta be very hard playing a blind person, but those two actors are doing it perfectly with their gestures and their rigid gaze.
An affecting story, outstanding performances and an excellent, award-winning soundtrack make this in my opinion one of the best German movies ever. I was very touched by this, and I can definitely recommend it.