A Couple of German Films

No, I haven't got around to "The Lives of Others" yet which is sitting somewhere in my backlog awaiting my attention, but I did watch two lesser-known German movies which, while very different from each other, surprisingly proved interesting in their own ways.

First up came "Schultze Gets the Blues" (2003), a first effort from writer-director Michael Schorr.  This one was a fairly quiet, leisurely and quirky movie and could only appeal to the patient viewer.  Three middle-aged friends in a back-of-beyond German mining town are retired on the same day and find time heavy on their hands.  Schultze lives alone and has only his accordion for solace.  One day on the radio he hears a snatch of zydeco and can't get the rhythm or the melody out of his head or his fingers.  This doesn't go down well with the local community whose musical tastes are limited to oomp-pah-pah.  The town is twinned with an East Texan town with a heavy germanic heritage and they elect to send Schultze to attend the local American music festival.  He uses this as a stepping stone to hire a small boat and to proceed through the swamps to find his new musical inspiration.  Since he has virtually no English, Schultze doesn't say a lot but carries on in search of that evasive tune.  To say any more would be to spoil the pleasure that another patient viewer might find in seeking out this little but very worthwhile movie.

In jarring contrast, I then watched "Atomised" (2006) which is the English title for a German film based on a novel by cult French writer and misanthrope Michel Houellebecq.  It was also known on the festival circuit as "Elementary Particles" which is probably closer to the German, although neither title gives the potential viewer much of a clue as to what is in store.  Two half-brothers, Bruno played by Moritz Bleibtreu and Michael played by Christian Ulman, do not know of each other's existence until they are in their teens.  Their feckless mother who spends most of each year at hippy communes in Poona has abandoned them to grandparents to raise them.  While Michael grows into some sort of mathematical genius whose ideas will revolutionise genetics, Bruno becomes a sex-obsessed, bitter, and racist teacher, unable to cope with his many failures, and an occasional mental inpatient.  Their joint story is picked up when they are in their thirties and it is clear that there is a strong bond between them despite their many differences.  Michael has been in love since childhood with Franka Potente but was too shy to accept her adolescent approaches and is still a virgin.  Bruno on the other hand will screw anything in skirts, although he is so clumsy socially that he has lost his wife and child and is often rejected; on a sex holiday he meets Martina Gedeck an older but sexually voracious woman and he thinks he has met his true love.   Tragedy threatens both brothers' relationships, but where Michael and his love find a worthwhile way of life, Bruno according to the end captions spends the rest of his days in institutions warmed only by the ghost of a woman that only he can see.  This film was full of many interesting ideas and while occasionally as nihilistic as the author on whose book it was based, still an extremely absorbing 100-odd minutes.  

Tags: German Movies, Schultze and the Blues, Houellebecq