Sleeping Sickness

The film opens with a family in throes of moving from an African country back to Europe. For bizzarre reasons, the father, Ebbo Velten (Pierre Bokma) remains behind to continue to help with the sleeping sickness malady that has hit very few patients but is well funded by the WHO. Flash forward a few years and the scene is a WHO inspector looking for Velten to discover the current status of the project. Throw in a few allegorical images about wildlife and you are left with a murky film that seemed to have a grip on the audience only to lose it thanks to the director's laziness.

Rating: * +

Tokyo!

A trifecta of directors, Michel Gondry, Leos Carax and Joon-ho Bong set their lens on Tokyo in this omnibus. Gondry shows us a couple moving to Tokyo, that starts off by showing them staying at a friend's cramped apartment. He slowly drifts in to a realm of magic realism. Carax begins in the realm of quasi realism and stays there with his tale of "the creature of the sewers". The two pieces could have been set in any city and it would have made sense. But it is Joon-ho Bong who captures an essence of being Japanese as he reveals a hikikomoriin who falls in love. A film that excels in bursts but is placid as a whole.

Rating: * *

Cherry Blossoms

On discovering that her husband Rudi (Elmar Wepper) is terminally ill, Trudi (Hannelore Elsner) hides the fact from him. Instead she suggests a visit to Berlin to visit their children. But one can never plan around death in spite of its inevitability. The film floats to Tokyo and shows you the suffering of spouse grieving the absence of a loved one. Like the user comments at IMDB says, the movie is one part Lost in Translation, one part Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles and all parts brilliant.

Rating: * * * +

Eight Mile High

A slickly made pointless film about the tumultuous life of super model Uschi Obermaier (Natalia Avelon) whose life was made interesting by the men (Keith Richards, Mic Jagger) she slept with.

Rating: * +

Yella

Yella (Nina Hoss) leaves her hometown in what was East Germany and her violent husband for a promising job in the West. But the only welcome she receives there is disappointment. When she almost succumbs to her failure, she runs into Philipp (Devid Striesow), a businessman who needs someone who understands balance sheets. Events take a turn here as we are plunged into murky workings of capitalism. All along Yella is haunted by the tendrils of her past that stick to her like cobwebs. A film that presents you with many possibilities but never hints at a solution.

Rating: * *

Gloomy Sunday

A love triangle forms between restaurant owner László (Joachim Król), his waitress and his pianist. András (Ben Becker), the pianist composes a piece called Gloomy Sunday for Ilona (Erika Marozsán) which forms a loose bond between the three. While creating harmony between the lovers, the song invites suicide in others. Set in Budapest during the late 1930s, the gloom only deepens with the onset of World War II.

The fabric of this melodramatic film is held together by some fine acting by the three leads. One is easily mesmerized by the easy grace of Marozsan and the brooding melancholy in Becker whose acting reminded me of Tony Leung. So in spite of the gloomy theme, the film is very riveting and will entrap you. To cap it off there is a Schindler's List angle to the film too. The flick also leaves you with a question if such a triangle is viable if the two men involved are genuinely fond of each other.

Rating: * * *
PS: There is a scene in the movie showing László and András getting drunk on Unicum. So people do drink it in Hungary :-)

Head-On

Cahit (Birol Ünel) meets Sibel (Sibel Kekilli) at a clinic when both are recovering from suicide attempts. Cahit hates his life and Sibel seeks liberation from her strict Turkish family. They soon drift into a marriage of convenience with the only bond being that they are both Turkish immigrants living in Germany. But then marriage is never about convenience...

Rating: * * +

Sophie Scholl

Sophie Scholl a member of the White Rose - a student rebel group in Munich, Nazi Germany that aimed to raise awareness about the evil ways of the Third Reich. White Rose decides to take the anarchist step of circulating rebel leaflets in the University. Sophie and her brother get caught in the process and thats where the movie begins.

Bulk of the movie shows her being interrogated by Nazi officials and how she steadfastly tries to con them - which was fascinating and ore the outstanding performance by Julia Jentsch. Sophie cant save herself from her inevitable fate but does not bow down. There is critisicm around that the movie did not spend much time in the lead up to the incident; the general social situation etc. Honestly, I have seen enough of that and instead quite liked the focussed approach.

Rating: * * *

Lives of Others

The film is set in during the 1980s in East Germany when the Stasi ruled supreme with its limitless cadre of informants and spies. Big brother was indeed watching every little move of all its citizens. Wiesler (Ulrich Mühe) is a surveillance expert who is asked to eavesdrop on a high profile director and actress couple. Slowly he is drawn into their lives and the warmth of their love. At the end of the day everyone needs a little human touch and 1 is indeed the loneliest number.

Rating: * * * *

Go for Zucker

Jacky Zucker is a player. He plays his wife, his children... in fact his whole life is a big playground for him. Now he has to play his dead mother and estranged brother for his inheritance. Thoroughly enjoyable and orey funny flick.

Rating: * * +

The Goebbels Experiment

Josef Goebbels was the Nazi party's chief of propaganda. The man behind Hitler kept an uninterrupted diary between 1924 and 1945. The diary is brought to life in this documentary by the voice of Kenneth Branagh. Exposing a man enamored by the Fuhrer and constantly scheming his way through the Nazi party.

The film though was disjoint and jerky. Maybe a reflection of the protagonist himself. Branagh's narration sounded contrived and unnatural. But like most Nazi films it makes you shudder and cringe when you think about the pureness of purpose the Nazi government went about its chilling business. A business commandeered by the voice just one man.

Rating: *

Downfall

An up close insight into Hitlers last few days as he lost the war, his head, his life and his people. A fairly long movie, but nicely made with fantastic performances - so one doesnt mind. Couple of interesting insights into how things transpired towards the end of the war, and how things could have been different. A must watch for WWII freaks.

Rating: * * *