|
Scene from the 1998 international
blockbuster Lola rennt.
 
Netflix
has over 5,500
foreign DVDs
available for rental.
More film rental options:
For UK residents
amazon.co.uk
For residents of Germany
amazon.de
|
German Film (4)
BROWSE GERMAN FILMS: Contemporary
German films 1 -
2 - 3 - 4
- 5 - 6
- 7 | New
releases | East German films
German film classics & collections
1 - 2
| German directors &actors
| Documentaries | German
movie soundtracks
Run Lola Run / Lola rennt
|
|
Drama / Thriller (1998)
Director: Tom Tykwer
Starring: Franka Potente, Moritz Bleibtreu
|
REVIEW: It's difficult to create a film
that's fast paced, exciting, and aesthetically appealing without
diluting its dialogue. Run
Lola Run, directed and written by Tom Tykwer, is an
enchanting balance of pace and narrative, creating a universal
parable that leaps over cultural barriers. This is the story
of young Lola (Franka Potente) and her boyfriend Manni (Moritz
Bleibtreu). In the space of 20 minutes, they must come up with
100,000 deutsche marks to pay back a seedy gangster, who will
be less than forgiving when he finds out that Manni incompetently
lost his cash to an opportunistic vagrant. Lola, confronted
with one obstacle after another, rides an emotional roller coaster
in her high-speed efforts to help the hapless Manni--attempting
to extract the cash first from her double-dealing father (appropriately
a bank manager), and then by any means necessary. From this
point nothing goes right for either protagonist, but just when
you think you've figured out the movie, the director introduces
a series of brilliant existential twists that boggle the mind.
Tykwer uses rapid camera movements and innovative pauses to
explore the theme of cause and effect. Accompanied by a pulse-pounding
soundtrack, we follow Lola through every turn and every heartbreak
as she and Manni rush forward on a collision course with fate.
There were a variety of original and intelligent films released
in 1999, but perhaps none were as witty and clever as this little
gem--one of the best foreign films of the year.
Review by Jeremy Storey
Buy DVD or VHS at AMAZON 
| Find film at alibris
|
Aimee & Jaguar / Aimée
& Jaguar |
|
Romance / Drama (1999)
Director: Max Färberböck
Starring: Maria Schrader, Juliane Köhler
Nominated for a Golden Globe award and Germany's official submission
for a Best Foreign Language Film Academy Award |
REVIEW: Without
its two lead performances, director Max Färberböck's
first film might just be another promising debut. But with them,
particularly that of Juliane Köhler, the work becomes something
far more memorable. Playing a housewife and unenthusiastic mother
who indulges in meaningless affairs out of boredom, sexual frustration,
and an almost girlish romantic streak while her husband fights
for the Nazis on the front, Köhler makes clear the epic journey
her character takes from thoughtless Nazi party-liner and male
plaything to the lover of a female, Jewish resistance fighter
(Maria Schrader). While Färberböck displays a prodigious
talent for staging individual scenes, he seems to have little
notion of how to string them together, lending his film an often
frustrating stop-start quality. But when it does get going, it
proves deeply memorable, never more so than in the first love
scene between the couple, which captures every bit of the awkwardness,
fear, and overwhelming joy of the moment. The deeply felt work
of Köhler and Schrader restores a sense of scale to the tragedy
of their characters' times.
Review by Keith Phipps, All Movie Guide
Buy DVD or VHS at AMAZON
| Find film at alibris
|
The Harmonists / Comedian
Harmonists |
|
Drama / Music
(1997)
Director: Joseph Vilsmaier
Starring: Ben Becker, Heino Ferch
|
SYNOPSIS: Comedian
Harmonists tells the story of a famous, German male sextet,
five vocals and piano, the "Comedian Harmonists", from
the day they meet first in 1927 to the day in 1934, when they
become banned by the upcoming Nazis, because three of them are
Jewish. Filled with topflight performances and unforgettable music,
this entertaining and critically acclaimed story was cheered by
audiences everywhere! When Harry, a struggling but highly imaginative
funnyman, forms a singing group with an unusual group of friends,
"The Harmonists" go on to become an overnight sensation
in prewar Germany. But as their wave of success inevitably collides
with the nation's changing political tide, the group's members
are forced to face unprecedented challenges that will try their
wills and test their loyalty. An award winner at several prestigious
film festivals.
Buy DVD or VHS at AMAZON
| Find film at alibris
Music of the post-WWI singing group Comedian Harmonists:
More Comedian Harmonists music:
|
Bandits
|
|
Drama / Music (1997)
Director: Katja von Garnier
Starring: Katja Riemann, Jasmin Tabatabai
|
REVIEW: Four tough women in a German penitentiary join forces
to form a rock band. When administrators take them to perform
at a policeman's ball, the prisoners escape, kidnapping a convenient
boy-toy hostage (Werner Schreyer), along the way. Their band,
Bandits,
becomes a national sensation as the women continue to evade the
police. The movie is a wild ride, with quite a respectable score
of rock songs--some catchy, some haunting--composed and performed
by Bandits
members themselves. All are sung in English (which seems to be
the universal language of rock & roll). But although the picture
is a lot of fun, it's no Spice World; there's a harder edge, a
deeper agenda here. These women were all prisoners for a reason.
Each fugitive's story is gradually revealed as the plot progresses.
Luna (sultry Jasmin Tabatabai), the lead singer and guitarist,
is a loose canon with a real attitude problem. And she likes to
rob banks. Emma (Katja Riemann), the brains of the group, had
a successful jazz career in America before her abusive boyfriend
drove her over the edge. Marie (Jutta Hoffmann), the band's middle-aged
keyboard player, is suicidal: something to do with her involvement
in her husband's death. Angel (lovely Nicolette Krebitz), is the
team's weak link; she can't be trusted. As the Bandits
pull off each increasingly improbable narrow escape, the film
takes on the radiance of myth, ascending ultimately to an apocalyptic
finale.
Review by Laura Mirsky
Buy DVD or VHS at AMAZON
| Find film at alibris
|
Winter Sleepers / Winterschläfer
|
|
Drama / Romance (1997)
Director: Tom Tykwer
Starring: Ulrich Matthes, Marie-Lou Sellem |
REVIEW: Tom Tykwer, writer-director
of the international hit Run
Lola Run, shows a more pensive side with Winter
Sleepers. The film examines the lives of five characters
in the aftermath of an auto accident. As with Run
Lola Run, Tykwer's main concern is with chance and coincidence,
and the ways people unwittingly influence the course of each other's
lives. Theo, a farmer, sets off to take his horse to the vet,
unaware that his daughter is hidden in the trailer. Momentarily
distracted, Theo swerves to avoid a sports car coming the other
way and crashes into a mountain slope, critically injuring his
daughter. The sports car is covered by snow, and René,
the driver, digs his way out and leaves the scene. Meanwhile translator
Rebecca negotiates a stormy-but-sexy relationship with loutish
ski instructor Marco, both of them unaware that Marco's stolen
car was involved in the crash, and Rebecca's roommate Laura nurses
the young accident victim by day and begins a tentative relationship
with René by night. While Winter
Sleepers doesn't have the same manic pace as Lola,
Tykwer's visual style is very much in evidence--he makes beautiful
images of everything from the snow-covered Bavarian mountains
to a cut finger. As it moves through a series of tiny but crucial
events to a truly haunting ending, Winter
Sleepers is in many ways reminiscent of Atom Egoyan's
The Sweet Hereafter, both in its central plot device and in its
melancholy atmosphere of fatal inevitability.
Review by Ali Davis
Buy DVD or VHS at AMAZON
| Find film at alibris
|
Beyond Silence / Jenseits
der Stille |
|
Musical drama (1996)
Director: Caroline Link
Starring: Silvie Testud, Tatjana Trieb
Nominated for Best Foreign Language Film
Academy Award |
FROM THE BACK COVER:
Acclaimed by critics and audiences everywhere, Beyond
Silence is the powerful Academy Award®-nominated story
of a young woman's battle for independence and her deaf parents'
struggle to understand her gift for music. Given a clarinet by
her free-spirited aunt, Lara is immediately consumed by a new
passion her parents cannot begin to fully comprehend. Determined
to follow her dreams, Lara's ongoing pursuit of music creates
an ever-widening rift that eventually threatens to tear apart
her once close-knit family. An inspirational and highly entertaining
motion picture offering from Miramax Home Entertainment -- you'll
be riveted as this family must somehow learn to reach beyond differences,
expectations ... and beyond silence ... to bring their two worlds
together once again!
Buy DVD or VHS at AMAZON
| Find film at alibris
|
The Promise / Das Versprechen
|
|
Romance / Drama (1995)
Director: Margarethe von Trotta
Starring: Corinna Harfouch, Meret Becker |
SYNOPSIS: A politically
aware, and sometimes chilling, story of a frustrated 30-year love
affair between two Berliners. In 1961, as the Berlin Wall goes
up, young Sophie and Konrad plan to flee to the West. But Konrad
ultimately hangs back -- and with that hesitation, all hope of
escape disappears. Seven years later, the lovers renew their relationship
during a meeting in Czechoslovakia; political events intervene
again when the Soviets invade Prague. Sophie, as before, risks
her life to make a stand, and, as before, Konrad plays it safe.
Through the years, they continue to dream of a life together.
One more brief encounter takes place, and then... in 1989 the
seemingly impossible occurs and the Wall comes crashing down.
Ironically, however, three decades of separation -- and their
different personalities -- make the possibility of true happiness
together remote.
Buy DVD or VHS at AMAZON
| Find film at alibris
|
Animal Love / Tierische
Liebe |
|
Documentary (1995)
Director: Ulrich Seidl
Starring: Franz Dolesch, Renée Felden |
FROM THE BACK COVER:
Acclaimed and controverisal filmmaker Ulrich Seidl (Dog
Days, Jesus You Know) explores the underbelly of
modern life with two surreal odysseys not easily forgotten. Darkly
comical and provocatively disturbing, Animal
Love offers a glimpse into the strange and eccentric world
of lonely animal lovers on the fringes of society. Meticulously
shot in Diane Arbus fashion, Seidl’s protagonists sublimate
their emotional needs and desires for intimacy through their four-legged
friends.
SYNOPSIS: The love between humans and their pets takes
a darker turn in this Austrian documentary that is as disturbing
as it is provocative. While not exactly delving into actual bestiality,
filmmaker Ulrich Seidl takes viewers upsettingly close as he examines
the reasons why some people are able to be more intimate with
their dogs than with other people. There is something grotesque
and decidedly unsympathetic about the way Seidl chooses to portray
his lonely subjects and their pets. Some of the relationships
are maternal, some romantic, and some almost sexual.
Review by Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
Buy DVD or VHS at AMAZON
| Find film at alibris
|
BROWSE GERMAN FILMS: Contemporary
German films 1 -
2 - 3 - 4
- 5 - 6
- 7 | New
releases | East German
films
German film classics & collections
1 - 2
| German directors &actors
| Documentaries | German
movie soundtracks
All content on this site is copyrighted. © 2004-
VISTAWIDE.COM
Contact - About
us
|
