German Movies: (Text and images from www.amazon.com unless otherwise noted.)
Lola Rennt (Run Lola Run) (In German, English subtitles) A young woman in Germany has twenty minutes to find and bring 100,000 Deutschmarks to her boyfriend before he robs a grocery store. |
Was nützt die Liebe in Gedanken (Love in Thoughts) (In German, no subtitles) A posthumous look at the last days of Guenther's life as he, his best friend, and his sister let loose on a four-day binge of alcohol, drugs, and sex. |
Brot & Tulpen (Bread and Tulips) (In German, French and Italian, with German and French subtitles) Rosalba, a housewife from Pescara, finds herself left behind in a highway café during a bus trip. Instead of waiting for her less-than-devoted husband to come pick her up, she rebels and takes off for an adventure of her own, hitch-hiking to Venice. There she meets people that will change her life forever. |
Die Leiden des Jungen Werthers (In German, no subtitles) This film version of Goethe's novel is a sensitive exploration into the mind of a young artist. The tale addresses age-old questions the meaning of love, of death, and the possibility of redemptionin the form of Werther's alternately joyful and despairing letters about his unrequited love. Goethe's portrayal of a character who struggles to reconcile his artistic sensibilities with the demands of the objective world proved tremendously influential to subsequent writers and continues to speak to modern viewers. -Penguin-Classics/dp/014044503X/sr=8-1/qid= |
Die fetten Jahre sind vorbei (In German, no subtitles) Berlin student Jule is hoplessly indebted due to an auto accident she caused. Evicted from her flat she moves in with her boyfrend Peter and soon learns that Peter and his flatmate, Jan, are breaking into luxurious mansions at night. Instead of stealing or vandalizing, though, they carefully and ornately rearrange furniture and valulables and leave obscure messages. Jule convinces Jan, who has a crush on her, to pay a visit to the villa of her creditor. http://www.amazon.com/Edukators-Daniel-Br%fchl |
The Edukators (In German, with English subtitles)
Die fetten Jahre sind vorbei with subtitles. |
Gegen Die Wand (In German, with German and Turkish subtitles) Cahit, a German Turk in his late 30's, has given up on life after his wife's death. In the hospital after an attempted suicide, he meets Sibel, another German Turk who has also tried to commit suicide. They arrange a marriage of convenience with absolute freedom to date other people, but when they actually start to fall in love, things don’t turn out as simply as planned. Contains graphic content. |
die ärzte - Killer (In German, with English, Spanish, and Japanese subtitles) This film is a music video from the German punk band, "die beste Band der Welt". |
Bin ich schön? (Am I Beautiful?) (In German, no subtitles) The film is a kind of a round; people come together and then lose sight of each other again, through Germany and Spain: Franziska who marries the wrong man in order to put an end forever to her great, but troubled love for Klaus; Klaus who mourns his love Franziska and wanders through Spain until he finally meets up with Linda; Herbert, who has an affair with Jessica who silently slashes her wrists in the bathtub in his house; Unna, Herbert's wife, who finds her old flame David again, who has lost all power of memory following a stroke...
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Sonnen Allee (Sun Ally) (In German, no subtitles) Literally divided by the Berlin wall, the teens on the East side of Sun Alley experience the influence of American Rock & Roll and love with less freedom than their Western peers. A fun and generally enjoyable piece. http://www.cvmc.net/movie.jsp?movie_id=2564 |
Nosferatu – Phantom der nacht (In German, no subtitles) Jonathan Harker is sent away to Count Dracula's castle to sell him a house in Virna, where he lives. But Count Dracula is a vampire, an undead ghoule living off men's blood. Inspired by a photograph of Lucy Harker, Jonathan's wife, Dracula moves to Virna, bringing with him death and plague... An unusually contemplative version of Dracula, in which the vampire bears the cross of not being able to get old and die. |
Schultze Gets the Blues (In German, with English and German subtitles) Schultze is a retired lignite miner living in an East German village and a passionate Polka musician on his accordion. One night he listens to a Zydeco tune in the radio, which changes his taste of music radically. Notwithstanding his complete ignorance of the English language he starts a trip into the heart of the Zydeco; to Louisana. |
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Der Untergang (Downfall) (In German, with German subtitles) It's the last days of Adolf Hitler, April 1945, and Hitler's personal secretary Traudl Junge finds herself in the Der Fuhrer's bunker. Facing inevitable defeat, Hilter's moods range from defiance to fight or flee, remain loyal or opt for self-preservation. Eva Braun parties while Magda Goebbels kills her children. The movie goes on to show how Hitler and Eva lived their last hours in the Bunker. |
Der Fischer und Seine Frau (The Fisherman and His Wife) (In German, no subtitles) A modern take on a Brothers Grimm classics. The story revolves around Ida and Otto who have both gone to Japan on business. They meet, fall in love, and marry in a traditional Japanese ceremony, but the honeymoon ends when they return to Germany. Ida wants it all: a family, a flourishing career and an ambitious husband, but the more Otto sacrifices, the more she asks of him, to a point where Otto feels sad and rejected. http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/1809423689/details |
Der Krieger und Die Kaiserin (The Princess and the Warrior) (In German, with German subtitles) Young nurse Sissi (Franka Potente) lives a secluded life at Birkenhof asylum. Her first encounter with ex-soldier and drifter Bodo has a lasting impact. He causes an accident that results in her lying under a truck, unable to breathe. While he provides life-saving first aid, Sissi begins to wonder whether he may be the man of her dreams. But when she tracks him down weeks later her affection is rejected, as Bodo is stuck somewhere between a traumatic past and a criminal future. |
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The Legend of Paul and Paula (In German, English subtitles) Paula is a frustrated single mother of two kids, dying, quite frankly, for sex. Paul is pretty continuously being cheated on by his gorgeous blonde wife. (As his coworkers say when they're upbraiding him for cheating on her: "We understand. She has no education. But whose fault is that?") Paul and Paula, well, come together, and to the melody of trippy sixties' music. Trippy German sixties' music. It's a beautiful thing. and Medieval Studies" (New Haven, Connecticut) (www.amazon.com) |
Good Bye Lenin! (In German with English subtitles) Winner of six pretigious European Film Awards, including Best Picture and 2004 Golden Globe nominee for Best Foreign Language Film, this coming-of-age adventure blends the fall of Communism with the salient emotions of a family's love. In 1989, Christiane Kerner has lost her husband and is completely devoted to the Socialist East German state. A heart attack leaves her in a coma, and when she awakens eight months later, the Berlin wall has fallen and it's a whole new world. To protect her from the shock, her son Alex hatches a plan to keep her in the dark. It's easy... all he has to do is turn back the hands of time. (from DVD jacket) |
Keine Lieder über Liebe (In German, with German subtitles) As Tobias, a young director, supposes that his girl-friend Ellen had an affair with his brother Markus, front man of "Hansen", one year ago, he decides to shoot a documentary about the band's next tour. When Ellen joins the project, everybody's emotions boil over, although the two are observed all the time... |
The Harmonists (In German, English subtitles) The true story of the Comedian Harmonists, the legendary German singing group that was forced to disband in 1934 as the Nazis came to power (because some of their members were Jewish). The film, directed in rich Technicolor by Joseph Vilsmaier, features the original musical performances (ably lip-synched by the actors), digitally remastered to highlight the group's sophisticated harmonies. The offstage story involves romantic conflicts, Nazi sympathizers, and leadership struggles within the group; these subplots give the picture an emotional core that raises it above what could have been simply a music- hall experience. It has all the verve and inspiration of the Harmonists themselves. -Bruce Diones |
What To Do In Case Of Fire (In German, with English subtitles)
When a twenty-year-old bomb explodes in an abandoned mansion in modern-day Berlin, the evidence points to a notorious late-1980s anarchist group. As the police start looking for them, the six former rebels reunite for the first time in 12 years to come up with a plan to protect themselves. But sparks fly when the group must reconcile their youthful ideals with their new lives and pick up the pieces of the relationships they left behind. |
Europa Europa (In German, with English subtitles)
This "incredible, true story" (Los Angeles Times) is at once "eye-opening, harrowing and humorous" (Leonard Maltin). Based on the autobiography of Solomon Perel, a young German Jew separated from his family at the age of thirteen, the film recounts the severe actions a young boy must take in order to survive the Holocaust. Solly (Marco Hofschneider) takes on various identities to hide his Jewish heritage ending up as one of the "Hitler Youth." Solly carries on his charade, hoping desperately to keep his identity hidden and make it through the war alive. (www.amazon.com) |
Nowhere in Africa (In German, English subtitles) The film begins with a Jewish woman named Jettel fleeing Nazi Germany with her daughter Regina, to join her husband on a farm in Kenya. Jettel refuses to adjust to her new circumstances (she brought with her a set of china dishes and an evening gown), while Regina adapts readily to this new world, forming a strong bond with her father's cook, an African named Owuor. as the surface of their lives is torn away, Walter and Jettel find they have little in common, and must--under tumultuous circumstances--build their marriage anew. This film richly deserves the Academy Award it received in 2002. A powerful, deeply moving film. --Bret Fetzer |
