Wolfsburg (2003) User Reviews

Lovely

[Maaaja · 8/10 · 25 June 2004]

Story about a guy that runs over a boy and flees. But the guilt stays and makes some dramatical changes in him...

The cast was great. Great acting. Specially the main two actors. The story sour-sweet, lovely. Thought the ending wasn't what I expected as from the story flow. I expected something more sophisticated. A peak. But it just flowed away as it was flowing the whole time...actually a great move. Thought the whole movie has a simplicity touch. That makes the scenes even more powerful and brings out the acting of the actors. And as said they were great! The photography is nothing special but worth mention it. Really matches the theme simple but catchy in a fresh way.

A fresh breath from Germany which hasn't made a lot of good movies in the last decade. Really worth seeing it.

M.

Simple but exciting

[Mort-31 · 7/10 · 3 April 2003]

A man hits a young boy with his car and drives away. The kid's mother tries to find the man who killed her son. They meet. It's as simple as that, and Christian Petzold tells the story in a quite simple way as well. Nevertheless, the film is full of suspense right until the end because of course everybody wants to know whether she finds out about him having done it or not. I won't tell you either, so you can still go and see the movie!

What enhances the suspense is that only in the last few minutes, a musical score can be heard. Up to these last scenes, the soundtrack displays only natural sounds as well as the dialogues which is always quiet, often whispered.

Sometimes I found the dialogues too uninspired and also too Hollywood-drama-like and not realistic. But I guess that is what B pictures are like.

Cars and emotions - that's how you do it

[Horst_In_Translation · 6/10 · 1 May 2016]

"Wolfsburg" is a 2003 film by German writer and director Christian Petzold and one of the movies he made in what we can consider pretty much the middle of his career at this point. If you know a bit about the automobile industry, you will know that the city of Wolfsburg is the place where the huge manufacturer Volkswagen has its headquarters and this is no coincidence. Cars play a major role in here as a car accident (actually) two change the lives entirely for the characters in here and the male protagonist also works in the car industry. So is it possible to combine cold steel and human emotion into a quality feature film? Yes it is and Petzold shows us here how to do it. It is nothing unusual for him that the film stays easily under the 90-minute mark, but this shortness is not a problem at all for me as it is much better this way than in a way that this film would lack focus considerably.

It is the story of a man (Fürmann) who causes a serious car accident and is responsible for the death of a child. In the aftermath of the situation, he gets in contact with the mother of the boy (Hoss) and tries his best to comfort her and help her as much as he can. It never becomes really clear if he actually is in love with her or if he just wants to take the pain from her. And this is one of the factors through which the film works so well. I must say I am not the greatest Fürmann or Hoss fan, but the writing in this one is so strong that I did not even mind that they basically give it their usual approach that their portrayals are always extremely similar in their works. Hoss was still a brunette when this was made almost 15 years ago. Petzold is known to include major events, revelations or plot twists at the end of his works and this one here is no exception. It also makes a nice parallel through the early events and makes sure the film goes out on a high note.

So yeah the script here is definitely the best aspect of this film, but I also think Hoss and Fürmann were good casting decisions. Bother worked really a whole lot with Petzold and it shows that he always knows how to bring out the best in his actors. The biggest achievement is probably how Fürmann and Petzold make the male character work to an extent that he becomes quite likable the longer the film goes on and all this after what he did earlier and we also buy the transformation looking at what a ruthless and unlikeable fella he was early on in the film. Major character transformation. And apart from that, like I wrote earlier, this is actually also one of the best films I have seen in terms of automobile-centered plots and I believe this was fairly important to Petzold himself looking at the movie's title. As a whole, this was a convincing effort and I recommend checking it out.

A modern version of cime and punishment

[frankde-jong · 8/10 · 19 March 2024]

Having become a Petzold fan because of his latest films I am looking for some older ones. "Wolfsburg" is from 2003 and Petzold's second feature length movie. After seeing the film myself I am always interested in the opinion of other reviewers. For "Wolfsburg" there are very few critic reviews. Obviously Petzold was rather unknown in these days.

"Wolfsburg" is about a man who kills a child after driving recklessly. He drives recklessly after having a fight with his wife through the mobile phone. In a way "Wolfsburg" can be seen as a twin movie with "Tonio" (2016, Paula van der Oest) in which the grieving of the parents of a child lost in a traffic accident is the central theme.

Right after the traffic accident the driver seems to either panic or be anti social. He drives away, leaving the injured victim to his fate. After that he tries to continue his life / job as if nothing has happened. Here the film fits in a little twist of irony. The main character sells cars and the first car he has to selll after the accident is to a couple having a little baby. We hear him use the safety of a car again and again as a unique selling argument.

After a while however it turns out that the main character is not so insensible and cold hearted as it first seems. From that moment on a modern version of cime and punishment a la Dostoyevsky begins, culminating in a surprising ending.