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Im Westen nichts Neues (2022)
Strong beginning, weak ending
When i sat in the cinema and watched the first part of the movie i felt horrible - exactly as it should feel watching an anti-war movie. The first scene perfectly showed the perfidious mix of the horror of war, where an individuals life is worth nothing and the fanatic enthusiasm for the idea of becomming a war hero. The symbol of the dead soldiers uniforms together with this hard, stomping soundtrack, that feels like the unstoppable horror of war, creates an idea of how disgusting war is. Sadly the movie is not able to continue in this way.
Instead the movie has a problem with the flow of the scenes. Dont get me wrong, i dont expect an anti war movie to be entertaining nonstop action. But for me, the way they put the scenes together felt pretty random and did not help me to emphathize with the main character. In my opinion the scenes were not random in a way, that would be metaphoric for the high and low action parts of war, they just felt random.
But the biggest problem was the terrible mixture of gimmickry and the overexplaining of how bad war is. In my opinion a good anti war movie does not need a Daniel Brühl, that explains every two seconds, that people killing each other is bad. Symptomatic is the end, that put "context" to the movie by summarizing WW1 in about three sentences, so all viewers are able to understand, that lots of people died in WW1. Connected to this is my critic about gimmickry. To be more dramatic and tell the viewer, how senseless war is, the main character has to be the last survivor in a group of friends, whose general orders a last attack after the peace contract is signed but before peace officialy starts, so our main character can die at 10:59 AM when official peace starts at 11 AM. I think gimmickry like that (which has nothing to do with the reality of WW1 (in WW2 they actually had this fanatism to fight until the last man is dead but not in WW1) nor the book) is very contraproductive if you want to emphasize the reality of war, it made me feel like i am in a normal Hollywood superheromovie, where everything tries to be overdramatic.
P. S. For everyone interested: in the book the main character dies in Oktober on a day so quiet, the news told "nothing new on the western front".
Athena (2022)
Absolutely worth watching!
I saw this movie in a review of David Hain, who highly recommended it. And I totally agree.
The first scene already tells us about the strengths of this movie. A perfect eleven minute onetake with the right music tells us very much about the characters and introduces us to the beginning of hell on earth. The great camera is maybe the main reason, why this movie is worth your watchtime. Over the whole movie the viewer gets a shocking view inside a society full of violence, hate and grief. The movie never really decides who is to blame for this circle of violence (the ones that started, the citizens or the police?) but leaves this decision to the viewer, which is another great aspect. Unfortunately some scenes, fitting to the directors (Romain Gavras) background as a music video director, some scenes feel overinscenated and kinda like a music video instead of a fitting film scene. But luckily feelings like this are quite rare in the one and a half hour, the movie takes.
The story has many parallels to the 2019 movie "Les miserables" by Ladj Ly. Of course this does not come from nowhere, since Ladj Ly was involved in the script. What the script does very well is introducing us to the characters, giving each of them depth and making us as the viewers feel with the characters. The story never bored me and the little plottwist before the ending is well done. The big problem of the script is the lack of feeling for the characters decision. Of course i have never been in similar situations like that, but i dont think, the main character would (without any hints he could think in this way) change his opinion so quick.
The acting is pretty good, but not the best i have ever seen. This is mostly not the actors fault, but rather because they dont get to much emotions to act. If hell is on earth, you wont be happy. In one or two scenes maybe it looks a little bit overacted, but as i wrote above: I have never been in simillar situations, i dont know, if this is really overacted.
So long story short: This movie is very special because of the great pictures it delivers the viewer. In combination with well timed music this movie is worth to be watched, if you are able to on the biggest possible screen you have.
Ach jodel mir noch einen - Stosstrupp Venus bläst zum Angriff (1974)
What a misunderstood movie
2069 - A Sex Odyssey or "Ach jodel mir noch einen - Stoßtrupp Venus bläst zum Angriff" in German is the most underrates and misunderstood movie of our time. What the movie truly is - a criticism of capitalism - is often not seen.
"2069 - A Sex Odyssey" is placed in a small Bavarian village. The camera perfectly creates the mood of the Bavarian mountains - but the paradise is in danger, foreigners invade. Here the movie starts with its deep message: clichees about village people are not true, village people can also be very open to foreigners. And foreigners are not a danger to society, they enrich the village with their culture. Tolerance is definitely one of the messages of this masterpiece. But THE message of this movie is a criticism of capitalism. Love is only usefull to gain fuel. This satirical view at love shows us the crime of capitalism: trying to tell us, everything must have a value, even love can only exist in the border of money and value, symbolizing the crimes that countries did for fuel. That also explains the title as a satirical view on "sex sells". The motorcyclestunts as reference to idiotic overstated action in American movies fit perfectly in this message.
What a deep masterpiece of captialism critic. 1(0)/10.
Sultanes del Sur (2007)
Interesting Characters - wrong decisions
Alejandro Lozano places 4 interesting figures in a dilemma. It would have been interesting to see, how they interact with each other - but the most interesting character dies, another one is a hostage, so just two characters remain. This makes the movie less interesting, than it could be. Also the action sequences are filmed in a really bad style, the camera is always moving around, maybe to symbolize fear and anger but the viewer doesnt see anything of the action sequences. The cool music does not fit in many times, the slowmotion also. The typical seperation of the screen to show all characters at the same time is not cool, it doesnt fit. The plottwist in the end seems very construated. Besides this the movie has his good sides: great dialogues (that would have been even better if Leo wouldnt die in the beginning), some very nice pictures (Prolog, Last Picture of 'Her') and a plot, that is often interesting. Still this movie is not a must see, too big are the weaks.
The Man from Earth: Holocene (2017)
Not worth your time
Its fascinating, how incredible flat a story can be. The new characters are typical cliche characters, dialogues, the strength of the first movie, seem construated and dont fit, the plot is not interesting at all (with 1,5 hours it is not a really long movie but it felt longer than Once upon a time in america did) . 1 point for the acting of Sterling Knight and David Lee Smith and for the interesting look on Arts life after The man from earth. The movie does not deserve any more points.