4 weeks to go till TIFF, what to do with all those lazy summer evenings? iTunes Canada currently has 200 German movies from Weimar to today for your affordable viewing pleasure. Don’t know where to start or how to tell the good from the meh? Here are a few bespoke, non-algorithm-generated recommendations, with trailers:
If you like ...
it short ☞ After the Years, starring some fine actors, like Daniel Bruehl's Good Bye, Lenin! mum Katrin Sass.
gutsy women ☞ in front of the camera: Louise Brooks getting her rematch in Pabst’ raunchy 1929
Diary of a Lost Girl. Or
Everything but Oom-Pa-Pa, a doc about 66 very different women between 20 and 80 who form the world’s biggest female wind orchestra. Behind the camera: gems like Maria Hengge’s
Sin & Illy Still Alive -- far and few between the 200 list.
LGBTQ ☞
Free Fall. Rightly won half a dozen awards (and is awaiting a sequel). And the bio-doc
King of Comics about the always naughty Ralph Koenig. Or the trans tragicomedy
Romeos.
the planet ☞ Our Daily Bread, "silent" and marvellously shot exploration of our global food production.
a dose of documentary ☞ Master of the Universe, Marc Bauder’s lauded film that gives unprecedented (insider) insights into the insanity of global banking in the age of information overload. Absolutely not as dry as it sounds, a keeper. More docs throughout here ...
current affairs ☞ In The Fade, Fatih Akin & Diane Krueger's reckoning with the belittling of right-wing terror in Europe. To be complemented by David Wnendt’s tough neo-Nazi film
Combat Girls. Or, more metaphorically current affairs, Dennis Gansel’s Sundance-approved indoctrination experiment
The Wave.
history ☞ Speaking of indoctrination:
A German Life, a portrait of Goebbels’s secretary, who died last year at 105. See also
Blind Spot: Hitler’s Secretary. On the other side of the equation: What of worker Georg Elser, who failed in killing Hitler in 1939, in the feature film
13 Minutes?
Marx ☞ A Proletarian Winter’s Tale. They had me at the trailer and blurb. “Three young Georgians have to clean a castle in Berlin, where a German arms manufacturer's art collection is being set up for an exhibition, but they don’t really feel like it..."
family dramas ☞ Grandmaster Edgar Reitz’ epic Heimat is on iTunes as
Home from Home!
relationship dramas ☞ Jessica Hausner’s exquisite
Amour Fou (with Toni Erdmann's Sandra Hueller) is also already on its way to becoming an arthouse classic. Like a Brontë drama but … German: "This might seem odd, but I am not looking for a partner in life but in death."
costume drama ☞ Dominik Graf’s
Beloved Sisters with handsome young cast Hannah Herzsprung, Henriette Confurius, and Florian Stetter.
royalty ☞ 3x
Sissi. A bewitching teenage Romy Schneider as the Empress of Austria. Take that, Victoria.
veritable cinema royalty ☞ Fassbinder’s early
The Merchant of Four Seasons plus many more; Wenders’ exquisite Berlin homage
Wings of Desire plus many more; everything Criterion on here.
films about film ☞ Dark Star: H. R. Giger’s World, about the Swiss artist behind Alien.
special editions ☞ Das Boot, Director’s Cut, all 3 and a half hours of it. Catch up so you’re ready for Sky's 37-year-later sequel this fall.
art ☞ One word:
Beuys (more words: Even if you think you know the conceptual Dusseldorf master, there’s more material in Andres Veiel’s documentary exploration, guaranteed) #doc. Oh, and then there's Gerhard Richter Painting of course.
music ☞ Wagner at the Met or Rammstein in Paris, pick your poison.
surrealism ☞ Der Bunker. Waters, Lynch and Buñuel are referenced. Worth your time.
soccer (duh!) ⚽ ☞ Football Under Cover, where a Berlin female amateur club meets Iran’s international women’s team. Sounds like a potentially corny multicultural dramedy, but is an upbeat, fascinating doc.
yet more sports ☞ Klitschko. Doc about the revered Ukrainian-German superstar "gentleman boxer” brothers Wladimir and Vitali. Are you ready to rumble, Steelhammer-style? (I know my mum is.)
crazy ☞ The Nightmare. Crank up your speakers for this dark post-party trip by artist Akiz. TIFF gave out ear plugs and had ample viewer discretion advisories when they premiered the film in 2015. Love it or leave it.
coming of age (and also crazy) ☞ See previous. Plus the explicit
Axolotl Overkill. Not your average girl’s story. Took under-30 writer-director Helene Hegemann to Sundance. Another fine summer soundtrack.
a good thriller ☞ Sorry, but nothing on that iTunes list rivals the pace (literally) of
Run Lola Run, even when you’ve seen it before.
help to decide whether to relocate to Berlin or not ☞ See previous 3 recommendations. And the arts underground doc
Berlinized. If you are really hard to deter, try
Rammbock: Berlin Undead.
a guilty pleasure ☞ The Chambermaid Lynn. The astounding Vicky Krieps keeping house and practicing S&M in preparation for meeting Daniel-Day Lewis in Phantom Thread two years later.
Happy August!
from the lounge chair of
Jutta Brendemühl
image: Der Nachtmahr, courtesy Akiz
