Hamsun (1996) - Sydow towers in overlong biopic

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The two big Scandinavian stars are set against a handwritten page on this poster for Jan Troell's Hamsun

Norwegian national author and recipient of the Nobel prize for literature Knut Hamsun develops, with support from his alienated wife, from a nationalist to a Nazi in the period leading up to, during - and after - World War II, which comes with grave consequences for the two.

 

Hamsun is written by Per Olov Enquist (Pelle the Conqueror/Pelle Eroberen (1987)) and co-writer/director/co-cinematographer, Swedish master filmmaker Jan Troell (Here Is Your Life/Här Har Du Ditt Liv (1966)), whose 10th feature it is. It is an adaptation of Thorkild Hansen's (Coast of Slaves/Slavernes Kyst (1967)) non-fiction book Processen mod Hamsun (1978).

The deeply illusory, Norwegian madness that the couple live in in Hamsun is frustrating in a way that makes the viewer want to physically grab them and shake them out of their delusions. Max von Sydow (The Final Enquiry (2006)) is masterly and very credible here, whereas Ghita Nørby (Ulvetid (1981)) by his side seems to have troubles portraying the Nazi wife, and in my opinion Nørby lays too much of her sympathetic self into this part.

Hamsun is especially valuable for historically interested and for those interested in portrayals of troubled, great artists. It is a bit overlong: SPOILER Hamsun waits to die throughout the film, and in the end we also want it for him, if only so the whole ordeal would end. Hamsun is a serious but not emotionally overpowering film from Troell.

 

Related post:

 

1996 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess

 

 

Watch a trailer for the film here

 

Cost: 40 mil. SEK, approximately 3.99 mil. $

Box office: Unknown

= Uncertain (but most likely a sizable flop)

[Hamsun was released 19 April (Norway) and runs 159 minutes. The film had been in development many years earlier but failed to find support in Norway due to its controversial topic. It was Danish company Nordisk Film's involvement that finally got Hamsun into production. Shooting took place in the Spring and Summer of 1995 in Norway, including in Oslo. The most expensive scene shot, in which Hamsun's wife Marie witnesses the sinking of the German cruiser Blücher in Oslo Fjord in 1940, was eventually cut from the film. 147,148 paid admission to the film in Denmark, one of its 4 co-producing countries (the other being Norway, Sweden and Germany). It made 50k $ in North America, where it debuted #24 to a 7k $ first weekend in 1 theater. Other release details are regrettably scarce, and this makes it impossible to determine its theatrical status, though I suspect it was a sizable flop. It won a Robert (Danish Oscar) and 4 Guldbagge (Sweden's Oscar), among other honors. It became Denmark's Oscar entry of the year but did not get nominated. Troell returned with 2 documentaries and a documentary short prior to his theatrical return with Så Vit Som En Snö (2001). Sydow returned in Jerusalem (1996); Nørby in Bryggeren (1997, miniseries) and theatrically in Sekten (1997). 1.6k+ IMDb users have given Hamsun a 7.2/10 average rating.]

What do you think of Hamsun?

Cherry Blossoms/Kirchblüten (2008) or, Rudi in Japan

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+ Best Tokyo Movie of the Year  

 

A man and a woman from different cultures, standing together in a Japanese garden make up this poster for Doris Dörrie's Cherry Blossoms

When an aging married couple learn that the man, Rudi, is terminally ill with cancer, his wife hides the fact from him and arranges a visit to their two children in Germany. Her wish for them to travel to their son in Japan is wholly rejected by Rudi, - until the wife's sudden passing.

 

Cherry Blossoms is written and directed by Doris Dörrie (Der Erste Walzer (1978)).

The story develops with increasing emotional depth during Rudi's time in Japan, and Elmar Wepper (Der Fischer und Seine Frau (2005)) and Aya Irizuki (Cherry Blossoms and Demons/Kirschblüten & Dämonen (2019)) as Rudi and Yu excel. The film handles sorrow and death in a way, which can't but lead the audience to ponder over his or her own journey towards this end, - and the end for one's loved ones.

The poignant and at times amusing aspects of Rudi's journey are partially impaired by a few minor issues: The title is questionable as to its relevance for the story, and the credit sequence is poorly designed. The image quality throughout the film seems to come from digital technology and is a bit amateurish in craftsmanship and feel. These are minor side notes. The biggest drawback for Cherry Blossoms is that the central couple's three adult children are so uniformly horrible; narrow-minded, selfish and insensitive. - Why are they all like this? This feels a bit film school-like in its simplicity.

 

Related post:

 

2008 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III] 

 

 

Watch a trailer for the film here

 

Cost: Unknown

Box office: 12.8 mil. $

= Uncertain - but likely a big hit

[Cherry Blossoms premiered 11 February (Berlin International Film Festival) and runs 127 minutes. Shooting took place from March - April 2007 in Germany, including in Berlin, and in Japan, including in Tokyo. The film opened #71 to a 3k $ first weekend in 1 theater in North America, where it peaked at #67 and in 8 theaters (different weeks), grossing 104k $ (0.8 % of the total gross). The 3 biggest markets were Germany with 10.1 mil. $ (78.9 %), Switzerland with 763k $ (6 %) and Austria with 457k $ (3.6 %). The film did not get a general release in Japan. If made on a likely 3 mil. $ budget, the film would rank as a big hit. It was nominated for a European Film award and won 3/6 German Film award nominations, among other honors. Dörrie returned with Die Friseuse (2010). Wepper returned in 7 TV credits prior to his theatrical return in Dreiviertelmond (2011); Irizuki in Greetings from Fukushima/Grüsse aus Fukushima (2016). Cherry Blossoms is certified fresh at 79 % with a 6.90/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

 

What do you think of Cherry Blossoms?

The Lives of Others/Das Leben der Anderen (2006) - Donnersmarck stuns the world with defining film of the evils of complete state control

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+ Best Movie of the Decade

+ Best Movie of the Year
+ Best Debut Movie of the Year + Best Dollar Return of the Year: 38.6 Times its Cost + Best German Movie of the Year + Best Mega-hit Movie of the Year + Best Spy Thriller of the Year

Intimate snapshots and one of the men carrying out the invasive surveillance make up this unmemorable poster for Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck's The Lives of Others

In 1984 East Germany is under full surveillance: by its own colossal state apparatus. The minister of culture demands dirt on a prominent theater writer, so that he can have the man's actress girlfriend to himself in peace. But the spy who has to do the dirty surveillance work gets in doubt of the validity of his tasks.

The Lives of Others is written and directed by feature-debuting German master filmmaker Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck (Never Look Away/Werk ohne Autor (2018)). He has managed to erect a monumental film of the destructive Stasi police and their methods in the long defunct East German state, the DDR. The film is an incredibly well-made and energetic grappling with history. It boggles the mind that East Germans helped to install not just one but two of the most horrifying regimes that the world saw created in the 20th century, of which the first, the Nazi ideology, still seems the most destructive human endeavor ever committed by man.
Martina Gedeck (I'm Off Then/Ich Bin Dann Mal Weg (2015)) and Sebastian Koch (Bel Canto (2018)) are excellent as the couple who get harassed; so is Thomas Thieme (Fritz Lang (2016)) as the feared minister. Ulrich Mühe (Engelchen (1996)) as the spy gives a formidable performance as a man who is controlled through and through, who suddenly makes an individual stride. In this way The Lives of Others is a beautiful film of the human ability to change and improve, but it is also about the dissolution of an inhumane ideology of submissive all-encompassing control and surveillance as caused by the beauty of music, as an early scene conveys so persuasively. The Lives of Others is a masterpiece for the ages.

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2006 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III] 

Top 10: Best German movies 

2006 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II] 

The 2000s in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess 

2006 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]

Watch Donnersmarck receive the Best Foreign Film Oscar - and a fun bit by the year's host Ellen DeGeneres in a video here

Cost: 2 mil. $
Box office: 77.3 mil. $
= Mega-hit (returned 38.6 times the cost)
[The Lives of Others premiered 15 March (Berlin, Germany) and runs 137 minutes. Donnersmarck's thought up the film inspired by a recount of a discussion between Maxim Gorky and Lenin, in which Lenin admitted the disturbing fact that his office did violence against the people in pursuing their ideals. Donnersmarck has stated: "I suddenly had this image in my mind of a person sitting in a depressing room with earphones on his head and listening in to what he supposes is the enemy of the state and the enemy of his ideas, and what he is really hearing is beautiful music that touches him. I sat down and in a couple of hours had written the treatment." He wrote the script at the Heiligenkreuz Abbey, where his uncle served as the abbot. Shooting took place in Berlin, Germany from October - December 2004. The film opened #36 to a 213k $ first weekend in 9 theaters in North America, where it peaked at #15 and in 259 theaters (different weeks), playing an impressive 31 weeks and grossing 11.2 mil. $ (14.5 % of the total gross). The biggest markets was the film's home country Germany with 19.1 mil. $ (24.7 %). North America was the 2nd biggest, and 3rd biggest was France with 10.7 mil. $ (13.8%). Roger Ebert gave the film a 4/4 star review, equal to its rating here. Criticisms lashed against the film by others include that Donnersmarck was wrong to create a sympathetic Stasi protagonist and that the playwright character is unlikely in the hard communist regime. The film won the Best Foreign Film Oscar, was nominated for a Golden Globe, won 1/5 BAFTA nominations, a César award and a David di Donatello award, 3/6 European Film award nominations, an Independent Spirit award, 7/11 German Film award nominations and countless other honors. On IMDb's user-generated Top 250, the film currently sits at #57, between Sunset Boulevard (1950) and Dr. Strangelove (1964). The film has has had influence in the debate against mass surveillance in Israel and the US. Donnersmarck and Mühe were successfully sued for libel by Mühe's 2nd wife for an interview in which it was stated that she had informed on him during their 6 years of marriage in the DDR. - Although 254 pages of government records supported the claim, the woman's controller came out and stated that she had not know that she had been talking to a Stasi agent and that many things had been made up. Donnersmarck returned with The Tourist (2010). Mühe returned in Das Geheimnis von St. Ambrose (2006, TV movie), Peer Gynt (2006, TV movie) and theatrically in My Führer/Mein Führer - Die Wirklich Wahrste Wahrheit über Adolf Hitler (2007). The Lives of Others is certified fresh at 92 % with a 8.3/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of The Lives of Others?

Amour (2012) - Tender love, unstoppable death in Haneke's pictures

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+ Best French Movie of the Year

An almost painfully intimate moment between the film's central aging couple is used on this poster for Michael Haneke's Amour

An old married, French couple. One day, the woman loses the ability to move in her one side. Her health rapidly deteriorates, while her husband cares for her until the last breath.

 
Amour is written and directed by great German filmmaker Michael Haneke (The Seventh Continent/Der Siebente Kontinent (1989)). Amour is French for 'love'.

Emmanuelle Riva's (Hiroshima Mon Amour (1959) performance as the ailing old woman, who loses control of her faculties, is taboo-breaking and incredible, and the intimacy and realism of the loving tragedy and the couple's relation is infectious in a surreptitious manner, seeming to crawl under your skin without you noticing. - Or, more accurately, you notice its doing so by the intense unpleasantness that you experience from being put expertly in their shoes, a weight that is making some term the film unbearable.
The very intense journey towards inevitable death in Amour is long-winded and truly awful to be on, and the love between the two so beautiful that the film is very nearly unbearable, - which could be called a trademark for all of Haneke's films. This one ranks among his finest.

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Michael Haneke: 2012 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED V]
2012 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED IV]
2012 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]
2012 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]

2012 in films - according to Film Excess
2007 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]

Funny Games (2007) - Haneke recreates his strong critique of movie violence consumption for the American audience 

Top 10: Best drama-thrillers reviewed by Film Excess to date 

2005 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess 
Hidden/Caché (2005) - Haneke's slick, cold surveillance drama-thriller  

 

Watch a trailer for the film here

Cost: 8.9 mil. $
Box office: 29.6 mil. $
= Box office success (returned 3.32 times its cost)

[Amour premiered 20 May (Cannes Film Festival, in competition) and runs 127 minutes. Haneke went through a writer's block during his making the screenplay, which he wrote specifically with Jean-Louis Trintignant (L'Été Prochain (1985)). Trintignant broke his prior 14 years of retirement to appear in the film. It was mostly inspired by the suicide of Haneke's own rheumatism-plagued 90 year-old aunt. Shooting took place from February - April 2011 in France, including Paris. The film opened #37 to a 68k $ first weekend in 3 theaters in North America, where it peaked at #19 and in 333 theaters (different weeks), grossing 6.7 mil. $ (22.6 % of the total gross). The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were France with 4.2 mil. $ (14.2 %) and the Netherlands with 2.2 mil. $ (7.4 %). The film was nominated for 5 Oscars, winning 1, for Best Foreign Language Film. It lost Best Picture to Argo, Actress (Riva) to Jennifer Lawrence in Silver Linings Playbook, Director to Ang Lee for Life of Pi and Original Screenplay to Quentin Tarantino for Django Unchained. It also won a Golden Globe, 2/4 BAFTA nominations, the Palme d'Or in Cannes, 5/10 César award nominations, a David di Donatello award, 4/6 European Film award nominations, an Independent Spirit award, a National Board of Review award and several other honors. Roger Ebert gave the film a 4/4 star review, translating to a notch over this one. Haneke returned with Così fan Tutte (2013, TV movie) and theatrically with Happy End (2017). Riva returned in A Greek Type of Problem/Tu Honoreras ta Mère et ta Mère (2012); Trintignant in Happy End (2017). Amour is certified fresh at 93 % with an 8.70/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

 
What do you think of Amour?