Dessau Dancers (2014) User Reviews

Back to the GDR, for more mediocrity

[Horst_In_Translation · 4/10 · 17 July 2017]

"Dessau Dancers" (short title) or "Break Beaters" is a German 90-minute movie from 2014 and one of the most known works by director Jan Martin Scharf, who is also part of the writing staff here. It is one of his two theatrical releases I think. Anyway, this film is basically trying to breathe new life into a subject that has been done way too many times by now, namely life (and resistance) in the GDR. They give it the approach of mix between comedy and drama the way it was done in "Goodbye Lenin" and many other films inspired by the Daniel Brühl movie. Even the voice over parts showed parallels. So yeah, there is nothing really new or inspiring in here, apart from the subject perhaps. It is about break dance. But this subject is also where the film really makes very little sense at all. Honestly, there is no way a GDR official would have believed them the idea about how they are basically dancing in accordance with the beat of the system. Lets call it like that, especially not without scrutiny of the whole approach and the reason how the break dance/hip hop movement was launched in the United States. Still I must say that while the core premise is pretty nonsense, they still elaborated in a decent manner on it at times. The comedy parts were almost never working. Neither were the break dance parts and as a consequence the last 20 minutes or so were truly cringeworthy and considerably below a 4 out of 10 rating. But luckily thanks to experienced actors like Rainer Bock, the more serious parts about the GDR political system, but also about father-son relationships were working occasionally. When it was really just the kids in charge, the film was a gigantic mess. The young male actors felt completely interchangeable to me, while Sonja Gerhardt playing the biggest female character once again proves that she is not deserving of any of the popularity she is enjoying here in Germany these days. Like Rosalie Thomass, she is perhaps the closest we have to Jennifer Lawrence and if you know how I believe Lawrence is a genuinely untalented actress, then this describes perfectly the attitude I have towards these women. The jealousy/romance/sex part in this film was just one example where they really hit rock-bottom. All in all, this film is a disappointment that lacks creative uniqueness as well as interesting and realistic character development on many occasions and rarely makes sense. I give it a thumbs-down. Not recommended.

No one breaks their dance

[kosmasp · 8/10 · 8 August 2023]

No pun intended - I remember that I loved Breakdance .. that craze got me too! But I never started dancing or training like that. I probably should have - I mean I did do a little bit of it, but it never got as far as it did for the people involved in this.

Real stories can be a ... well drag of sorts, but that is not the case here. The movie flows quite well - sometimes there might be too much flow actually (you would assume a lot more resistance to this new ... well western idea of entertainment and dancing) ... but the movie does a good job in balancing the light and the heavy stuff in my book.

Throw in a love story for good measure and this breaking the rules, coming of age story really is enticing to say the least ...