Since a few years, the Germans release masterpiece after masterpiece:

2004
- Gegen die Wand (Head on)
- Der Untergang (The Downfall)
2005
- Sophie Scholl - Die letzten Tage (Sophie Scholl: The Final Days)
2006
Das Leben der Anderen (The Lives of Others)
2007
Auf der anderen Seite (On the Other Side or The Edge of Heaven) – see thread below

plus a few movies I saw on Arte and whose name I forgot

German directors have a real knack for storytelling. But what is absolutely flabbergasting is their ability to tackle the most difficult and touchy subjects with the exact right tone. They always portray human beings in all their amazing complexity.
-Das Leben der anderen shows the appaling corruption of the former East German regime without ever falling into caricature;
-In Der Untergang, when the ultrafanatic Mrs Goebbels poisons her own children because she doesn’t want them to live in a non nazi world, you feel that she does it out of genuine maternal care and it’s all the more frightening;
-Gegen die Wand shows the difficult relationship between the Turk immigrants, their children and German society without putting the blame on anybody;
-In Sophie Scholl, the nazi police inspector who interrogates the young resistant seems so trapped in his absurd ideology that you almost pity him;
-In Auf der anderen Seite, the death of a young woman is unexpected, stupid and devoid of pathos (no violins), her mourning mother is luminous and never pathetic.

I think that all movie directors around the world should now take a break and study german cinema to learn a few lessons. Vielen Dank, Deutschland!

Bustan_AJan 28, 2008 @ 20:32