Traumfabrik (4 Stars)

"It doesn't matter if what's happening on the screen is true. What matters is the feelings that we have when we watch. They're always genuine".

If anyone wants to make a film that I'll like, here are a few simple steps. Write a love story. Add a touch of humour. Then give the story a political background. Finally, add a meta-element by making it a film about films.

Maybe that's not the only sort of film I like, but anyone who makes a film like this will win my approval.

In 1961 Emil Hellberg returns home after serving in the East German army for four years. His brother Alex works as a carpenter making props at Babelsberg Film Studio, and he promises Emil he can find him a job. Emil wants to become an actor, so he's given a job as an extra. While working on the set of a pirate film he falls in love with the French dancer Milou, an understudy of the great French actress Beatrice Morée. They promise to meet the next day, but the next day is 13th August 1961. In the early hours of the morning construction begins on the Berlin Wall. Milou is staying at the Savoy in West Berlin, and she's not allowed to return to the studio. In fact, almost all of the actors are staying at the Savoy, so the film has to be cancelled. Beatrice and Milou are flown out of Berlin in a hurry, because they expect a war to break out.

The studio is in a shambles. Even among the studio's employees, nobody knows who has left and who has stayed. In the confusion Emil pretends he's a director called Karl Boborkmann. He writes the screenplay for a film about Cleopatra, which will be the biggest film ever made at the Babelsberg studios. This attracts the attention of the Communist Party, because they're eager to show that East Germany can make bigger and better films than the West. He offers the lead role to Beatrice Morée, because he knows that when she comes to East Germany she'll bring Milou with her.

What Emil/Karl doesn't know is that after returning to Paris Milou got engaged to Omar Kinski, the actor he's cast to play Julius Caesar.

The film is full of the magic of the film business. The title means "Dream Factory", and it really is the stuff of dreams. There are many exotic scenes of Cleopatra in her palace, with soldiers, elephants and dancing girls, in contrast with the ugly reality of life in East Germany. Even under Communist rule the people were allowed to dream. Emil was also a dreamer, but he didn't dream about Cleopatra, he dreamed about Milou.

It's a beautiful film, an example of the high quality of German films. I hope it will be made available in English.