Run Lola Run (5 Stars)

This is the June 2025 selection for my cinema's "Best of Cinema" feature. It's an excellent choice. In votes by German film critics either "Run Lola Run" or "Das Boot" finishes in top place, depending on which side of the bed they got out of. It's a classic. It was made in 1998, and it's still as fresh 27 years later.

Today was my first chance to see it in the cinema. I was tingling with excitement as soon as the music began, even before Lola started running. The premise is simple. Lola's boyfriend has lost 100,000 Marks ($60,000) that he owes to drug dealers, and he'll be shot if he doesn't pay it back within 20 minutes. Lola promises to get him the money, and she has to run through the middle of Berlin to get it.

Does she succeed? No. But she asks for a second chance. And a third. Who grants her the chance? Is it God? Or mysterious fates standing over a mystical cauldron? It doesn't matter. What we see is that the smallest choices can affect the lives of yourself and the people around you. It's a treatise on the butterfly effect. The film is deeply philosophical, but it's so exciting that you hardly notice is philosophy.

When I got home I sat down to check what position it has in my top 100 film list. And I had to shake my head in dismay. I'd forgotten all about it. I update my list in my blog about twice a year, so it'll be included soon. When I have time. Be patient. And I'll have to watch it again soon. It's recently been remastered in 4K, but the disc is still very expensive, so I'll wait a few months before buying it.

After 27 years Lola is still running and changing the world.

Downfall (5 Stars)

Dancer's Top Films #25

There have been many men who have played Adolf Hitler over the years, some better than others. Has anyone ever attempted to make a full list? I found a list of 27 actors in IMDB, but it's incomplete. Rolf Kanies is missing, who played Hitler in "Joe and Max". However, I think all the performances pale into insignificance in comparison to Bruno Ganz. It's difficult to say what makes him so good. His physical appearance matches Hitler, but his mannerisms really make the difference. Before filming he spent four months watching videos of Hitler and listening to recordings of his speeches. That's dedication! But there's still more to it. The excellent script and directing add to the complete picture of the man Adolf Hitler.

When "Downfall" (German "Der Untergang") was released in 2004 it hit the cinemas like a bomb. After the many films about World War Two, here was something different. It's not a war film. It's a ruthlessly accurate portrayal of Hitler's last 10 days in his Berlin bunker, showing the despair and debauchery of those closest to him.

Initial response to the film was positive. In more recent years the film has been criticised because it's too positive in its portrayal of Hitler. I think that the recent critics don't get it. Adolf Hitler is known as the most evil person who's ever lived. This leads to him being portrayed as a caricature. When I lived in England it was common for people to make fun of him as stupid, as a "failed painter". Believe me, no man who's stupid could have become the leader of Europe's largest country. Maybe he didn't go to university, but he had great intelligence when it came to influencing people. Arguably, his greatest fault was that he relied on his own intelligence too much. He was incapable of delegating decisions to those below him. In particular, he was unskilled as a military strategist. He could possibly have won the war if he'd listened to the advice of his generals.

This is shown at the beginning of "Downfall". Hitler is surrounded by his generals. They're giving him advice, good advice, but he refuses to listen. Anyone who contradicts him is accused of treason.

The main reason for people criticising the film in recent years is that they claim it's pro-Hitler. What they really mean is that it's not anti-Hitler. The film carefully avoids the propaganda that has become the norm in films about Hitler. The film is based on the biography of Traudl Junge, who was Hitler's personal secretary from 1942 to 1945. The story is told as she saw it. The film shows Hitler not as a monster, but as a man, with all the strengths and weaknesses of any man.

Historians have frequently mentioned that Hitler had a charm that attracted women to him, but this has rarely been shown in films. We can see that Traudl Junge was drawn in by Hitler's charm. When Hitler offered to let her leave Berlin, she insisted on staying with him until the end. 

The real Traudl Junge in 2002, shortly before her death.

Alexandra Maria Lara as Traudl Junge in the film.

Alexandra Maria Lara was an excellent choice to play Traudl Junge. She expresses a naive innocence in the middle of the chaos of Hitler's last days. She was one of three women who remained close to Hitler's side. The others were Gerda Christian, also a secretary, and Eva Braun. They were friends, but Traudl's facial expressions in the film show her amazement and disapproval as Eva continued to party until the last moments.

The three women take Hitler's dog for a walk in one of the rare quiet moments. Apart from these few moments, the scenes look like they come from an absurd horror film. Senior officers are committing suicide, other officers are sitting getting drunk, and Eva Braun is dancing on the tables.

Most of the film takes place in almost staccato fashion, hurrying from one chaotic scene to the next. An exception is the scene in which Magda Goebbels murders her six beautiful children. Everything else stops, and this scene is shown slowly and deliberately, as each child is forced to swallow a cyanide capsule one by one. Hitler is portrayed neutrally, but Magda Goebbels is shown as a woman of pure evil. How could any mother act like this? It's horrific beyond description.

If you haven't yet seen this film, what are you waiting for? It's not a war film. It's a study of the breakdown of society in a confined space. It's not an easy film to watch. Try to see the film through Traudl Junge's eyes. She was an innocent woman watching her whole world collapse around her.

Success Rate:  + 3.5

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The Tunnel (4½ Stars)

This is a German film, made in 2001, based on a true story. The names have been changed, but the film's audio complementary reveals the names of the real characters. The story takes place in 1961-1962, and most of the characters were still alive in 2001, as revealed by the "What happens next" texts.

In 1961 Harry Melchior was the best swimmer in the DDR (East Germany). Two weeks after winning the national swimming championship he escaped to West Berlin, using a fake passport. He was determined to rescue his sister Lotte from the East, so together with his best friend Mathis, who had fled from East Berlin through the sewers, he began to build a tunnel under the Berlin Wall. The tunnel was 145 meters long, seven meters below the ground. Their plan was to rescue 32 people from the East, all of them friends and relatives of the people building the tunnel.

Initially there were problems with building the tunnel, because it had to be constructed part time. Then an American film company became aware of the project, and they paid the people building the tunnel 15,000 Marks each for the exclusive rights to film the escape. This financial backing made it possible for the builders to work full time.

It's chilling to see how deviously the East German secret police, the Stasi, operated. They tortured suspects and blackmailed citizens to spy for them. As I've often pointed out, the supposedly Communist government of East Germany continued to operate in the spirit of Hitler's Fascist government.

I almost gave the film five stars, but I deducted half a star because the film is unnecessarily long. It runs for 160 minutes, but I feel it could have been compressed to less than two hours without losing any of the drama.

This film was also released in England and America with subtitles, but it's now out of print everywhere. I'm glad I bought it in 2005 when I still had a chance.

Baader Meinhof Komplex (4 Stars)

I clearly remember the first time I saw this film in 2008. It was shown at the Empire Cinema in Birmingham Broad Street, which has since become a Cineworld cinema. I was excited about it because German films were rarely shown in Birmingham's cinemas. That's still the case today. While I was waiting upstairs I overheard an elderly couple speaking German with one another. It was something special for them as well.

The film was overwhelming, from the first few minutes onwards. I still consider the scene with the demonstration against the Shah of Iran in 1967 to be one of the best filmed scenes ever. I sat in my seat open-mouthed, hardly able to take it all in. That continued to the end of the film, even though the last hour of the film had less action. That's a "problem" with true stories. The pacing can't be planned, it just happens.

When I walked out of the cinema my thoughts were, "Wow! That's the best film I've ever seen". I bought the film on DVD as soon as it was released. I also bought the extended version, even though it's only 15 minutes longer. I watched it frequently between 2009 and 2010. Slowly my opinion on the film changed. I no longer consider it the best film ever made, or even the best German film. Today I wouldn't even place it in the top 50 German films. So what happened?

There are problems with the end of the film that I noticed when I first saw the film, but I overlooked them as artistic license. After repeated viewing the last half hour annoys me. By now it's got so bad that I don't think I can watch the film again. I only watched it today because it stars Bruno Ganz as Horst Herold, the head of the German police. This is doubtlessly one of his best performances. He's such a quiet, unassuming figure, determined to stop the rise of terrorism, but not hot-headed enough to make rash decisions. I especially like the scene where he serves his top advisers lobster soup while discussing police matters. This makes me smile. He's calm and collected, making others think he's not taking the problems seriously, but if people can no longer enjoy lobster soup terrorism has won.

To sum up my problems with the film: it's the true story of the Red Army Faction, commonly called the Baader-Meinhof Gang, from 1967 to 1977. The film begins with the visit of the Shah to Berlin and ends with the assassination of the industrialist Hanns-Martin Schleyer. The film is told with almost photographic documentary precision for the first two hours. Then it falls apart in the last half hour. Instead of sticking to proven facts it shows wild theories for which there is no proof.

The fact is that on 18th October 1977 three terrorists, Andreas Baader, Jan-Carl Raspe and Gudrun Ensslin were found dead in their cells in Stammheim, Germany's highest security prison. Baader and Raspe died of gunshot wounds, Ensslin was hanged. On the same morning the terrorist Irmgard Möller was found with four stab wounds in her chest, but she survived.

A police inquest claimed that the three deaths were the result of suicide. Möller, who is still alive today, claims that she was stabbed by masked men who entered her cell at night, but this was never proved. It's impossible to verify what happened because the prison's security cameras were turned off and the security guard on the seventh floor was called away from his post for three hours.

The story that Andreas Baader and his three fellow terrorists were executed is called a conspiracy theory by those who believe the German state would never act unlawfully. I know what conspiracy theories are. They're theories that people decide to believe, even though the facts prove the opposite. In this case there are no facts that prove it was suicide, and all the clues point to an execution, so I consider the suicide story to be a conspiracy theory.

In the last half hour the film builds up an elaborate theory about how a lawyer smuggled guns into the cells of Baader and Raspe. At meetings Brigitte Mohnhaupt made lengthy speeches about Baader and Ensslin wanting to end their lives on their own terms. There is no proof for this. My opinion is that Stefan Aust, the journalist on whose book the film is based, had a personal agenda in promoting the suicide theory, and the director Uli Edel followed his thoughts blindly. The film would have been better if the deaths of Baader and his friends had been left open. It would have been more satisfying to see them dead in their cells, then see different people arguing about whether it was suicide or an execution. The viewer should be allowed to make up his own mind rather than being subjected to a conspiracy theory.

I'll end this post with a few snapshots of the magnificent Martina Gedeck playing the role of Ulrike Meinhof. She's one of my favourite actresses, and this is her best ever performance. She perfectly portrays a woman who starts out as a brilliant journalist, then becomes an author of fanatical pamphlets before finally being driven to madness by three years of solitary confinement.

These snapshots aren't just for my readers. They're also intended to remind me of her performance in this film, because I probably shan't watch it again.

I defend my four star rating. I'd give the first two hours five stars and the last half hour one star. That makes an average of four stars. Approximately.

Success Rate:  - 1.2

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Downfall (5 Stars)

I've written a little about this film in the past. Others have written more about it. We've all written too much. "Downfall" isn't a film that needs to be described, it's a film that should be felt.

This is the film that Bruno Ganz will always be remembered for. His portrayal of Adolf Hitler is nothing less than a work of genius. When we see him we feel that we're watching the real Hitler in the ten days before his death.

In the film Bruno Ganz doesn't just play the part of Hitler, he becomes Hitler. Many people have criticised the film because it didn't show what they want to see. "Downfall" doesn't criticise Hitler. It doesn't point a finger at Hitler and tell us how bad he is. We should know that already. The film is more like a photo album with a series of snapshots. It gives us pictures of how he was, and it's up to us to make our own minds up how we interpret them.

Success Rate:  + 3.5

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Hotdog (4 Stars)

When I moved to Germany 18 months ago I thought I would be watching a lot of German films in the cinema. Even though I'm watching more than I did while I was in England it's not as many as I expected. More than 100 films are made in Germany every year, of which most are shown in the cinemas, so I could theoretically watch 50 to 70 German films every year. As it was, I watched exactly 12 German films in the cinema last year. I suppose one a month isn't bad.

"Hotdog" is my third German film this year, so let's see if I can keep up the pace. It's a comedy starring the two top German actors Til Schweiger and Matthias Schweighöfer, with Heino Ferch in a smaller role. German comedies are always a hit or miss affair, but this is a well made film that kept the audience in stitches.

Luke and Theo both work for a fictional elite German police squad in Berlin. Luke (Til Schweiger) is a determined hard cop who never fails in a mission, however many bad guys he has to shoot in the process. Theo (Matthias Schweighöfer) is a nerd with a photographic memory who joined the police to impress his father, but he has none of the skills needed to be a uniformed offer, so he's kept indoors in charge of the station's weapons.

Luke is disciplined after he saves hostages from a museum, but clumsily destroys millions of Euros worth of artefacts in the process. He's put on guard duty at the Bellevue Palace, the home of the German President. Theo has been begging for outside duty for months, so he's also stationed as a guard. It's a boring job, because nothing ever happens. At least, nothing usually happens. On their first day the President of Moldavia is visiting with his family, and a terrorist group kidnaps his daughter. Luke and Theo are suspended because of their failure to stop the terrorists.

Being suspended doesn't stop a determined cop like Luke from doing what's right. He sees it as his moral duty to find the president's daughter, and Theo teams up with him. With the assistance of a computer hacker they go into action.

The situation comedy is hilarious. Most of the humour is in the clash of the two buddy cops. Luke considers Theo inexperienced and incompetent, while Theo considers Luke to be a reckless rule breaker. They're both right.

German critics have slammed this film for being "too American". Why is that a problem? That's probably the reason why it's so funny. I can verify that the cinema audience loved it.

Run Lola Run (5 Stars)

This film is generally considered to be the best film ever made in Germany, based on polls held in magazines. A more cynical opinion is that most Germans don't understand it, so they say they like it because they're afraid people will think they're stupid if they don't.

Is the film difficult to understand? On the surface it isn't. I can describe it in one sentence:

"Run Lola Run shows how minor decisions can have wide-reaching consequences for oneself and others".

I could end my review there. That's the only explanation anybody needs who's puzzled by the film. However, there are other themes that run through the film.

One is the concept of parallel universes. I don't know what exactly influenced Tom Tykwer, the director, but I see strong parallels with the stories of Kang the Conqueror in "The Avengers", particularly in the late 1970's and early 1980's. Parallel universes are an integral part of Marvel's comic book mythology, but Kang was more responsible for the creation of parallel universes than anyone else because he frequently travelled back from his home in the future to battle the Avengers. We see an affinity between Lola and her parallel selves, for instance in Lola's second universe she knows how to take the safety catch off a gun, something she learnt in her first universe.

Who is the blind woman? She's someone able to see more than others. She sees the results of minor decisions and intervenes to shape the future.

There's also the influence of God. In Lola's first universe she runs between the nuns, but they ignore her. The the second universe the nuns make room for her and stare at her as she runs between them. In the third universe Lola asks God for help, so the nuns block her path and force her to run into the middle of the road. So, possibly, it's not only our own decisions that shape the future but also God's decisions, based on our requests.

Is there a balance between the parallel universes? In each universe someone lives and someone dies. Is this a coincidence or the way that Tom Tykwer sees fate balancing the universes so that they don't diverge too much?

The biggest problem is that even if we know that our smallest decisions affect the whole world we can't act accordingly. If we knew that good deeds would lead to good results we could lead good lives to make everyone happier. That's not the case, at least not in the way cause and effect are portrayed in the film. Our decisions have effects that are seemingly random from our point of view. If Lola robs a bank the cashier will hook up with a colleague for sado-masochistic games. If Lola doesn't rob the bank the cashier will have a car accident that cripples her. So what's right and what's wrong?

I'm glad I watched "Run Lola Run" today. It's reminded me that it needs a high position when I publish my list of my 50 favourite films.

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Suite Francaise (3¾ Stars)

The film takes place in a village called Bussy, 20 miles from Paris, in 1940. I didn't realise until the end of the film that it's a true story. It was written shortly after the events by a French Jewess who lived in the village after fleeing from Paris, but it wasn't published until 60 years later when her daughter finally discovered what was contained in her mother's notebook.

The main character is Lucille Angellier (Michelle Williams), who lives in a large mansion in Bussy with her mother-in-law, a wealthy land-owner referred to only as Madame Angellier. Her husband has left to fight against the Germans, but when Germany conquers Paris in June 1940 she begins to despair that he's still alive. At first the war seems far away, but Bussy is overrun by a stream of refugees from Paris, and shortly afterwards a German regiment is posted in the village. Each household has to put up a German soldier, and as the owner of the largest house Madame Angellier is assigned the highest ranking German office, Lieutenant Bruno von Falk (Matthias Schoenaerts).

The Germans are the enemies, and Lucille expects to have an inhuman monster living in her house. She's surprised when she meets a highly sensitive man who spends the evenings sitting at her piano composing a piece of music that he calls the "Suite Francaise". A romance develops between the two.

The film is a very honest portrayal of the situation during the German occupation of France. It's usual for the opposing sides in a war to demonise one another, but the fact is that the soldiers who fight for a country are just normal men who have more in common with the enemy soldiers than they do with their warmongering leaders. This is especially the case if the soldiers have been conscripted. While I lived in Germany I had a friend whose father had been part of the occupying army in France. His father was a religious man, and while in France he had visited French churches, sitting side by side with the enemy. War is something that divides people who would otherwise have been friends.

I enjoy films based on true stories, even if they lack the tidy resolution of purely fictional films. Real life never ties up loose ends, and there's rarely a happy ending. My only real criticism of the film is that the romance isn't as tender as the picture above suggests. When Lucille and Bruno are together they seem to be driven by lust rather than love. That clashes with the love of classical music that first draws them together. This must have been an interpretation of the film's screenwriters, because I doubt that the authoress knew the couple well enough to know that when in private they were tearing one another's clothes off to have a hasty fumble.

My praise goes out to Sam Riley, who is barely recognizable as the French farmer Benoit. His wife Alexandra Maria Lara plays a small role as a Jewish refugee, probably the authoress herself. Tom Schilling ably portrays the swaggering German lieutenant Kurt Bonnet. He's fast developing into one of Germany's top actors. Heino Ferch, probably my favourite German actor, plays a small role as the commander of the troops stationed in Bussy. Matthias Schoenaerts is a Belgian actor who is currently making a breakthrough into the American market, and he certainly has the talent to go all the way to the top. But all the other actors are eclipsed by Michelle Williams. After all these years I still associate her with the TV series "Dawson's Creek", which was her first big role at the age of 18. I never realised that she would develop into such a competent actress. She has a cool composure that makes her able to express emotions with the slightest change of facial expressions.

Deckname Luna (4 Stars)

In 2006 a film was made called "The Lives of Others", about the way in which the German secret police, the Stasi, observed the citizens of East Germany. It won an Oscar as the best foreign language film in 2007, and as a result it became one of the best known German films in recent years. Six years later in 2012 the television film "Deckname Luna" (in English "Code Name Luna") was made. It's also about the Stasi and the way it operated. The Stasi agent in "The Lives of Others" was played by Ulrich Mühe, and the East German spy in "Deckname Luna" is played by his daughter, Anna Maria Mühe.

The film begins in April 1961 with the space flight of Yuri Gagarin. This was the first major step in the discovery of outer space, and it was an enormous propaganda victory for Russia. This was proof that Communist technology was better. Now the race was on to land a person on the Moon. Despite all the rhetoric in the West, it was expected that Russia would get there first.

That's the historical background to the story. The fictional characters in the film are woven into the true events that followed. Lotte Reinhardt lives in Peenemünde in East Germany. She's the granddaughter of Professor Arthur Noswitz, a scientist working on rocket fuel, who lives in Augsburg, West Germany. She dreams of becoming the first woman on the Moon. She thinks of herself as a loyal socialist, but when the Berlin Wall is built in August 1961 she joins a protest group. After being arrested and released with a warning she manages to flee to West Germany by stowing away on a ship. Her twin brother Kurt is arrested for aiding her. Lotte goes to live with her grandfather and her Aunt Martha in Augsburg.

Lotte has no peace in West Germany. Stasi agents are operating in her city. They promise her that if she spies on her grandfather they will release her brother. Her grandfather's work is vital to the space program. The main reason that America was unable to travel to the Moon was that the fuel was too heavy. The company Bayrische Trieb Technik (BTT) in Augsburg was working on the invention of new, lighter fuel. That part of the film is true: the fuel used for the Moon flights was invented in Germany.

Lotte is encouraged to apply for a job working in her grandfather's office as an interpreter. This gives her access to his secret notes, which she passes on to the Stasi. Things develop further when she marries a young scientist working in her grandfather's team. She continues to work as a spy behind her husband's back.

Anna Maria Mühe, a perfect German beauty

This film contains a lot more action than "The Lives of Others". It also paints a darker picture of East-West relationships. The Stasi is able to kidnap people on the streets of West Germany and drive them over the border into East Germany. Nobody has privacy. There are always Stasi agents hiding in the dark with cameras. And the film also touches on a well-known subject: the Stasi used to spy on their own members. Nobody was exempt from being watched during the days of the Cold War.

My only real criticism of the film is that it contains an unnecessary sub-plot about secrets behind Lotte's family background. The film lasts four hours, and 30 minutes could have been shaved off by removing it.

Downfall (5 Stars)

I used to think that "Baader Meinhof Komplex" was the best German film ever made, but I've now gone off it for reasons stated in my recent post. So what do I now think is the best? Probably "Der Untergang", which is called "Downfall" in English speaking countries. It portrays the chaos and madness of Hitler's last two weeks in his bunker in Berlin, as seen through the eyes of his personal secretary, Traudl Junge. It isn't an anti-Hitler film or a pro-Hitler film; it merely attempts to show things as they happened, without judgement. The film's neutrality is what makes it so powerful.

The only thing I'll tell you is that Germany lost the war. If you want to know any more about the film you'll have to watch it yourself. It's one of only two films that I've ever watched twice in a row, back to back. That's how good it is.

Baader Meinhof Komplex (4 Stars)

"What we need is a new morality".

When I first saw this film I was in awe. It was the best German film I had ever seen. Even after repeated viewing on DVD I praised it highly. It wasn't until watching it today that my opinion began to change. For 1 hour 55 minutes it's a work of genius. Then it begins to turn. The last half hour is disgusting propaganda for the official German bourgeoisie.

The film is based on a book by Stefan Aust, who was a friend of Andreas Baader in his early years, but then split away from him. The extended version of the film (not the version I watched today) contains a brief scene where Stefan himself appears. Evidently the break up from Andreas Baader was serious enough to cause Stefan to tell lies which have been repeated in the film.

For those who don't know the events of 1977, let me explain. In the night of October 18th, 1977 the four terrorists being held in separate cells in Germany's top security prison, Stammheim, committed suicide. Andreas Baader and Jan-Carl Raspe shot themselves. Gudrun Ensslin hanged herself. Irmgard Möller stabbed herself four times in the chest, but narrowly missed her heart and survived. To any sane thinking person it's inconceivable that prisoners could smuggle guns into their cells. Apart from this, after recovering Irmgard Möller claimed that masked men had entered her cell and stabbed her. Gudrun Ensslin's body was badly bruised as if she had been beaten. But what did the prison's security cameras show? There was a power failure that night, so the cameras weren't working. How convenient!

The film shows the lawyer smuggling guns to Andreas Baader during the trial, but there is no evidence that this ever happened. The intention of the film is to poison the minds of the viewers to accept the official story, rather than the truth. The last half hour of the film has Brigitte Mohnhaupt repeatedly stating that the imprisoned terrorists would end their lives at the time of their choice. This is pure propaganda, and the more it's repeated the more sickening it gets.

Before I finish, I'd like to point out that I don't agree that we need a new morality. It's just a quote from the film, in my eyes a very significant quote. The new morality of the Baader Meinhof group involved killing one's enemies, without paying heed to anyone else who died as collateral damage. The old morality is better.

Spuren des Bösen: Racheengel (3½ Stars)

This is the second film in the series of films about the Austrian criminal psychologist, Dr. Richard Brock. It begins with the good doctor browsing in a book shop. An armed gunman runs into the shop, fleeing from the police, and takes the shop's staff and customers hostage. Richard speaks to the gunman, trying to calm him, but after a few minutes the gunman shoots himself in front of the hostages. The police arrest Richard, accusing him of interfering with police activities. As you might remember from my review of the first film, Richard advises the police, but he isn't a policeman. The investigating officer releases him with a caution, but this doesn't stop Richard from investigating the case, because he thinks that the police are doing it wrong.

The title of this film means "Traces of Evil: Angel of Revenge". It's slower than the first film, with less action, but nevertheless a good film. Aren't most detective films slow moving?

Spuren des Bösen: Sandag (4 Stars)

Two boys, Michael Sand and Richard Brock, go to school in Vienna. Michael makes Richard suffer, presumably through bullying. 30 years later they are still in Vienna, but they are no longer just Michael and Richard, they are Dr. Michael Sand and Dr. Richard Brock. Michael is now the owner of Sandag, a building company with operations around the globe. Richard is a criminal psychologist who works primarily as a university lecturer, but also advises the police on difficult cases. After years without any contact the two men meet again. Over 70 million Euros has been stolen from Michael's company and transferred to foreign accounts. The accountant who was responsible for the transfers is due to give evidence in court, but before the trial begins she is murdered.

Richard immediately suspects Michael of murder, based more on his past experiences than any evidence that points to him. Michael is still the bully after all these years and instigates a press campaign against Richard to ruin his career.

This is an award winning Austrian crime drama, the first in a series of films starring Heino Ferch as Dr. Richard Brock. Heino is without a doubt my favourite German actor, and in this film he gives a magnificent performance.

Vincent wants to sea (3½ Stars)

This is so annoying. Who picked the stupid name for this film? I haven't been so annoyed by a film's name since "Inglourious Basterds". The original German title of the film is "Vincent will Meer", i.e. "Vincent wants sea". A direct translation would have been suitable, but some joker in the film distribution offices thought differently.

The title character, Vincent, is a 27-year-old who suffers from Tourette Syndrome. His father, a CSU politician, can't deal with him, so he puts him in a special clinic for people with incurable mental illnesses. I have to explain what Tourette Syndrome is, because I knew almost nothing about it before watching the film. The symptoms are involuntary twitches, unwanted even though the person feels them about to happen in advance, like a sneeze. In the case of adults the twitches are accompanied by outbursts of foul language. The causes of Tourette Syndrome are unknown, and there is no cure, but in most cases it begins in early childhood and stops by itself in teenage years. Adults with the disease are socially inept and unable to fit in with others.

At the clinic a romantic relationship develops with Marie, a young woman suffering from anorexia. Afraid that she will be force fed, Marie steals the keys of the psychiatrist's car and flees with Vincent and Alex, a patient suffering from OCD. Vincent says he wants to drive to Italy to see the sea, so the three drive southwards, with Vincent's father and the psychiatrist in hot pursuit.

I have sympathy with the father. Tourette Syndrome is a very difficult illness to deal with. If it were my son I would have trouble accepting him. I would try my best, of course, but I don't want to judge others for pushing their child away when I'm not sure that I wouldn't do the same myself. The film won many awards in Germany, and I do admit that it is heartwarming at times, but Vincent's illness makes him visually an unattractive character.

Heino Ferch (Vincent's father) and Karoline Herfurth (Marie) are two of the best actors I know. Karoline is so thin in the film because she starved herself for the role. In an interview on the DVD she said that it was a very difficult role for her to play, because she couldn't prevent herself from identifying with Marie, and she was beginning to hate herself. The role was eating her up. That's sad, but it shows what a good actress she is.

Spuren des Bösen: Sandag (4 Stars)

This is an Austrian television film made in 2010. The title translates as "Traces of Evil". It won several awards in Austria, including best film, best screenplay and best cinematography, so it's incomprehensible that it hasn't yet been released on DVD. Luckily I was able to watch it on German television yesterday evening. If you understand German you can watch it online until April 21st at this link. This is the website of a German television station. After that you'll have to wait until it's broadcast again.

Heino Ferch (one of my favorite actors) plays Dr. Richard Brock, a university lecturer for forensic psychology. He is asked to help the police solve a murder. The only witness for a 900 million Euros fraud case is killed in her apartment by a naked man. That's about $1.2 billion. Wow! When money like that is involved nobody can be trusted. In the course of the film everyone in a police safe house is executed. This is a very good film, one that I'm certain to buy on DVD if it's ever released.

Winter Sleepers (4 Stars)

Never underestimate a farmer.

After watching "Cloud Atlas" I thought I would go back to Tom Tykwer's early films, when he was developing his style. Even though there's a certain amount of action in this film the lack of plot and the lack of a final resolution reminds me of Eric Rohmer's films. The film revolves around four people who are painted vividly.

Marco is a skiing instructor.
Rebecca translates English romance novels into German.
Rene is a cinema projectionist.
Laura is a nurse.

Rebecca and Laura live together in Laura's house in Berchtesgarden, a winter ski resort in Bavaria. Marco and Rebecca are lovers, but Marco is unfaithful to Rebecca. He is also fiercely jealous, suspecting her of infidelity for no logical reason. Rene and Laura are lovers. Rene suffers from an accident in the army. A grenade exploded behind him, and as a result of the injuries his short term memory is faulty. He takes photographs of everything he sees to remind himself of what has happened, but sometimes he sees photos that mean nothing to him.

Shortly after Christmas Rene borrows Marco's new car. He has an accident with a farmer that results in the death of the farmer's daughter, but he forgets about the accident and is puzzled by photos he finds of an unknown car. From this point on the story rambles on in random directions. While that may sound negative, the film doesn't need a plot. It's a fascinating view of individuals who live in a winter landscape. This isn't Tykwer's best film, but it's nevertheless enjoyable.

Run Lola Run (5 Stars)

This film is considered by most Germans, critics and film fans alike, to be the best German film ever made. It typifies the often repeated statement:

"American films are intended to entertain the viewer. German films are intended to educate the viewer."

I admit that this is a generalisation and there may be exceptions on both sides, but as someone with an extensive knowledge of German cinema I have to agree with the statement. German directors want to make the audience think. Sometimes they want them to think about the past, such as the Second World War or the division of Germany. Sometimes they want the audience to go home and think about metaphysical concepts.

This film falls into the latter category. At its heart this is a treatise on chaos theory. A simple occurrence can make a difference between life and death, and change the lives of all those connected. The same story is told three times. Lola (Franka Potente) gets a phone call from her boyfriend Manni (Moritz Bleibtreu). He has lost 100,000 Marks ($60,000) from a drug deal, and if he doesn't pay it back within 20 minutes he will be killed. He plans to rob a supermarket, but Lola thinks she can get the money for him by asking her father, a bank manager, for a loan. So she runs through the streets of Berlin to get the money and give it to Manni.

When Lola runs down the stairs of her house she meets a youth with a vicious dog on the stairs. The first time she runs past them. The second time the youth trips her. The third time she jumps over the dog. This simple action, how she gets down the stairs, has drastic consequences. In the first case Lola dies, in the second case Manni dies, in the third case Lola's father dies. There are also big changes in the lives of people that Lola meets.

A repeated symbol in the film is the circle. Clocks, the circular stairway, the rotary phone, the roulette wheel. I'm not sure what this means. The cycle of life? Death and rebirth? The film opens with Sepp Herberger's famous words, "After the game is before the game". These cryptic words refer to football, and mean that if you lose there's always another game. There is also a quote from T. S. Eliot: “At the end of our exploring we shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all of our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time."

Click here to view the trailer.

Downfall (5 Stars)

This is without a doubt one of the best films ever made, not just one of the best war movies. It shows the last two weeks of Adolf Hitler's life through the eyes of his secretary Traudl Junge. As with all good films based on true stories, the film doesn't pass judgement on its characters. Instead, we see the bizarre events of April and May 1945. The generals are begging Hitler to leave Berlin to avoid capture. Eva Braun is dancing on the tables while others flee. In the final hours soldiers sit at tables getting drunk while officers are killing themselves in adjacent rooms. The most gruesome scene is Magda Goebbels killing her six children because she doesn't want them to grow up in a world without National Socialism.

Hitler himself is played by Bruno Ganz in the performance of his lifetime. Over the years I have seen many actors portray Hitler, but none as perfectly as here. Ganz must have studied Hitler's mannerisms extensively to imitate them so well. While the film doesn't hold back from showing Hitler's ruthlessness and anger, it also shows the warmer sides of his personality that appealed to the young secretary and made her regard him as a father figure. For instance, when several girls applied for a job as secretary he chose her because she was from Munich. He didn't even interview the other applicants, even though Traudl performed dreadfully when he tested her typing skills. Judge for yourself:

Click here to view the trailer. I'm sorry that I couldn't find a better version on YouTube. For some reason this film has been over-parodied with false subtitles to the original German dialog.

Baader Meinhof Komplex (5 Stars)

This is the true story of the terror wave in Germany from 1967 to 1977 carried out by the Rote Armee Fraktion (Red Army Fraction), more commonly referred to as the Baader-Meinhof Gang. The film begins with the visit of the Shah of Persia to West Berlin, and it ends with the execution of German industrial boss Hanns Martin Schleyer. The film is made with documentary precision, and yet remains exciting throughout. All of the outdoor scenes were filmed in the same places that the original events occurred. Scenes well known from photos taken at the time are reproduced, including the exact positioning of cars and people in the scenes.

This 10-year period in German history is difficult for non-Germans to understand. The RAF were by their own admission terrorists, and yet they enjoyed great public support. At their peak opinion polls claimed that 25% of Germans under 30 were sympathetic of them. Why? The film attempts to answer that question, although it would have to be twice as long to go into the issues in full detail. After the Second World War Germany was divided into two parts, the democratic west and the Communist east. Germany, especially Berlin, was on the front line of the Cold War. Any east-west conflict would have begun in Germany. For this reason the West German government was anxious to suppress any elements in its own country that it saw as Communist. Mostly this suppression was aimed at university students. This is shown clearly in the example of the Shah's visit to West Berlin. When the Shah arrived German students chanted "Down with the Shah". A group of Iranian students (who were actually members of the Iranian secret police) attacked the German students. The German police reacted by brutally attacking the German students who attempted to flee. Although there were many injuries, the shooting of the innocent bystander Benno Ohnesorg by Karl-Heinz Kurras, a plain-clothes policeman, was the catalyst for future protests and the creation of the RAF. People expected justice, but when Kurras was brought to trial he was found innocent. It wasn't until January 2012 that it was revealed that evidence against him had been hidden from the prosecutors.

The film is divided into two parts. The first part shows the active years of Andreas Baader, Gudrun Ensslin and Ulrike Meinhof. The second part shows their time in prison and their trial. They were three very different people. Baader was the spontaneous hothead who thought terrorism was fun. Ensslin was the intellectual who gave the group its political direction. Meinhof was the voice of reason. In the second part of the film we see Meinhof's mental deterioration after three years in solitary confinement and her suicide in 1976.

A problem that non-Germans (and even younger Germans) might have with the film is to know who everyone is. So many characters come and go in the film. Some are introduced by their first name only, others aren't named at all. A commentary track that explains who people are would be a welcome addition to future DVD and Blu-ray releases. A featurette could explain the history and importance of the characters in more detail.

The final words in the film, spoken by Brigitte Mohnhaupt to the other terrorists gathered around her after the news was reported of Andreas Baader's death, can be interpreted as a mission statement for the film, directed at the viewers: "You never knew the people. Stop seeing them as they never were." This is a good motive. 30 years later Baader and his gang are still controversial figures in Germany. Some see him as an evil Communist who wanted to bring down the West German government, while others see him as an idealist standing up to a re-emergence of Fascism in Germany. Baader is either hated, or he's portrayed as a glamorous rock star freedom fighter. Based on the knowledge of people who knew him personally, the film shows his strengths as well as his weaknesses. For instance, the RAF is known as the first terrorist group in which women had leading roles, but the film shows Baader as a sexist who regarded women as inferior members of his gang. "You cunts and your emancipation! It's all about shouting at your husbands!"

On October 18th 1977 Andreas Baader and Gudrun Ensslin committed suicide in Stammheim prison. In the same night Jan-Carl Raspe killed himself.

My only criticism of the film is that it follows the official line of events, rather than leaving them open for the viewer to judge. The suicide itself is very controversial, even today. Claims that the terrorists were executed in prison are dismissed as a conspiracy theory, but unlike other conspiracy theories a lot of facts speak for it.

Baader and Raspe killed themselves by shooting themselves. The idea that prisoners in Germany's highest security prison had guns in their cells is so ridiculous that it defies all credibility. The film shows Baader's lawyer giving him a gun during the trial, but there is no independent proof that this ever happened.

According to the autopsy Baader was shot in the back of the neck from a distance of 15 inches. This is an impossible feat. I attempted this myself, and the furthest I could hold a gun away would be 10 inches. Even if the autopsy is inaccurate, don't people who shoot themselves hold the gun against themselves, pointing it in their mouth or pressing it against their head? Holding the gun in an awkward position increases the chance of a non-fatal glancing wound, or even a wound that would lead to permanent crippling.

Gudrun Ensslin's body was bruised as if she had been beaten prior to her suicide.

Irmgard Möller also attempted suicide in the same night by stabbing herself four times in the chest, barely missing her heart. Is this possible? Four times? She survived, and ever since the incident she denies it was suicide. She claims that she was attacked by masked intruders in her cell.

In the night of the collective suicide there was a power failure in the prison, meaning that the prison was dark and the cameras didn't function.

One of the regular guards on the floor where the terrorists' cells were located was called away from his post for three hours and assured that he would be replaced. Nothing is known of who replaced him during this time.