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Irgendwann werden wir uns alles erzählen (2023)
A horribly cliché-laden melodrama
It is strange to see such scandalously bad movie from an established female director who is not green anymore and should not been wasted after a long career. But the movie has only one good element: the decent, even beautiful camerawork and nice set ups. Otherway the movie is so full of banal clichés that it is painful to watch.
Story is set to nice countryside somewhere in East Germany and the year should be 1990. The environment is a pretty large farm and its people. And their neighbour, a classic dark romantic hero, a wannabe poet and horse rider Henner.
Of course, the farmer's son Johannes, an aspiring artist and photographer, has something like a girlfriend Maria, a 18 years old fashion model like looking and acting woman. She, of course, according all the clichè-s, "falls in love" (if you wanna call it so) with the Henner. And they make "love" (if you must call it somehow), one time, second time, third time....
OK, the movie is about the cliché-s. East German people -- naive, stupid, dull, constantly whining losers full of ostalgia driving around with noisy Trabants. West German people -- smart, successful, handsome people driving around with Mercedes. And sure, the constant talking about STASI, brainwashing, prisoning etc is obvious.
The main characters. Henner is a stereotypical romantic hero. Dark, handsome, horse riding 40 years old macho with his badass cabrio VAZ Niva. Two barking dogs following him everywhere and he is living alone in some big country house. He is mumbling some minimalistic verses and is, of course, a heavy drinker. Maria, the 18 years old protagonist -- a fashion model looking and acting woman who wants to be with Henner. But Marlene Burow acts so emotionless and dumb that it is really hard to understand her motives at all. This kind of character belongs to big cities and push her career not to sit in the countryside and have some strange relationship with a peasant. 18 years old Johannes (Cedric Eich) is supposed to be like some classic beta male, a naive loser with his ridiculous moustaches, but somehow his self confidence, sheer ambition, strong mentality and pure love makes him the most positive hero in the movie. Although Henner is clearly supposed to be the "true" alpha male, it is only the surface -- his deep inner weakness and narcissistic traits makes the character finally laughable and tragic comical.
The dummie acting by Marlene Burow ruins the movie a lot and it is not saved by others efforts. The constructed script does not help much too. Dialogues are boring, repetitive. A lot of senseless and useless scenes which do not lead anywhere. The sex scenes are violent, rude, close to rape and not erotic or romantic at all. All the romance looks nasty, violent and worse for all, totally boring.
And then, suddenly the movie ends. With a really hardcore cliché scene which nails the coffin of the bad movie very well.
Jeux de la XXIème olympiade (1977)
Very good 70s documentary
"Games of the XXI Olympiad" by directors Jean-Claude Labrecque , Jean Beaudin , Marcel Carrière & Georges Dufaux is a classic and very good 1970s documentary. It means it follows the path established by Michael Lindsay-Hogg's "Let It Be" (1970) -- the ultrarealistic, intimate, even brutal style, which flourished especially during the 1970s but somewhat disappeared later. But "Games..." is a masterpiece of the style and sports all the elements of it: a lot of close-ups, fly-on-the-wall observation method, minimal off-screen commentary, a lot of natural sound, minimal amount of off-screen music, minimal amount of self-censoring etc.
The movie is radical departure from hardcore artiness of "Visions of Eight" (the Munich olympic movie) and avoidance of cliches of classic olympic movies. It makes the film very unique. Even the slow motion is NEVER used! Only some brief special interviews and really as-less-as-possible off-screen informational comments are made (performed by classic 70s documentary film voice -- dry low baritone). Instead of them a lot of separate and even hidden camera footages are used.
The directors chose four athletes for more careful observation. Those are: Cuban sprinter Silvio Leonard, american decathlete Bruse Jenner, Soviet gymnast Nelly Kim and Hungarian pentathlete Tamás Kancsal. Reason is simple, they were all the favourites before the games. And as it turned out, 3 of them were really successfull, winning medals, two of them even golds. Three of them are very attractive and cinegenic too. Leonard is openly emotional, passionate, boyish, makes us compassionate towards him after a strange injury he gets. Jenner is powerful, good looking, talkative, easygoing and makes a really good comedic pair with his arch-rival, always silent but hilarious Mykola Avilov. Nelly Kim is extremely funny with her teenager's antics and shortcomings. Only Kancsal is almost autistic, never showing ANY emotion with his initial failures or even winning medal either. But with him are done some the most risque frames, the scenes where a nude male coach is giving a massage to naked Tamás.
But the film covers numerous other highlights of the olympics too, so no problem understanding what were the games about. Everything is done ultrarealistic way, so the movie is very close to even a time-machine. You can even imagine the smells in the events, all the emotions and mental power. Superb!
O sport, ty - mir! (1981)
Last of the "arty" olympic movies
"O Sport, You Are Peace!" Is the last of the series of "arty" olympic movies, starting with "Tokyo Olympiad" 1965. From "16 Days of Glory" (1985) the films have been more dry and serious reportages about the ultimate sports events.
The lead director of "O Sport, You Are Peace!" is Juri Ozerov. Ozerov was one of eight directors who made the notorious olympic movie "Visions Of Eight" about Munich olympic games in 1972. It is strange to admit but O Sport... seems to be influenced by the German movie. Strange, because the overall mood of two movies are very different. "Eight" is a serious, very arty, quite unaccessible and experimental movie. "O Sport..." attempts to be funny, easygoing, lighthearted and accessible for the general public. But the two movies have a lot in common.
Both olympics were marred by political problems: Munich by a bloody terror attack and Moscow by the Cold War and huge boycott. So the both games have very bitter aftertaste and notorious legacy. But same time both olympics were carefully prepared and well executed.
It seems like Ozerov tries to make something like "Eight" but better. From the main themes on "Eight" we can see six here: the beginning (including the huge opening ceremony in Moscow); running (but not only 100 meters, others events too); pole vault (plus high jump); weightlifting; marathon; women in olympics. Decathlon is replaced with collage several track competitions but the segment is edited the same grotesque way like Milos Forman did in 1972, mixing competition's funny elements wit frames of folk dancing. There is no special "The Losers" segment, but frames of failing athletes are put inside the other segments. But there is a new and very good segment "The Trainers" about hilarious show of coaches.
Ozerov has added some more pieces, for example about social life of athletes, also the cultural programme, and short reportages of random events. The unique element of the movie are the short animations about ancient olympic games.
Here are the problems rising: there are too much material taken and Ozerov probably tried to press every lovely piece into the movie and it makes the segments very short and the movie too light and flat.
There are some problems more. The narration performed by Juri's brother Nikolai is filling the movie totally with his information and it makes watching soon somewhat exhausting.
Another big problem is music. While "Eight' had superb music by Henri Mancini. "Oo Sport..." is filled with dozens of pop, rock and easy listening pieces. No natural sounds at all, no silence. It creates a noise which starts annoy pretty soon.
Third big issue was very common among Soviet movie makers: editing is sloppy, lacks focus and rhythm. Some parts are too long, another ones too short. It makes the movie quite laborous.
But anyway, if you wanna see a joyful, funny, a bit strange, experimental, but a bit childish olympic movie then "O Sport" looks perfect.
Visions of Eight (1973)
Craziest olympic movie ever
"Visions of 8" is the pinnacle of series of arty olympic movies which started with movie "Tokyo Olympiad" (1965) and ended with Juri Ozerov's "Sports -- You Are The Peace" (1981). Ozerov was one of the eight directors of Munich movie and he was clearly influenced by the movie when he was making his one for Moscow olympics.
"Visions of 8" is not about reportage, not about just showing the events, not about giving information. It is about pure art cinematography. The movie is massively formalistic and thats why common people don't like it. It has very excessive editing, brave cinematography and very little real storytelling. Thats why I call it the craziest one.
The movie is the monument of heydays of film and photography which were in 1960s and 70s. The days are long gone.
For people who love art of film, this movie is must be. The most psychedelic and daring movie about an event of strict rules you can ever imagine.
16 Days of Glory (1985)
Boring and dry documentary of the olympics
After several very arty and innovative olympic movies this is the return to dry documentary without much artistic ideas. Yes, we get plenty of information, pretty good cinematography and a lot of interviews but ot much more. For middle aged americans it is close to hearts because Los Angeles 1984 were ultra reaganist, ultra american, ultra cold war olympics and some of them love this era. But still, for nonamericans it has not much to offer.
21 Hours at Munich (1976)
Underrated but very influential movie
Sadly underrated TV movie which shows one of most dramatic and legendary terrorist tragedies of all times ever. Munich'72massacre is a well known real story, no need to repeat it. The movie, made 4 years later is a small arty gem.
Structure and the edit of the movie is tight and straight, no 70s common loosenessness. Picture is extremely well designed, very cool 70s. The movie is clearly influenced Spielberg 'Munich".
Very interesting method is putting in tragic/comical elements together, side by . Willy Brandt is portrayed as a grotesque guy. German police's tricks look like bad jokes etc etc
Acting is especially good. William Holden as the leadinh police officer is very cool, a bit too british. But Franco Nero as head of terrorisr super.