'Downfall' movie: Bruno Ganz as Adolf Hitler 'Downfall' movie: Overlong and overwrought World War II drama lifted by several memorable performances Oliver Hirschbiegel's German box office hit Downfall / Der Untergang is a generally engrossing psychological-historical drama whose emotional charge is diluted by excessive length, an overabundance of characters, and a tendency to emphasize the more obvious aspects of the narrative. Several key performances – including Bruno Ganz's now iconic Adolf Hitler – help to lift Downfall above the level of myriad other World War II movies. Nazi Germany literally goes under In Downfall, which by the end of 2004 had been seen by more than 4.5 million German moviegoers, Nazi Germany is about to lose the war. In his underground bunker, Adolf Hitler (Bruno Ganz) grows increasingly out of touch with reality as he sees his dream of Deutschland über alles go kaput. Some of those under his command are equally incapable of thinking coherently.
- 5/10/2015
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Let’s play a quick game of word association. ’Harry Potter’ is to ‘Krabat’ as Britain is to Germany. You can see that when comparing the jovial, almost apologetic stylings of ‘Harry Potter’ against the hard melancholy that dominates ‘Krabat,’ the new adaptation of the 1971 novel from director Marco Kreuzpaintner. ’Krabat’ is a film grounded within a sense of reality, and Kreuzpaintner’s dominance in filmmaking brings the mixture of real settings and character arcs and the fantastical ideas of black magic into a film that succeeds in several areas where many of the ‘Harry Potter’ films simply could not.
David Kross of ‘The Reader’ plays Krabat, a boy who wanders with his friends in the countryside of a Germany near the end of the Thirty Years’ War. Hearing a calling from a distance, one that tells him he is special, Krabat leaves his friends and comes upon a mill.
David Kross of ‘The Reader’ plays Krabat, a boy who wanders with his friends in the countryside of a Germany near the end of the Thirty Years’ War. Hearing a calling from a distance, one that tells him he is special, Krabat leaves his friends and comes upon a mill.
- 9/26/2009
- by Kirk
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
Krabat, Marco Kreuzpaintner‘s film adaptation of Otfried Preußler‘s beloved bestselling novel Krabat (The Satanic Mill)—which sold over 2.1 million copies worldwide and has been translated into more than 30 languages—has come highly anticipated. Starring Daniel Brühl (Goodbye, Lenin!, The Bourne Ultimatum, The Edukators), Christian Redl (Downfall) and David Kross (Tough Enough, The Reader) in the lead role of Krabat, Kreuzpaintner’s film is a soul-stirring adventure for all ages that seizes the viewer with its atmospheric power, emotional truthfulness, and discreet SFX rather than CGI overload and arcane storylines. I had the good fortune of touching base with Kreuzpaintner and Brühl during the film’s international premiere at the 33rd Toronto International Film Festival. They startled me for arriving clean-cut to our scheduled interview without a trace of mud or grime. My thanks to Stephen Lan and Bavaria Film International (whose website provides a subtitled trailer) for arranging...
- 10/18/2008
- by Michael Guillen
- Screen Anarchy
It is sometimes hard to review a movie that does everything very well but that just does not connect. The German fable Krabat is one such movie. David Kross is Krabat a young beggar who at the end of the 30 Years war in German answers a call from a dark sorcerer, played by Christian Redl. He is given a chance to be one of the 12 apprentices for the sorcerer. Krabat works hard and is accepted into the ranks and on the night of his initiation he is told by fellow apprentice Tonda, played by Daniel Brühl to leave as everything isn't as it seems. Also on this night he finds out that Tonda has fallen in love with one of the local village girl and he himself meets a girl and falls for her immediately. Tonda tells him to never let the sorcerer know the girls name as she will be killed by him.
- 9/10/2008
- QuietEarth.us
American Cinematheque Presents/Vitagraph Films
There's an unmistakable "Seven" vibe pulsing through "Tattoo", a grisly crime thriller directed by German TV scribe Robert Schwentke.
But unlike any number of previous pretenders to the David Fincher throne, this serial-killer chiller gets the creepy atmospherics down cold.
In fact, if it hadn't been for the English subtitles and the (unknown to North Americans) cast, the flesh- and blood-laden picture might have had a modest commercial future outside of the art house arena.
The unsettling mood is established in the opening frames as a naked and bloodied woman staggers down a city street late at night moments before becoming fatally engulfed in a fiery blaze.
It turns out the woman is the latest casualty in a bizarre series of murders that leave the intended victims partially skinned (Schwentke obviously also has great affection for "Silence of the Lambs"), and it's up to the gruff, obsessed Minks (Christian Redl) and rave-frequenting new recruit Marc August Diehl) to nail the perps.
During the course of their investigation, the seemingly mismatched pair are soon led to a macabre ring of tattoo "collectors" who are willing to pay big bucks for suitable-for-framing, intact works of skin art.
While the storytelling threatens to get a little too weird for its own good toward the end, Schwentke's solid cast and a visual talent for nailing the unsavory, noir-soaked milieu compensate for some of the more gratuitous eccentricities.
Like its title, "Tattoo" (which, happily, bears no relationship to the 1981 Bruce Dern movie) manages to leave an indelible impression.
There's an unmistakable "Seven" vibe pulsing through "Tattoo", a grisly crime thriller directed by German TV scribe Robert Schwentke.
But unlike any number of previous pretenders to the David Fincher throne, this serial-killer chiller gets the creepy atmospherics down cold.
In fact, if it hadn't been for the English subtitles and the (unknown to North Americans) cast, the flesh- and blood-laden picture might have had a modest commercial future outside of the art house arena.
The unsettling mood is established in the opening frames as a naked and bloodied woman staggers down a city street late at night moments before becoming fatally engulfed in a fiery blaze.
It turns out the woman is the latest casualty in a bizarre series of murders that leave the intended victims partially skinned (Schwentke obviously also has great affection for "Silence of the Lambs"), and it's up to the gruff, obsessed Minks (Christian Redl) and rave-frequenting new recruit Marc August Diehl) to nail the perps.
During the course of their investigation, the seemingly mismatched pair are soon led to a macabre ring of tattoo "collectors" who are willing to pay big bucks for suitable-for-framing, intact works of skin art.
While the storytelling threatens to get a little too weird for its own good toward the end, Schwentke's solid cast and a visual talent for nailing the unsavory, noir-soaked milieu compensate for some of the more gratuitous eccentricities.
Like its title, "Tattoo" (which, happily, bears no relationship to the 1981 Bruce Dern movie) manages to leave an indelible impression.
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