01/04/2005

The variety of yesterday’s releases gives German aficionados a reason to rejoice. For besides three unavoidable American productions (Be Cool, The Ring 2 and Winnie the Pooh),a Chilian, and an Indian movie, they can choose from four European (co)productions very different from one another : Andiamo, Barfuss (Barefoot), Brothers [+see also:
trailer
film profile] and Vanity Fair.

Andiamo, by Thomas Crecelius, is an Italian and German coproduction depicting a group of young Sicilian friends who, reaching adulthood, have to choose between familiar traditions and the attraction of the modern digital urban world, which eventually destroys the group and their sense of community. Brothers is a fiction drama from Denmark directed by Susanne Bier ; it is the story of two brothers (Ulrich Thomsen and Nicolaj Lie Kaas) who could not be more different. —one is a responsible married man, and the other is a troublemaker. But when the former is called to fight in Afghanisthan, he has to entrust the latter with his family, especially his wife (Connie Nielsen), thus allowing family conflicts to parallel the international one. The British and American coproduction Vanity Fair by Mira Nair (Monsoon Wedding), is also a drama, but a period one, set in England at the beginning of the 20th Century. This film, adapted from William Makepeace Thackeray’s novel, recounts the social climbing of an orphan who becomes a house-keeper and thus enters the aristocratic spheres.

Last but not least, this week’s national release is Barfuss, written, produced, directed, and interpreted by Til Schweiger, whose filmographies in all four categories is impressive for a 41-year-old film-maker. He plays a hedonistic bachelor who falls for a girl who has just escaped from a mental institution (Johanna Wokalek). This much awaited drama-comedy mixes different genres : love story, road movie, social statement... Barfuss was warmly applauded at the premiere, in Essen.

(Translated from French)