Schwarze Schafe (2006) User Reviews

Close Encounters of the Worst Kind

[leaningt · 7/10 · 9 January 2007]

This is dirty, filthy and frenzied cinema, with an array of cataclysmic characters, hell-bent on creating a modern cult classic. The foul-stench of comical entertainment pollutes the air, but smells of fresh originality. The film's five ludicrous story lines brings the viewer close encounters of the worst kind of Berlin inhabitants, including Satan worshippers, sexually-frustrated teenagers, a drunk lottery winner and a foulmouthed tour guide. The vulgarity of it all will prompt the odd nauseous belch from audience members, but the humour outweighs the crudeness and Oliver Rihs' black and white film blinds with comic crudity and colour. Black Sheep may not break the bank at the Box-Office, but it is almost certain to cause a stir in DVD sales.

Radical and different

[philipp-67 · 8/10 · 30 July 2007]

"Schwarze Schafe" ("Black Sheep" in English) is radical, non pc and totally different to everything you saw before. This comedy is daring and definitely over the top. Real Berlin-Style. Done without any sponsorship, some actors played for free and the whole movie is shot in black and white. So be prepared to see some scene you didn't expect and which you might find awful. Cinema-lovers who love to see something new and different should hurry up to see this exciting German comedy and laugh their ass off! All the others should go and see Harry Potter 38 and eat some popcorn for a nice evening. They won't like the movie anyway.

Not a lot to do with realism

[Horst_In_Translation · 4/10 · 22 April 2017]

"Schwarze Schafe" or "Black Sheep" is a Swiss/German co-production in the German-language and this one had its world premiere back in 2006, so it is already over a decade old. The director is Oliver Rihs and he is also the writer, or I should say one of the writers because there are quite a few and it's certainly an example of too many cooks spoiling the broth, but I'll talk about the quality later. If you know a bit about German film, then you will find several familiar names and faces here, such as Milan Peschel, Marc Hosemann, Tom Schilling, Robert Stadlober, Mina Tander and also the late Eralp Uzun and Frank Giering. So even if I may not be that big on some of these, there is no denying that the cast offered the potential for a quality film here. But I don't think the premise was fulfilled at all. The comedy was rarely funny to be honest and all the talk about relationships for example never felt authentic, never felt in a way where I was thinking that I was watching actual characters and not actors. i don't think the cast is to blame, but the script perhaps. Anyway, this movie is almost entirely in black-and-white and runs for roughly 1.5 hours, And while there are a few b&w films from recent years (21st century) that I enjoyed quite a bit, this one here is certainly not one of them. I also felt that to be honest the movie had way too many characters for its own good and instead of elaborating and developing convincingly on a few, it introduced one after the next and as a consequence it all stayed above the surface and the film never felt like it had any depth, not to mention great depth. The first sentence in the plot summary here talks about the film exploring Berlin lifestyle and I as a Berlin citizen for almost three decades now cannot say the background and where the film plays made any lasting impression and I would certainly appreciate it more than those coming from other regions of Germany (or Switzerland/Austria or even the world). So overall I am definitely baffled by the film's awards attention as this was not a memorable watch at all. I am even sure that my rating of 2 stars out of 5 is still a bit on the generous side as there were moments and scenes that had me think about a one star rating. I don't recommend this film. It tries to be smart, hip and authentic, but it's none of all that. Watch something else instead.

truest view on Berlin

[ElenaTarasz · 10/10 · 2 March 2011]

8 reasons why this film is fantastic:

1 fantastic black humour

2 rad rock'n'roll soundtrack feat. king khan and BBQ show

3 it's black and white

4 the episodes are great and each one has the x factor - you could never decide which ones your favourite

5 its hilarious, even thinking of certain scenes makes me laugh

6 authentic acting - Marc Hosemann's nice ass

7 Böwe, Hosemann, Stadlober and Schilling at their best

8 overall: this film depicts Berlin in the truest way I've ever seen in a film (i was born, raised and spent my youth in this city)

Just plain awful

[neonfilm · 1/10 · 2 August 2007]

This is low-budget-movie-making at it's worst. After 10 minutes (which are good for some laughs) you start to notice painfully, that there is virtually no script or story. And the jokes don't get better either. Instead the director follows the old teen movie-method the more disgusting the funnier. But since there is no story to speak of and since there are no sympathetic characters, you just don't care what happens to the these people. Instead you get angrier and angrier, because the film is noisy and hysteric all the time but hasn't got anything to say. It's a shame that a lot of good actors are wasted (although I wonder what made them join this film...)

English Press

[schwarzes_schaf3000 · 9/10 · 19 August 2007]

„Pure delight! The Berlin scene at it’s wildest, kinkiest, weirdest funniest best. The discovery of the season! Why aren’t there more films like this?!!” Ron Holloway - Moving Pictures

„…a riot of filthy-minded fun … packed with affectionate digs and in-jokes about contemporary Berlin an the misfits an black sheep it’s powered by punk rock spirit and overheated libido … an anarchic multi-stranded odyssey that gives Clerks 2 a run for its money on the sexual deviancy front.” Wendy Ice - The Times

„Very refreshing” Leo Bankerseb - De Filmkrant

„Black Sheep was definitely the most provocative film I saw at the festival. Having said that I was, as a result, one of the shockingly hilarious. It genuinely received the greatest number of horrifies belly laughs of any press screening I attended.” Marshall Veniar - Glasgow Herald

So awful I walked out

[matthewjohn · 1/10 · 19 February 2008]

This spoof of a film is largely badly acted, containing grotesque OTT performances from seemingly amateur actors, and a distinct lack of embarrassment from the professional ones.

The only decent performance, by the guy playing the overweight goth-turned-Satan-worshipper was totally spoilt by him participating in the most offensive, vile and unnecessary scene in the history of cinema (where a teenager buggers his own, comatose grandmother), nearly erasing the beautifully understated way in which he approached the character's tender relationship with her before this incident from my memory and rendering his participation in this farce of a film useless.

At this point, I had to walk out of the cinema.

Please, save your money and your moral integrity by boycotting this utter turkey!

a Swiss takes a look at Berlin: brilliant cheese

[christophspielberger · 9/10 · 12 August 2015]

What a great film! true characters, fondly observed, sincerely played.

It took a Swiss to do the present ultimate film about Berlin, about the city's oh so colorful and diverse life concepts that tend to flow into despair, without spoiling any single character. Everything You always wanted to know about these Berliners. A declaration of love for the city, by showing the absurd extremes of life, truly sticking to the phrase: reality beats every prejudice.

New German cinema without political stickiness. A kind of Short Cuts version of Oh Boy. A must see in the special features of the DVD : the character's future.

Oh no!

[meppico · 3/10 · 30 August 2007]

I saw the movie yesterday in the cinema. I was surprised to find it was only for people 18 years and over. Hey look how independent we are! We show really weird and disgusting stuff (because this happens in Berlin all the time).

I wonder why so many people had a credit for the script. The small stories are all sooo exaggerated. No one has a real job in this film, how do they pay their bills? I guess there is no real message. It seemed to be a project to fill a boring summer.

Final hint: Do not watch it on a big screen in the cinema, the b/w digital quality sucks! Rather wait for the DVD and see if you can laugh about it.

wonderful

[n-woodward-07 · 8/10 · 12 October 2012]

I felt some of the reviews displayed were rather unfair to such a beautiful little gem of a movie. It steps away from the mundane American teen films where all these teenage networks must come together for an audience to understand the movie or find some point or moral. The beautiful black and white photography is a fine artistic choice from Rihs, maybe in homage to his own crazy memories.

The film is a study of the fickle teenagers lost in drugs, alcohol and sexual identity. Not to mention the wonderful critique of the bourgeois (the canal boat scenes) looking down upon these vagabond/rogue characters. They may look down but they still want a piece of the action.

A very funny film which pushes the boundaries of what a viewer is capable of finding amusing. Sodomy of your grandmother may not be to everybody's taste but I just had to giggle.

well acted, well presented and certainly well under rated.

go on give it a go!

Why did I spend so much money on the DVD?

[Muellmann2002 · 3/10 · 19 September 2008]

I was curious about the movie since having seen some scenes on the official website. And these were brilliant and promising. But after having watched 15 minutes, I wondered whether this was going to be a parody or if the exaggerated clichés were meant to be plausible. Regrettably I still do wonder. There are a few scenes which - although they were predictable like everything in the movie - made me smile, but all in all it was too shallow to be sophisticated and too lame to be funny.

This movie could have been an interesting witty portrait of different subcultures in Berlin - of goths and heavy metal-heads, of gays, of life in social housing and of the 3rd migrant generation. Leaving out the scenes presented on the website only a superficial, longish trash-TV sketch remains.