Wilhelm-J Reviews

Jo (2013)

Keep going, improve

[7/10 · 7 July 2013]

I'm German, I live in Paris, with my American wife. So here comes my absolutely neutral critique : Who cares about American or British or French accent. Stiff British wouldn't make it more authentic than sloppy American. Trying to steer the show towards the International is anyway not something to hold against it. Its weak points come rather from a sometimes tepid script, foreseeable dialogs and relations. It's obvious that the producers try to be reeeaaally careful and hold on to a crime series concept that has proved entertaining so often. Unfortunately, maybe too many times. An a bit more daring approach would help the show. But it's not soooo horribly bad. Instead of canceling it, the producers should improve it - the potential is / was there.

A Coffee in Berlin (2012)

A jewel

[9/10 · 17 April 2013]

As a German living abroad for the past 12 years, it's been a surprising pleasure to see, back in Berlin, this little jewel of a movie. Step by step the young guy's everyday-life situations pull you in, develop a light but melancholic atmosphere in which great acting, a pensive and funny script, music that reminds the best of Miles Davis and awesome black-and-white camera-work form a wonderful whole of a movie. If you see, towards the end, average shots of Berlin turned into looking poetic… you know the film has found its tone just on the right note.

Beautiful - I hope this (first!) film didn't only accidentally turn out so well. You want to wish the director, all actors and his crew the very best !

Two Days in Paris (2007)

Julie, this one is a home run !

[8/10 · 15 August 2007]

My approach to this movie was pretty indifferent - I was actually turned off by the ad promising Julie Delpy yet in ANOTHER film in Paris chatting with some lover about relationships etc. Haven't we seen that twice already ? The fact that she even shot this one herself didn't necessarily help, on the contrary, even... Then, my own girlfriend wanted to see it, so what the heck... and we both were very pleasantly surprised ! Maybe because we are, too, a couple of two cultures (German/American) living in Paris. Not since the two 'Auberge Espagnol'-movies have I felt a similar connection to a movie, in which the director seems to have quite a sense for people on the street, a real talent to capture 'real life'. Different from 'screenwriter 14's impression I also did not bother me that neither Delpy's nor Goldberg's nor any other character is permanently likable. It's good that way ! And, what we both liked a lot : Finally a movie-comedy that does not constantly show postcard-Paris, but also the raunchy, rude, annoying, partly vulgar side. So, Julie, "didn't love you, didn't love your films", but this one is a home run !

I Heart Huckabees (2004)

doesn't live up to its content

[2/10 · 3 May 2005]

This is the kind of movie that you either walk out off quickly or you try to get some fun by seeing why it doesn't work : While permanently trying to be clever about how important it is to take feelings seriously, how everything in life is connected, or how you have to accept certain cruelties in life, the movie does anything but that. The music, the script, the acting, in short : THE FILM - avoids in a hectic, frenzied way its main issues trying to be sooooo funny. It must have read better, otherwise I don't get why actors who are mostly interesting to watch accepted a part in this film, in which they start to annoy you badly.

Closer (I) (2004)

rather... farther...

[3/10 · 22 January 2005]

Towards the end of the movie, when Alice/Jane abruptly tells her Dan that just now she doesn't love him anymore, I notice that I had seen this movie done as a play on stage already years ago, and already back then the clever, all-sophisticated dialogs went on my nerves. People who go through this much emotional trouble don't talk as wise and philosophical, SO smart. On a large screen, where the images should count more, it's even worse. But hey, Julia, Jude, Nathalie and Owen are nice to look at, and I got the ticket for free, so what the heck, and they are certainly good enough actors. But other than that it's a movie where I felt like a wise guy was trying to teach me a little bit too much.

8 Women (2002)

well played herd of actresses

[30 March 2002]

The most successful and entertaining part in this boulevard-story is the way Ozon plays his stars. Incarnating sharply pointed characters, they appear as if you would plug their public image in a socket: Deneuve is "belle et riche" and mondaine up to an ironic level, just as Huppert has an even more bitchy part here than she often has anyway (not meaning that she has played other parts, too). Caricatures, of which you don't know how serious anyone takes them – including some French magazines and the (French) public; once you read some local newsgroups you find out.

The story was a popular play in the 60ies, though without the bisexuality that Ozon added, maybe because times have changed and it would otherwise be perceived too dull today, or because, as he said, one inspiration for making the film was to create something similar to Fassbinder's "Petra von Kant".

It's the lesser known actresses that show us the more human side in those characters. Probably because there's not that much of an image already putting weight on their performance. But the rest of the all-women crew simply `shows their usual stuff'. It doesn't matter. The movie doesn't take that route anyway.

Overall, 8 femmes is spicy, entertaining fun with some great, bold humor and is, undeniably, a feast for those who love the French.

Under the Sand (2000)

Tender psychodrama

[30 March 2002]

Often, when French movies try to be intimate with their characters, they just end up boring the audience (often by talking the audience to death). Not so this one: This simple story about a woman having to come to terms with her husband's suicide (was it a suicide?!) is a subtle and tender psychodrama that doesn't need much words. Silent, calm cameratakes on Charlotte Rampling alone by herself allow a wider interpretation of her feelings than distinctive, exaggerated situations or actions would have done - and allow us to care and identify easier. Great, for example, a moment when she seems to come over her trouble and visits a beautiful appartment that she wants to move into: A simple pan over the cemetery outside, coming as abrupt to the audience as to her, tells us all that's necessary.

Overall, "under the sand" subtly reminds us on how love towards a partner might, over time, turn into comfortable love towards rituals, while passing by the true changes that might happen within the our partner. Probably the reason that makes the movie so human and touching.

The Piano Teacher (2001)

Pretentious movie at the cost of a great story

[14 October 2001]

Yet another Haneke-Movie: Provocative, pretentiously not caring about the audience's approval, the filmed story of Jelinek's "Pianiste". Prettily decorated, or maybe contemporarily equipped, with all sorts of "shocking" scenes played by Isabelle Huppert (who's mostly not a bad actress) with two or three faces. Yes, Erika is frosty and frustrated, but is there actually only one color for that ? Somehow this one-dimensional coldness must be hip in Cannes right now; otherwise I can't understand the laurels the movie received, neither for the film nor its actress.

That's unfortunate, because the theme of the movie is very interesting and truly contemporary: fed-up Austrians, somehow also a mental corner of Germany's correct, efficient society, cultivate art without being touched by it. Sensitivity, stay outside! This over-ambitious system creates a hysterical mother who pushes her daughter further into this system. There's hardly any place for free emotions, not to mention intimacy or sexuality.

But just like in any artwork, there's not only the idea, but also the form the artist choses to portray the idea, which after all perfectly reflects his attitude. And here Haneke's filmstyle is unfortunately just as bold and cold as the society he's trying to portray. There are the additional scenes which can be interpreted this way or that way, which supposedly should "make the audience think a little" (Haneke), while one is already physically far outside the film by the accumulation of flatly directed scenes. There's the additional emphasis of Klemmer's character that makes the movie hip, but costs the believability of Erika's character, which stays very one-dimensional. Result: Très chique. I'm only surprised that so many people don't seem to notice how selfindulgent this film-technique is, thown at the audience just as boldly as Adorno quotes during a Piano recital. That's too bad; too bad for the chaos of emotions, which mostly remain invisible. (translated from German by Mary Ann Adair)

Blow (2001)

Prop-alike storytelling

[28 July 2001]

Whoever liked GOOD FELLAS and enjoys a certain *scorcesean* filmstyle (off voiceover, sudden freezes, documentary-alike, quick storytelling) will probably like BLOW, too. But just like already CASINO was more a presentation of atmosphere than a character-based storytelling, BLOW at times almost only proceeds by just presenting different props: Depp takes his sunglasses off, says "I'll get it" (pot or cocaine), then a 30second videoclip tells us what happens the next five years, and - boom! - different jacket, different wig, but same apathetic acting, Depp now taking glasses off again, says: "I was good at it" - or something alike. Another scene I've seen a dozen times by now is a couple breaking up in a prison, one behind glas, the other one as visitor: "You always care just about yourself", "There's somebody else", "You don't support me" etc... Cut, some more years, different props, same people: "How are you ?". It gets hard to warm up or feel for someone that way.

Summing it up: Despite some more convincing parts from the side characters (especially his drug-compagnions or Ray Liotta as his father), BLOW is like a record from the seventies: You can put it on, listen to it, and put it away again without really having a real clue about the person supposedly portrayed.

Storytelling (2001)

precise dramatic story

[9/10 · 7 July 2001]

How could you do a better movie about storytelling than showing how hard it is! Solondz splits the movie in two parts, "Fiction" and "Non-fiction" and shows in both how easily our subjective perception of real life loses its grips in other people's perceptions, situations, expectations... while writing about it. Whoever has ever written something: Don't miss this film!

Too Much Flesh (2000)

Too less of a story - (and film ?)

[2 May 2001]

Despite my opinion that J.M. Barr and Elodie Bouchez are great actors, them two just having an awful lot of true erotic scenes doesn't give this rather thin developed and predictable story much more essence. Just like in *Intimacy* I don't agree with the necessity of all that.

It must have been much fun to film it, but from the movie I get the impression that the story or the film itself was not the actor's or team's primal focus during the shoot. Or probably not even during the writing?