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Reviews
I Am Legend (2007)
Disgrace
After having seen this movie, I wonder which hardline-evangelical pressure-group sponsored it.
This is no longer to be called a Hollywood-movie. It really is a blunt, plain fundamental-Christian, evangelical propaganda-piece of the worst kind.
What does this movie want to tell us? The Apocalypse is close! It is, of course, depicted as divine judgement of a wrathful and revenging god. The survivors are, of course, lost unless they take resolve in faith. And, in the end, the heavenly Jerusalem where the survivors find refuge, of course looks remarkably like a 19th-century Amish village - with a picturesque wooden chapel in the middle and surrounded by a concrete wall like the one which the Israelis built to confine the Palestinians. So, this is what the future looks like, according to the makers of this film?!?
It's such a pity!
Additional flaws: The opening is the most pathetic, most overdone product-placement sequence in recent years. And, finally, the man-eating human mutants - pathetic, once again. Having superhuman physical power, but unable to talk, their only feature is their constant, unarticulated yells at the audience. What's the point, there?!?
A total disgrace, altogether.
Ein fliehendes Pferd (1986)
A brilliant novel turned into a very good film
Martin Walser, born 1927, is one of the most famous and most highly reputated contemporary German novelists. He spent his entire life in the Lake Constance region of Southern Germany. This landscape, the people inhabiting it and their mentality are the background of many of Walser's novels. This also applies on his masterpiece "Ein fliehendes Pferd" ("A Horse on the Run"), completed 1978 and first published 1980 - maybe Walser's best novel ever. It was adapted for German public TV under participation of another German novelist, Ulrich Plenzdorf, and filmed in 1984.
A middle-aged married couple, the Halms, spend their holidays, as every year, on the shores of Lake Constance. There, they happen to meet Klaus Buch and his young girlfriend. Klaus Buch is an old, forgotten buddy of Helmut Halm - their friendship dates back to their common time as university students more than 20 years ago. It reveals now, that the two ancient friends have become completely antagonistic individuals: Helmut Halm is now a phlegmatic, melancholic, overweight, frustrated teacher suffering from lack of success in his job and plagued by sociophobic tendencies and deep loneliness at the same time; to that adds his fear of having lost the once soulmate-like connection to his wife whom he calls "the only human being" and who probably is the only person in the world he ever really somehow felt close to. Klaus Buch demonstrates to be an absolutely contrary character: He shows pride of still being able to attract a young, beautiful girlfriend and seems to have conserved a young body and mind - he is sportive, charming, energetic, adventurous and convincing. So, it is little of a surprise, that the appearance of such a Mr. Perfect makes Helmut Halm feel even worse with his supposed loser-life. When Klaus Buch proposes to climb one of the nearby alpine mountains together, Helmut Halm opts for Mount Höchsten instead, which is rather a large, grassy hill. Klaus Buch mocks him for this pathetic and cowardy choice. On the hiking trip, they encounter a horse that has broke free from its pasture. While Helmut Halm is reluctant, Klaus Buch immediately chases and catches it in a cowboy-like manner. So, he is considered to really be some kind of a hero-type guy. This is more than Helmut Halm is ready to bear. He invites Klaus Buch to a sailing trip on Lake Constance in his two-man boat. During the cruise, they get into a heavy thunderstorm and only Helmut Halm makes it back to the shore. Klaus Buch is presumed to have drowned accidentally and his girlfriend stays with the Halms seeking some comfort and company. So, she reveals some details of Klaus Buchs real life: All of his hero-like image is just a lousy arcade and Klaus Buch, contrary to this image, really is mentally broken, depressive and has screwed up his entire life.
This film is really a near-perfect model for how to make a fine movie out of a great novel. The screenplay adaption is a success and the shooting at the original locations wonderful. Best, though, is the cast, which features perfectly selected actors who accurately match their characters - above all famous Vadim Glowna as Helmut Halm.
This is an absolute must-see and I consider it doubtful, if the newly filmed 2007 version will be able to even challenge this masterpiece.
Allons z'enfants (1981)
Remarkable
It was a couple of years ago that I watched this movie - I never forgot it.
The plot is the coming of age of a young boy who, in the 1930s, is sent by his parents to a military academy in France and becomes, unwillingly, an officer cadet. As kind of a "daydreamer"-type boy, he has his problems adapting to the military, but experiences true friendship with fellow comrades. This helps him through the difficult times of youth. When he is about to graduate from the military academy, it happens to be the eve of WW2, and in autumn of 1939 he is sent as a "grunt" directly to the front. There, he is getting into one of the first German vs. French skirmishes during the "phony war". He witnesses a German soldier being seriously wounded and spontaneously tries to save his enemy combatant from the line of fire. He does not survive this.
At first just getting you stunned, this warm-hearted, humane film after all deeply impresses. Its abstinence from hail of glory, its sensitivity and its straight statement in favor of human dignity - even the more under the terrible circumstances of war - are especially remarkable. The best die the first, they say. Did they die in vain? Anyway - may their deaths be remembered like in this film.
Elementarteilchen (2006)
A film that never should have been made - THIS WAY!
Bernd Eichinger and Oskar Roehler messed it up. Completely. How that was even possible considering Houellebecqs brilliant novel is unbelievable. They just made completely shallow, awful melodramatic crap out of what can be considered probably the single most important and greatest novel that world literature has seen at the turn from the 20th to the 21st century. This film is unbearable for all who have read and understood the book that undoubtedly is as deeply philosophical as it is scandalous, provoking and moralizing.
Eichinger and Roehler stated at the 2006 Berlinale, where the movie premiered: "YOU CANNOT FILM SOCIAL CRITICISM, YOU CAN ONLY FILM MELODRAMS." (Eichinger) "THE UTTERLY FATALISTIC RESUMEE OF THE BOOK COULD NOT BE USED. WE DID NOT WANT TO ADOPT HOELLEBECQ'S MORALE." (Roehler) Besides that, they claimed the novel to be too pornographic to be filmed without major changes. They also frankly admitted not to have had any contact with Houellebecq.
These statements and the attitude behind them are shocking, disgusting and can only serve as a negative example for all film-makers. They can only be adequately qualified with the facit: FILMING A NOVEL - HOW YOU MUST NOT DO IT.
Luckily, there are some brilliant films, which prove all the points claimed by Eichinger and Roehler completely wrong: You can film social criticism and not produce shallow melodramas, as proved for example by Harron's wonderful "American Psycho" (from the Bret Easton Ellis Novel). You can translate the pornographic of a novel into a film without censoring it as proves Despentes' magnificent "Baise-moi!" (from Despentes' identically titled novel). You can adopt a completely fatalistic resumee of a novel in a film as proved by Radford's adorable "1984" (from the famous George Orwell Novel).
It is exactly when this happens, that excellent novels are translated into excellent films. Eichinger and Roehler never had the intention to do so, nor would their abilities have been sufficient to do so, even if they had wanted. So, they had to produce this catastrophe now unjustifiedly bearing the name "Elementarteilchen". They failed as drastically as it is possible.