Toronto premiere! One night only Tuesday 17 May 2022, 6:30 pm at GOETHE FILMS @ TIFF Lightbox: “Operation Curveball” (Germany 2020) by Johannes Naber. German Film Awards 2021 Outstanding Feature Film & Best Supporting Actor. Nominated for a German Film Critics Award for Best Script…
Based on real events, Johannes Naber's satirical drama "Operation Curveball" tells the story of a German security services bio-warfare expert obsessed with the idea that Iraq is secretly producing biological weapons. At the turn of the millennium, he meets the informant 'Curveball,' who seems to confirm his hunch -- until his statements increasingly turn out to be lies. With a witty sense for the absurdity of real events and a grandiose cast, Naber perfectly tells
the true story of a global lie.
With "Curveball", Johannes Naber once again succeeded, after "Age of Cannibals", in making a film that exposes socio-political mechanisms with a dissecting eye, taking them to extremes in a congenial way. Whether it's the set, the music, the dialogue or the dramaturgy: Naber and his team proceed in a straightforward, unpretentious manner, the colours of the interior and exterior spaces are clear and, in their brownish-grey frumpishness, overtly "German."
Lead actor Sebastian Blomberg, as a kind of "anti-James Bond," credibly manages the balancing act between ambitious scientist and disillusioned vicarious agent of various higher authorities who make up the truth as they go along. The individual representatives of these political "powers" are stereotypes -- and above all Thorsten Merten as a brute-jovial superior, Michael Wittenborn as a functionary wounded in his vanity and Virginia Kull as a two-faced CIA agent are ideally cast. The discovery of the film is Dar Salim, who gets caught in the crossfire of politics as an Iraqi informant and becomes the heart of the story thanks to his acting chops. The humor is dry, the dialogue razor-sharp, and the timing and editing outstanding. The result is a drama that is exciting right up to the last frame, with plenty of laughs. Even if the laughter gets stuck in the throat more than once due to the tragic historical scope of the incidents.
image: Filmwelt Verleihagentur, DFF, © Sten Mende
Dar Salim in "Curveball"
