Tag: germany

Lilli, a Girl From the Big City

  By

★★★
“The original Barbie”

The subtitle is not a joke. Lilli began her life as a comic – just a single drawing, with a line of her saying something funny – in the German newspaper Bild. Drawn by German artist Reinhard Beuthien, it ran from 1952-1961. With her child-like face, perfect slim figure, and long blond hair that she carried as a ponytail, Lilli was an attractive young woman. Also, she was saucy, sexy, independent and single: not at all as you would imagine young women to be in 1950’s Germany. It’s unsurprising that “Bild-Lilli” had her fans, and that dolls in her image would be produced from 1955 on. Though these were originally meant not as toys, but for marketing purposes.

When Mattel co-founder Ruth Handler went to Germany on holiday in 1956, she discovered the dolls and wanted to bring them to the American market. She had her designers create a new doll based on Lilli, and released her under the name “Barbie” in 1959. It seems Handler was afraid of copyright claims by the original producers. For Wikipedia tells us: “Mattel acquired the rights to Lilli in 1964, and all the promotional and merchandising activities related to the character were discontinued after then.” So, yes: while Mattel changed details here and there, Barbie was originally indeed a German girl named Lilli. Though looking at the All-American girl Barbie embodies today (also her animated movies, as well as the recent live-action one), it’s hard to recognize Lilli in Barbie nowadays.

However, long before the sale of rights, in 1958, Lilli had her own live-action movie. [I wonder if Mattel buying Lilli is why I haven’t seen this movie on TV for 30 years or more. It has never been released on videotape, DVD or Blu-ray.] This starred Danish actress Ann Smyrner, who won the role in a contest. Smyrner spoke only a little German, so was dubbed by German voice actress Margot Leonard. She would go on to fame for also dubbing Marilyn Monroe, Brigitte Bardot, Honor Blackman and Diana Rigg – basically, everyone young, female and sexy in 1950s and 60s cinema. I mention her especially, because I think that without her voice, Lilli might not have worked so well as a film character.

In this story, Lilli works as a reporter for a newspaper. Her introduction is already notable, driving an elegant sports car at high speed into a parked vehicle. When a policeman tries to fine her, she flatters and confuses him, kisses him on the cheek and leaves. In the newspaper office, she resists the flirtation of her boss with a move – is it early martial arts? – that leaves him on the ground. Really, we had not seen a female character like that in a German movie. It might have been slightly different in America, with some female characters in westerns and swashbucklers, but here, this was new. Although things were about to change, as I remember Lieselotte Pulver, whose Spessart Inn series of films began the same year.

Lilli is sent to report on a missionary congress in Sicily, getting there by ship. Honestly, I sincerely doubt this movie was filmed there, because we hardly see any Italian landscapes here. You see signs in Italian painted on walls indicating this is a hotel, a restaurant and so on. It’s meant to convince you that you are there because… well… it’s written in Italian language, so it must be Italy, right? Most of the scenes are inside on sets, and all of these might well have been in a German film studio. Also, some characters speak German with a fake Italian accent. It might have been convincing for a German audience in the 50s, but these feel kind of hilarious nowadays. (Although we still get German actors playing Italian characters, at least they leave out the fake accents now!) The opening credits say “Produced in the Arca studios, Berlin”, a facility which also produced a movie set partly in Africa!

But let’s be fair. For a 50s movie, Lilli’s adventure is quite exciting. She meets an old man (Siegfried Schürenberg) onboard the ship, who asks her for a favor and soon turns up dead in his cabin. She finds money printing plates in her room. Her investigations in Sicily lead her to a car garage where a traitor from a gang (Friedrich Joloff) is killed. As one of the murderers tries to abuse Lilli, he accidentally tears off her dress, leading to Lilli running away in her lingerie, causing a commotion in the streets until friendly sailors bring her back to the hotel. 

Another body appears, this time in her hotel room, and she gets friendly with potential love interest Mr. Morton (Hoven). He turns out to be up to no good, offering the gangsters a hand in getting the printing plates – most of these gangsters (including the gangster lady, below) are obviously not smart enough to deal with Lilli. When her little Italian friend is kidnapped, the big bad turns out to be the priest who accompanied her already on the ship (Peters). Lilli escapes, and has her sailor friends beat up the criminals in their own pub. The movie ends with the gangsters arrested, and Morton turns out to be Lieutenant Collins of Interpol, working undercover to help capture the villain. As Lilli already had Collins tied to a chair, she leaves her love interest struggling to free himself – a bit of revenge on her part.

Thinking about it, Lilli seems to spend most of the movie’s runtime escaping from some dangerous place or situation. She shoots with a gun at a vase, and engages in a – for the 50s – acceptable car chase. She even drives backwards, and fakes her own death by tossing the car down a slope​, Dr. No style. Though probably not acceptable for today anymore, she does it all in high-heels. But that trope is ironically subverted, when after that big chase, one of her high-heels breaks. This seems to be a bigger nuisance for her than the chase! But I have to say: for a German production, in a time when there were virtually no local crime films and no one would have understood the meaning of an “action movie” here, this film is almost ground-breaking.

However, that doesn’t mean it is “good”. Lilli survives more due to luck than intelligence, and her enemies aren’t too bright either. Characters often don’t react as would be appropriate or logical. Why the chief of police (Rudolf Platte) feels the need to chase Lilli, because a body was found in her room, escapes me; she is hardly a danger to the public. Morton walking into the gangsters’ den and immediately being accepted by them is implausible. Lilli and Morton kissing, when they have barely met or exchanged more than three words, is even more so. The revelation of the priest being the villain has no punch at all, despite clearly being intended as a big twist. Another problem is dialogue which doesn’t give enough information for scenes to work or have impact. But then, this is close to the first attempt at a German crime movie after WWII, and doesn’t take itself too seriously. Lilli is adequately sassy, some of the gangsters are quite simple minded, and everyone falls head over heels for Lilli, as if they had never seen a beautiful girl before.

The cast is almost a “Who’s Who” of German actors at the time. Schürenberg (the German dubbing voice of Clark Gable and Shere Khan in The Jungle Book) would become very well-known due to his “Sir John” character in the Edgar Wallace movies. They also often featured Peters prominently, who made a career out of playing secondary villains. He would later appear in Dario Argento’s first giallo and could be seen next to Sean Connery in A Fine Madness (1966). Platte was a very well-known actor who started in films in 1929 and would work into the 1970s. Joloff was part of SF-TV series Raumpatrouille Orion (“Space Command Orion“, 1966), a German equivalent to Star Trek, and the German voice of James Mason and Dr. No. The Austrian Hoven had a big run in 50s and 60s German genre cinema, then became a director of horror and erotic movies at the end of the sixties. But perhaps the biggest name appears at the end. Udo Jürgens was a huge star in the German music scene, with hit after hit until his death in 2014. Here, he sings the title and end songs, and plays one of the sailors.

After this movie Smyrner made a career in German and Italian movies of the Sixties, appearing in German krimis, romances, adventure movies, westerns and even the early wave of erotic comedies at the end of the decade. She could also be seen in two early American SF movies. According to another well-known actress, Smyrner was interested in both men and women, though struggled with her image as an early “sex bomb”. After she left the film scene, when German film production effectively stopped in the early 70s, she started to write articles for Danish newspapers, mostly about theological themes. 

The Lilli movie, though almost forgotten today, paved the way for things to come. One year later, crime-comedy Nick Knatterton, based on another beloved comic strip, from magazine Quick, made it to the big screen with a similarly impressive cast. 1959 also saw the release of the first Edgar Wallace movie Der Frosch mit der Maske (“Face of the Frog”). That crime film focused more on horror, and was a major hit with audiences, leading to a series of 32 Edgar Wallace movies through 1972. Obviously, the less serious approach of Lilli, didn’t quite click with audiences at the time. But without this kind of pioneering work, would we have seen what came after? This little flick is amusing fluff, doesn’t harm anyone, and might have been a revelation for German girls in the 50s, with no other choices than becoming a house wife or a secretary! While the story is kind of a fantasy, Lilli shows there may be alternatives.

Dir: Hermann Leitner
Star: Ann Smyrner, Adrian Hoven, Claude Farell, Werner Peters
a.k.a. Lilli – ein Mädchen aus der Großstadt

Steal Her Breath

  By

★★½
“Don’t hold your breath.”

I wonder if this film was made as some kind of bet. How many tropes and clichés can you fit into a single movie? It would make for a fun drinking game, though not one I would recommend, unless you have first checked the fine print on your health insurance. It focuses on two characters, though both of them are more like walking collections of issues. There’s a thief, Laura Nehls (Binger), who is seeking to liberate the NOX list, which is about to be sold on the black market. It contains “The true identities of hundreds of investigators, informants, and undercover agents.” Needless to say, the authorities are keen on this not falling into the wrong hands. 

Seeking to stop it is police detective Maxine Kämmerer (Lopes), a single mom whom we first see trying (and failing) to get some quality alone time in her shower, if you know what I mean. On her side is somewhat useless colleague Joachim (Hauber), of whom Maxine says, “Nobody likes you and nobody takes you seriously, because you’re a coward, corrupt, a grumbler, and a disgusting asshole.” These are the good guys, folks. The film isn’t really selling them. Mind you, just about every other man in this film is a bully or worse, up to the psychotic Laschla (Möller), one of the buyers of the file, whose hobbies include stringing women up and gutting them. 

An exception might be Laura’s uncle Dirk, though he seems to have some kind of terminal disease. Cancer. It’s probably cancer. So he’ll be abandoning her soon too. You won’t be surprised to discover that Laura and Maxine meet up, have instant sexual chemistry and decide to work with each other (more or less) to recover the NOX files. This happens after an surprisingly lengthy and surprisingly graphic spot of lesbian canoodling, finding in each other’s arms what they are unable to get from the male sex. There might have been a point where I would have appreciated this unexpected treat. But in this case, I was largely making “hurry up” gestures toward the screen. Though you won’t be surprised to discover that the sides disagree in terms of their commitment to the new relationship. 

From reading local reviews, the most memorable thing here seems to be the use of local Swabian and Saxon dialect. Needless to say, that’s an element which entirely escaped me, and there wasn’t much to keep me interested otherwise. Things unfold almost as you’d expect and, while both Maxine and Laura are characters with potential, the fact that chief antagonist Laschla looks to have strayed in from a bit of Euroschlock, Possibly involving gay vampires. It all unfolds in a plodding and predictable fashion, though it’s nicely photographed, and the leads stop it from collapsing entirely under its own weight. If you have a burning desire to see a German version of Bound, I guess this will satisfy the urge. 

Dir: Andreas Kröneck
Star: Luisa Binger, Christina Lopes, Harald Hauber, Oliver Möller

Murder by the Lake

  By

★★★★
“ScandiNoir – made in Germany…”

Murder by the Lake is a TV crime series co-producted between the second public German TV channel ZDF and the public TV channel of Austria ORF. It started in 2014 with a 90-minute long TV movie, followed by a further movie each year until 2017, when the yearly output was doubled. Since 2024, there have been three movies each year. So far, 22 episodes have come out, with #23 scheduled for later this year. The German title Die Toten vom Bodensee translates as “The Dead of Lake Constance” – “Bodensee” is literally “Ground Sea”, but is called Lake Constance in English. When I saw the first movie I was struck by its surprising quality. If you have read my reviews here, you know I usually don’t think much of the quality of German film productions. This is different: not only is it a show that I always watched, but one where I bought the DVDs. 

German crime shows tend to be boring and tedious, though I admit some have become much much better in the 20-odd years. This is one of those exceptions: The series captured my attention from the get-go; I found the single episodes remarkable and was quickly invested in the characters, who were very well portrayed by the actors. In short: It had a different dynamic and feel than most German shows. I wondered why it felt like that until I realized something: The creators of the show have borrowed heavily from successful recent Scandinavian TV crime series, so that you easily could call this “Scandinavian Noir, German style”.

It starts with Lake Constance, which is split between Germany, Austria and Switzerland. When a crime happens that falls under the jurisdiction of Germany and Austria, the commissariats of both countries decide to work together. A new special commission of “German-Austrian Crime Prevention” is formed, headed by German chief inspector Micha Oberländer (Matthias Koeberlin) and Austrian detective inspector Hannah Zeiler (Nora Waldstätten). Also involved, though more in secondary functions, are Austrian chief detective inspector Thomas Komlatschek (Hary Prinz), as well as a pathologist.

Sounds familiar? Well, then you probably have seen The Bridge. It had a Danish and Swedish inspector working together, in a concept used for many remakes around the world. Then there is the Swedish-German-Norwegian crime series The Sandhamn Murders,  perhaps the first show to adapt ScandiNoir for a warm summer environment, rather than the usual harsh, cold surroundings of typical Scandinavian shows. The same goes for Lake Constance, whose beautiful surroundings immediately inspire viewers to plan their next holidays there. And last but not least is the character of Hannah Zeiler who is unlike any ever seen in any German TV show, let alone as a police investigator. With her hair combed back tightly, a nice Lara Croft braid, and a Spock-like mind, she moves like a cat. Unless she’s driving her 1971 Moto Gucci Nuovo Falcone motorcycle.

But most interesting is her behavior. When she first appears, she is strictly business. She says hardly a word otherwise, with  no interest in getting to know the wife and daughter of her new colleague. She lets no one in emotionally, and shows an aversion to personal connection. Her behavior feels awkward, even upsetting, until you get used to it. Some watchers complained she mumbled her lines, but then, most characters here speak with an Austrian accent which can be a bit difficult to understand for Germans. It might also have something to do with the idea of a character who only slowly reveals her secrets to the audience. Because what I realized after a while, was that Hannah Zeiler is actually a more clinical, streamlined and slightly tamer Austrian version of Lisbeth Salander. Or at least her distant relative.

Similar to Lisbeth, Hannah has childhood trauma, as the sole survivor of a boat accident 20 years ago, where she lost both parents. While her mother died, her father’s body was never found. Hannah was raised by her adoptive father and now boss, Ernst Gschwendner (August Schmölzer), who plays an important role here. But in contrast to her Swedish predecessor, Hannah was never physically or psychologically abused, though the accident has left her with a fear of taking to the water. Also, the idea her father might still be alive has not entirely left her. This is a larger story arc that concludes four years later in episode 6, “The Returner”. It’s fascinating to realize how the “MCU method” of preparing a story arc over years, can pay off handsomely in the end.

Like Salander, Zeiler is a social recluse, and lives in a big house inherited from her parents. Her controlled external demeanor is in contrast to the chaotic life of Oberländer. He has family problems,  with a wife who feels chained to the house and their child. He is constantly on the job, driving an old Volkswagen bus: he sometimes even spends the nights there, drunk, and it’s usually not very clean. Zeller and Oberländer are bound to clash; for a long time, it was the main reason for me to watch the series. Initially, their characters seem to come from different planets – the comparison of “like cats and dogs” is very fitting. Yet they learn to respect and rely on each other. It is touching to see Zeiler start to trust Oberländer, slowly open up to him, and their relationship develop.

There was a lot of personal development around the duo, which kept the audience coming back every year, and these were good storytelling moves. The original idea was to have cases with some kind of mystic or mythological touch, although after the first movie, it was then entirely forgotten for the next nine. Mind you, this isn’t The X-Files. The angle is more related to folk customs, superstition or single elements. For example, in the first episode a murder seems related to a Celtic mask found in the lake. In another, a dead girl is found in a mermaid costume. One episode happens during a traditional and ancient local parade. Another has a belief that a house is cursed because it was built on a former path. Or there’s a film that begins with finding a baby in a basket in the lake – was this meant to be a reference to Moses?

However, these serve only as local colour for the stories, and not much more. The stories themselves are often very complicated, with the present crimes related to ones in the past. There is a common theme of how the sins of the fathers (or mothers) are visited on the sons and daughters. Very often the results are tragic. Though thanks to the officials, these family stories are revealed and there might be a chance for a better future. For example, one episode involved two men swapped at birth by accident, and brought up by the other’s mother; when one of them finds out, it leads to tragedy. Another theme through the show, is the inability of characters to communicate with each other. and say what they feel or know. That begins with Zeiler, who is so tight-lipped in the beginning, you could get the impression that she keeps state secrets, though a logical and understandable explanation emerges later.

Yeah, tragedy is very much ingrained in the lives of the show’s protagonists. Oberländer in particular is faced with this a lot: An old love returns and tries to kill him with the rabies virus(!). His wife cheats on him, only then to die in a car accident. He has significant problems with his teenage daughter Luna, who doesn’t stay the lovely little girl she was in the first episodes. What Zeiler and Oberländer have in common, is that they are essentially both lone wolves whose main focus is their work, with Komlatschek in the middle as the well-meaning and warmhearted successor of Gschwendner. He partly balances out the behavior of Oberländer, who often appears overtly aggressive and angry, and Zeiler, who especially in the beginning seems cold-hearted, odd and a bit inhuman.

Action-wise, the show isn’t anything special, though for a German TV crime show, it moves with surprising narrative speed. Guns are drawn quite often, but shooting remains a last resort, even if a rabid dog roams the woods. But I really got to enjoy Zeiler driving her fast motorcycle over long empty roads, through beautiful landscapes. I will say, over time the show lost a bit of its attraction, after her epic arc finished; I cared less and less for Oberländer’s private problems. That said, I still watched every episode. Then in 2022, Zeiler left on a motorcycle trip, never to return. What had happened? Nora Waldstätten (seen in movies such as Carlos the Jackal, and next to Kirsten Stewart in Personal Shopper) had other projects she wanted to take precedence. Since the ZDF had endured a bad experience with an actress in another crime show, resulting in no new episodes for 4 years, they moved quickly to replace Waldstätten, though no-one directly admitted the actress was fired.

In episode 16 (“Nemesis”) Oberländer got a new Austrian partner in Luisa Hoffmann (Alina Fritsch, above). Zeiler was declared dead in the final scene, Oberländer getting a phone call informing him she had a fatal motorcycle accident – strangely in Spain. Honestly, I felt quite cheated by this cheap way to write a character out of a show. The powers that be could have come up with a better, more fitting and respectful way to get the character out of the series, especially considering she was the main reason to watch in the first place. I did get a strong feeling the writers and producers chickened out from what would have been the next logical step, after the relationship building over all those years: making Oberländer and Zeiler a couple! For let’s face it: both were so special, in their own way, that any relationship with a “normal” person was doomed. Yet, they connected with each other and always understood that “the job comes first”.

But the powers that be again ignored their own character and story build-up completely – see my review for Arcane season 2 – and pulled a former girlfriend of Oberländer out of nowhere. Unfortunately, she was a criminal that betrayed him and would be shot later by Komlatschek. I gave the new actress one quick glance and, without condemning her performance, realized that special… strangeness, charisma, aura, call it whatever you want, her predecessor exuded en masse, just wasn’t there at the slightest. You won’t be surprised that I didn’t watch any of the subsequent episodes.

Oddly, while Waldstätten lasted 15 episodes, Fritsch threw in the towel after 6 (her last one, “Medusa”, was shown January 2025). The final episode I saw had Oberländer and Komlatschek becoming the new investigative couple, and it apparently stays like that for the new episodes. It’s kind of sad when I think of how Waldstätten has been getting guest roles in other, definitely inferior TV crime shows since her dismissal. I wonder who will be the next woman colleague to turn up? After all, I think TV audiences like to see a good-looking interesting female character next to the boorish, angry Oberländer. As the films usually (and still) have between 6-8 million viewers for each new episode, it would be quite risky to change the recipe for success.

Creator: Sam Davis et al
Star: Matthias Koeberlin, Nora Waldstätten, Alina Fritsch, Hary Prinz
a.k.a.  Die Toten vom Bodensee
English-speaking audiences can watch the series with subtitles, on MHz Choice, also through Amazon Prime.

Exterritorial

  By

★★★
“English? German? – ENGLISH? GERMAN??”

The term “Netflix Original” covers a range of productions, from pre-made movies they buy for distribution, through to movies commissioned from the ground up by the company. The results are equally variable. For every What Happened to Monday, there’s an Interceptor. This one came out of Germany: not exactly renowned for action, particularly action heroines. But it quickly and unexpectedly became the most-watched foreign language movie on the streaming service, worldwide. Does it deserve the success? We watched it and wrote up our thoughts independently, which have been edited and combined below. But, first: some introduction, and let’s find out what the movie is about.

Dieter: This movie was produced by long-established studio German Constantin Film, who in the 60s gave us the famous (or notorious, depending on your perspective) Karl May westerns, as well as German Edgar Wallace thrillers. It went bankrupt in the 70s but was saved and lead to new successes due to late producer Bernd Eichinger. He produced films such as The Never-ending Story, The Name of the Rose, House of Spirits, the first Fantastic Four movie (yes, that was German), the Resident Evil series and Downfall. After his death Constantin Film has mostly been hit and miss.

Interestingly, in the end credits you can see that Oliver Berben was involved in its production. Berben is a successful producer, now leading manager of Constantin Film, and son of well-known German actress Iris Berben, who played detective inspector Rosa Roth for a good 2 decades on TV. He has produced a number of movies with her in the leading role, as well other movies and countless TV productions. His most well-known movie might be Roman Polanski’s Carnage, with Jodie Foster. I’m not sure if this movie was produced by Constantin, then sold to Netflix, or if Netflix “ordered” Constantin Film to produce the movie. Looking at the results, I get the feeling this was from the get-go a collaboration between the two.

Jim: The heroine is Sara Wulf (Goursaud), a former Bundeswehr soldier, whose husband was killed in action, and who suffers from a touch of PTSD herself. She’s working to move to the US with her son, Josh, and has a visa appointment at the consulate in Frankfurt. But while she’s waiting to be seen, Josh vanishes. The consular chief of security, Erik Kynch (Scott) is sympathetic, until the surveillance footage shows Sara arriving alone. She’s locked up pending her being escorted off the premises. But, naturally, she escapes, and encounters a young woman (Abova), being held in an apartment in the complex. They agree to help each other – but it increasingly becomes clear that there’s a lot more going on than a missing child.

Dieter: Color me surprised when finding out the movie is… not bad at all. Actually, it is quite watchable. While the typical “diversity agenda” of Netflix is at play here, fortunately, there is no virtue-signaling, and I’m happy for it. I had some problems with Sara being a “special forces elite soldier” and “combat trained”. It’s true German soldiers were in Afghanistan but they were not involved in any combat missions but were mainly helping in re-building projects, or the training and aid of Afghani security forces. Since the end of World War II, Germany has had a strict rule of not getting involved in any military battles with the idea “that no war should ever come from Germany again”. So, a German soldier being involved in a direct military action, as scenes in this movie seem to indicate, is highly questionable.

Also, German “elite forces”? I don’t know. I won’t say it is impossible: there are probably certain groups for specific tasks that I am not aware of. But having done my – at that time obligatory – army service in the Bundeswehr 30 years ago, I have my doubts. I’m willing to suspend my disbelief here. The movie echoes popular action thriller plots of the past such as Jodie Foster’s Flight Plan and Panic Room, Angelina Jolie’s The Foreign Son, and of course Liam Neeson’s Taken. So, the plot won’t win any awards for originality. It’s also happy to re-use elements from other sources: Tom Cruise window climbing;  Mel Gibson shoulder dislocation; or a MacGyver-like improvised explosives.

Jim: Yeah – I may have yelled, “A few household chemicals in the proper proportions” at the screen there! I thought this was entertaining. It’s main strength is Goursaud, who manages to be both a bad-ass and a vulnerable mother, often simultaneously. She comes across as fairly credible in the fights, even when going up against bigger opponents. The script puts some effort into establishing her credentials, and she has a lithe toughness to her which works well.

Dieter: You must understand: we Germans are pretty lousy when it comes to action movies. The few there are, usually have actors attempting a weak, second-rate impression of the American attitude of “Look how big my balls are”. This always feels fake, because we Germans simply don’t see ourselves like that. We have no problems seeing us in roles of evil Nazis or “the good German”, e. g. Armin Mueller-Stahl, but hardly ever as action heroes. That definitely has to do with our history, the idea of “German heroism” being exploited and abused by the Nazis. So at first I was going to dismiss the movie as not interesting.

Surprisingly, it doesn’t commit the usual mistake of making its protagonist an unbeatable heroine. To “do it the German way”, you must put things into a more nuanced context. We wouldn’t expect it from an American movie, but definitely would in a German one. I know it’s unfair to home-grown productions, but we judge them on a different basis. Yes, there is the early scene where Sara gets pushed around and immediately gets into combat mode (because… you know… PTSD). But I think it’s the only scene I found unbelievably overdone. I feared the movie would continue that way – but luckily it didn’t!

Instead, it shows that – in contrast to someone like Angelina Jolie in Salt – though she is “trained for this” as she says, the reality sets in quickly. Even a single man with some combat training is always in a better position and will eventually overpower her. If she wins a fight, it is because she uses everything at her disposal in her environment. There seems to be an extra shot of adrenaline when push comes to shove and her trauma sets in. Nothing is won easily for the protagonist here and female power fantasies are left at the door! The fact that Goursaud actually has some muscles, is a further plus. 

Jim: There might be a bit less actual action than I expected, but what there is, is done well, with a couple of sequences edited together to look like a single take. The peak is likely a battle against two assassins in an apartment. It’s no Atomic Blonde, in length or quality. Then again, who is? I also appreciated the way she’s not infallible. Witness the way her first attempt to get around the consulate, ends in her bouncing off a balcony, and falling to the ground. 

Dieter: The acting is for once not a distraction, as so often in German movies. German-French actress Goursaud is in most scenes very believable, playing a stressed mother as well as in combat mode. Lera Abova who plays the role of Russian Kira doesn’t fare quite so well. Despite being Russian, I never got the feeling that she was, and sometimes had problems understanding what she was saying: she definitely had no Russian accent either.

The big surprise was Dougray Scott, who last time I saw him, had a role in Desperate Housewives. I could imagine that a consular officer would react exactly as he did in the situations here. What really stood out were his German language skills, speaking fluently with only a very slight accent. You have to understand how difficult it is to speak German like that. The movie refers to it in the beginning, when Sara demonstrates to her son how his father spoke German with a broad American accent. Contrast a scene in Tomorrow Never Dies where Pierce Brosnan spoke in German and I couldn’t understand what he was saying. The language skills Scott demonstrates in this movie here are excellent. And I say that as a German. I was mightily impressed.

Jim: I noticed in the end credits that there were two dialogue coaches for him: one to speak German and the other to help him sound American. Seems like both did their job! Chris found no reason to complain about the latter, and she has an ear for that, both in English and Spanish (you should hear her eviscerate any non-Cubans trying to sound Cuban!). While I’m here, I noticed that the credits listed an “intimacy co-ordinator”. Weird, since there was nothing at all on screen to suggest one would be needed. Maybe Zübert is going to pull a Zack Snyder and realize an unrated cut, with all the missing sex and violence?

Dieter: The most fascinating thing for me was the consulate itself. I’ve never been in one, so I don’t know, but I could imagine that it might look like this. You get the feeling this is not just a building but almost its own village with an auditorium, conference and office rooms, warehouse, cafeteria, locker rooms, swimming pool, nursery, hospital room, guest apartments, truck departure hall and safety room. Are consulates really that big? Or was that made up? The movie is supposed to take place in Frankfurt, Germany’s fifth-biggest city, and early shots of the city and its central station are genuine. So I was quite surprised to read in the end titles “filmed in and around Vienna”. Aha…???

Jim: I was less enthralled with the story. There are points where it seems like a parade of clichés, such as the PTSD, which never serves much purpose. Or the scene at the end, where the villain lays out his plan to the heroine in all its intricate detail. It’s also crafted to raise questions, such as what would have happened if Sara hadn’t unilaterally decided to leave Josh alone in the consulate play-room? It’s certainly quite easy to come up with simpler ways for the bad guy to achieve his goals.

Dieter: The whole plot has a typical thriller solution which is a bit far-fetched and over-complicated. But I liked the idea of the villain of the piece giving an explanation for his actions. The previous day, I had seen Steven Soderbergh’s spy thriller Black Bag, and the characters’ emotions and motivations seemed thin, and not quite understandable. Kudos to the writers here for creating believable motives and emotions.

Jim: Despite my qualms about the script, it’s not significantly worse in this area than your typical straight-to-video actioner. That might be the best way to approach this, as a throwback to a simpler era, where one man – or woman now – could go up against a parade of enemies, and emerge battered but unbowed. I’m certainly happier to see my Netflix subscription used towards this kind of thing than overblown nonsense like The Electric State. 

Dieter: A little tidbit: When I graduated, I briefly considered applying for jobs in German embassies overseas. One big drawback was being regularly required to move to other places in the world, making it difficult to settle anywhere and build a life. This is one reason the villain here gives for his acts and it absolutely made sense to me. But overall, this was a good action movie, and from Germany, no less. Even a believable, and perhaps the first real, girls with guns movie from here. It’s really astonishing to me. I expected this to fall flat on its face, especially when replicating American action formulas. But despite my utter disbelief something like this could be possible from my country, the film succeeds. Signs and wonders still do happen, as we used to say here!

Dir: Christian Zübert
Star: Jeanne Goursaud, Dougray Scott, Lera Abova, Kayode Akinyemi

Trunk: Locked In

  By

★★★½
“Difficulty booting up”

This certainly wastes no time. Malina (Martens) regains consciousness to find herself in the trunk of a car stopped at a petrol station. Things get worse, as she discovers her legs are paralyzed, and she has a nasty wound in her lower abdomen. How did she get there? And more importantly, what can she do to escape her predicament? It’s certainly one hell of a hook, and in the way it hits the ground running – as well as its Germanic origins, almost real-time approach and the plucky heroine with a sketchy boyfriend, forced to survive on her own – reminded me of Run Lola Run. Not as brilliantly executed, of course, but well enough done to keep my interest thereafter.

It does require a little suspension of disbelief to get things rolling, such as the way she has a mobile phone. What self-respecting abductor would not ensure their victim is kept well away from portable electronic devices? The fact Malina’s very first call is not to the police also seemed a bit iffy. But once the initial road bumps are overcome, I found myself increasingly drawn in to her predicament. Considering the film takes place almost entirely in a car boot, it works surprisingly well. Schießer uses all the tricks in his cinematic locker to keep the story moving forward, as find out about Malina, and her relationship with boyfriend Enno (Gilz), her father (Rettinghaus) and even the police operator (Helm) who is her best hope of survival.

Gradually, it becomes clear that this is not quite the simple abduction for ransom it initially appears. While her Daddy is certainly rich, why was the poverty stricken Enno apparently abducted too? Is there a connection to a bit of medical malpractice in which Malina, a trainee doctor, was involved? Then there’s the wound in her side, which is not just an accidental gash. Not all of these will end up relevant in the final analysis, and piecing them together is part of the fun. I figured out the key revelation only a couple of seconds before the film announced it, and this propels things forward in a very different direction, the rest of the way.

Obviously, given her circumstances – locked in a car trunk and with limited use of her legs – this is less “action” oriented in the traditional sense. But also given these limitations, I’ve no doubt that Malina qualifies here, having to use all the abilities at her disposal, from her medical knowledge to brute force, to try and survive, as her situation grows increasingly dire, e.g. she crosses the border out of Germany. I feel sure it’s the kind of plot where a less charitable reviewer could probably pick so many holes, it ends up resembling a lace garment. Martens isn’t Franke Potente either, though who is? However, I am prepared to give it the benefit of the doubt, and note that I wasn’t even tempted to pick up my cellphone once. These days, I’ll take that.

Dir: Marc Schießer
Star: Sina Martens, Luise Helm, Artjom Gilz, Charles Rettinghaus 

Sisters Apart

  By

★★
“A phony kind of war.”

There seem to have been quite a few movies out of Europe over the past couple of years, about the female soldiers fighting in Kurdistan for independence with the PKK and related groups. French films Les Filles du Soleil and Soeurs D’Armes both covered similar territory. It seems fertile territory, offering an inbuilt contradiction between the general perception of how Islam treats women, and them taking part in front-line action, in a way well beyond what “liberal” Western democracies typically allow. Oddly, it feels as if most of the stories being told, involve a search for relatives, and I’m a bit ambivalent about this. It feels slightly lazy writing, as if there’s no other reason a woman could want to take up arms in order to defend her homeland.

This does at least somewhat sidestep that issue with its set-up. The heroine here is Rojda Xani (Bagriacik), a Kurd refugee now living in Germany, and a citizen of the country who has joined their army. Her mother comes to join her, but does not bring Rojda’s sister, Dilan (de Haas), as previously arranged. Indeed, Danil seems to have dropped off the grid almost entirely, a situation which causes Rojda increasing concern – as if trying to get her mother to adapt to life in Germany wasn’t stressful enough. Despite qualms of those around her, Rojda decides to apply for the post of interpreter with the Bundeswehr who are deployed to Kurdistan, training soldiers there. On arrival, she finds a possible source of information about her sister’s location, but getting her to talk won’t be easy. The harsh reality of the conflict also brings into focus Rojda’s (largely selfish) reasons for being there.

This is almost entirely low key – likely too much so for its own good. That’s particularly so at the ending, where things don’t so much end, as peter out in a largely unsatisfying way. It is perhaps “realistic”, in that life is rarely tidy or follows a three-act structure. However, if I wanted real life, I’d watch a documentary. Rojda does make for an interesting heroine, one trying to balance between her own family culture and the standards and practices of her new home. She’s certainly far from dumb, speaking at least three languages, but is also fairly impenetrable, emotionally. Much of the time, it’s hard to be sure what she’s feeling. I’m not sure if this was deliberate – it would be in line with the film’s understated approach – or a shortcoming, either in writing, direction or performance.

There are some points where this does come to life. For example, her new colleagues quizzing her about life in Germany – can girls there sit next to a boy in the cinema? Again, this demonstrates the weird double standard (to Western eyes) by which these women live. Or there’s the bafflement of her commanding officer (Letkowski) when he’s told the Kurdish women have nobody in a similar role: “Sometimes she gives orders, sometimes I do.” I wish there had been more of these moments, which render the near passivity of the rest, all the more infuriating.

Dir: Daphne Charizani
Star: Almila Bagriacik, Zübeyde Bulut, Christoph Letkowski, Gonca de Haas
a.k.a. Im Feuer

Das Mädchen Johanna

  By

★★
“It’ll be all Reich on the night.”

It’s basically impossible to separate this from the time and place in which it was made: that being Nazi Germany, just a few years before the outbreak of World War II. The portrayal of, not only Johanna/Joan of Arc, but the rest of the participants, has to be read in this light. It certainly explains why neither the English nor the French sides exactly come over as covered in glory. From the former camp, we have Lord Talbot, who is cruel to an almost cartoonish degree. On the latter we have King Charles VII (Gründgens), who is cynical to a fault, and has no qualms at all about using Joan when convenient, then discarding her when she isn’t.

While Johanna (Salloker) is certainly the hero here, her screen-time is surprisingly limited. She doesn’t show up until about the 25-minute mark, her appearance rescuing the King from a mob, who are about to tear him limb from limb for his decision to abandon Orleans. However, the only person who genuinely cares for her is Maillezais (Deltgen), and even he is powerless to stop her becoming a pawn, blamed for the outbreak of the Black Death, once she has outlived her usefulness to the French nobility. I was expecting this to be a parallel between Joan and Hitler, but it doesn’t quite seem that simple.

Admittedly, the film ends, 25 years after the war, with Joan’s reputation salvaged. No longer a heretic, the last lines proclaim “Joan’s memory forthwith as a memory to her who freed France from foreign rule, as a memory to the state’s most faithful servant, who had by her sacrificial death ended disastrous warfare and who gave glory and greatness to the country and peace to the people.” That sounds fairly Fuhrer-like – except for the awkward “sacrificial death” thing. It’s possible King Charles may be a better candidate as the Hitler figure, prepared to do whatever is necessary to save his country. To the latter end, he proclaims “I know the people. The dead Joan will be all-powerful. Inviolable. A thousand times stronger! And her death will engender new miracles.”

Contemporary reviewers like Graham Greene (author of The Third Man) also drew parallels between the French King ridding himself of advisers he saw as treacherous, and The Night of the Long Knives, or the burning of Joan with the burning of the Reichstag. Me, I’m here purely to review it as a movie, and as such it’s quite lacklustre and plodding, concentrating more on the political machinations behind the scene. Salloker looks the part, especially when clad in her silver suit of armour. However, she rarely gets the chance to do much: the only significant bit of acting coming when she realizes she is about to die. Matters are perhaps not helped by the confusing way both the English and French speak German, and the battle scenes are no great shakes: certainly not as good as those in Joan the Woman, two decades previously. This is largely forgotten, for all the right reasons.

Dir: Gustav Ucicky
Star: Angela Salloker, Gustaf Gründgens, Heinrich George, René Deltgen

Ever After

  By

★★½
“Off-centre, not dead centre”

This is not your normal action heroine film. Nor is it your normal zombie apocalypse film. While it certainly nods in both directions, it seems entirely committed to going in its own direction. My mental jury is still out on whether or not this was a good thing or not. I think if I’d perhaps been prewarned what to expect, I might have been better equipped to handle this. It takes place after the outbreak of a plague, with the dwindling number of survivors now holed up in two cities: Weimar, where infection is an immediate death sentence, and Jena, reported to be trying to research a cure. 

The mentally fragile Vivi (Kohlhof) tries to do her part by volunteering on the fences surrounding Weimar, but a brutal incident on her first day sends her into a state of shock. She tries to head for Jena on the automated train which runs between there and Weimar. On it, she meets Eva (Lehrer), who is considerably more versed in the ways of survival. When the train breaks down, the two young women have to set off on foot across country. Which is where things get increasingly odd, as they bump into characters such as the Gardener (Dyrholm), who is running a market garden in the middle of the apocalypse. The zombies themselves also begin to mutate, such as the one on a wedding dress, whose face is half plant. Is nature healing? Or is a human apocalypse not necessarily such a bad thing from the perspective of the rest of Earth’s species?

There is a fair amount going on here to unpack, and it feels like the kind of party to which you have to bring your own booze. For the film offers no easy answers; indeed, I’m not necessarily certain what are the questions it is asking. At times it felt like there was a religious aspect with the Gardener being the snake in Eden. Yet at others, it is more about the different ways Vivi and Eva come to terms with the traumas they have experienced. Vivi shuts down, emotionally and mentally, while Eva adopts a hard shell, prepared to do whatever is necessary to survive. Also of note: there are almost no male speaking roles, though it’s subtle enough not to matter [The crew are also largely women]

There are still the required moments of threat, heroic sacrifice, etc. familiar from the genre. However, these feel almost perfunctory, as if imposed on the director in some kind of contractual obligation. The film might have been better to avoid the standard beats entirely, as these feel out of line with the rest of the movie. On the other hand, if it had gone full art-house, it’s possible I would not have bothered watching it, and almost certainly wouldn’t be reviewing it here. Still, it’s an approach to the zombie film I’ve definitely not seen before. Even if this wasn’t what I expected – or wanted, to be honest – that has to be worth something. 

Dir: Carolina Hellsgård
Star: Gro Swantje Kohlhof, Maja Lehrer, Trine Dyrholm, Barbara Philipp
a.k.a. Endzeit

Inn of the Gruesome Dolls

  By

★★★
“Edgar Wallace meets Russ Meyer”

I’m usually not a too big fan of trash movies, because a lot of them are not so much trashy, as they are boring. Nevertheless, I’m always in for a good, entertaining bit of trash, as long as I don’t find it too excessive. There is no doubt that German movie history is full of it: just think of all those Schoolgirl- and Housewife-Report films of the 1970’s. Though most of these movies can be ignored, since very often, they are just no fun at all.

Not so this jewel, stumbled upon when going through the extensive selection of German Amazon Prime. Made during a time when German movie entertainment found itself at a crossroads, with “Papas Kino” (Dad’s cinema) still running in cinemas, but the new German cinema not having arrived yet, some strange movies found their way on the big screen. 1967 was a year when German Edgar Wallace movies (having been made in colour for about two years) were still finding audiences before the students’ revolts, yet movies in general outside the countrt, became kind of “wilder”. A little bit more erotic titillation found its way in, but the wave of German softcore comedies hadn’t started yet. This movie therefore falls in this very narrow time frame between “older” and “newer” German film styles, which makes it very difficult to define. Though, let me have a try!

The story: Bob (Schumann) and Betty (Persson) try to break into a jewelry store. Unfortunately, the robbery goes wrong, and when trying to escape, Bob kills a policeman with his car. He escapes, leaving the unconscious Betty to pay the price, and she is sent to prison. There, terrible conditions rule. Girls are mistreated in order to keep them in line. Some girls have turned – you’ll be shocked! – to lesbianism. And the female chief warden, with the remarkable name of Francis Nipple (!!), wants to force Betty to have sex with her. Betty instead takes her chance, killing Nipple and breaking out with 4 other girls.

They flee into the Scottish Highlands (though this was filmed in Trieste, Italy), where Bob now works as a waiter in an inn. Betty’s idea is to kidnap the psychologically deranged wife (Trooger) of rich factory owner Oland, blackmail him, get to the coast with the money, and head abroad for a happy life with Bob. Unfortunately, Bob has a taste for one of Betty’s pals. Meanwhile, the factory owner has an affair with his female assistant and is already figuring out how to get rid of his wife. You can probably imagine, things don’t go as planned and… well, go a bit haywire!

Inn is one of the weirdest and trashiest movies from Germany I’ve seen in some time. Part of the fun is, you see a movie that basically comes across as the mad love-child offspring of a typical black and white, Edgar Wallace “krimi“, and something close to Russ Meyer’s Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! – what a crazy genre mix! The weirdest thing is: it is wholeheartedly entertaining, though you can never take it seriously for a single moment. It comes off as wanting to be cool but not really being able to. This is in contrast to Faster, Pussycat!, which is very cool and embraces its trashiness. This constantly tries, but cannot escape that it is, in the end, a German movie. When local film makers tried to “rebuild” successful foreign recipes such as spaghetti Westerns or the Hammer Horror movies, the results always left an impression of amateur dabbling.

The setting and style – production design, costumes, cars – reminded me strongly of the Edgar Wallace movies. At the same time, you see women appearing as erotically as they could without ever being nude. Add to that the typical wooden acting of an Edgar Wallace movie, and you have an involuntary comedy of the highest order. I was screaming my head off because I found it hilariously stupid, especially when some of the actors tried to be “very emotional” and over-acted, without being able to be convincing. Also, I had to laugh at Betty killing off nearly everyone who has the misfortune to be in her line of fire. She is very trigger-happy and has a tendency to shoot first and ask questions… never.

Moments where Betty or other girls seemed to question their acts occasionally made me wonder. Was this movie meant at some point to be a serious crime drama about how social circumstances ruin young women’s lives? But then another nonsensical scene shows up. For example, an innocent witness discovering the dead inn-keeper, running up the stairs, screaming for help (as in an Edgar Wallace movie), screaming more when she met another of the girls, then while shouting “Don’t kill me! I want to live!”, falling out of a window. As they say, “Hilarity ensues…”

You won’t find great German “stars” in this movie. Erik Schumann (Bob) mainly reached my attention by being the German voice of Hollywood star Louis Jourdan, and Margot Trooger was better known for roles in … Edgar Wallace movies, as well as Pippi Longstocking and other Astrid Lindgren series/movies. I don’t know any of the other actors in this German-Italian co-production. The director Rolf Olsen was a very busy Austrian director who seemed to have directed everything that came his way, although not often with well-known German stars.

No, this is to be taken as seriously as long-running German TV series Hinter Gittern (Behind Bars), about a women prison. Which means: not at all! I always thought this genre came into existence in America in the 70s, having seen movies such as Black Mama, White Mama. Jonathan Demme, who would later direct Silence of the Lambs, also contributed to it with Caged Heat. It obviously is older than I imagined, but then I’m no expert on this subgenre! [Jim adds: The women-in-prison film as we know it goes back to 1950 with Caged, starring Eleanor Parker and Agnes Moorehead. I think the earliest we’ve reviewed here was 1955’s Betrayed Women.]

It seems the movie may have originally been longer. The version available today has a running time of 85 minutes, but the original cut is said to have had a running time of 96 minutes. It seems that the German film censorship organization, FSK (Freiwillige Selbstkontrolle = Voluntary Self Control) must have cut the movie extensively at the time. The trailer indicates that a water torture scene in the prison, the attempt by the female prison warden to force herself on Betty and the death of the inn-keeper have been cut. There is also a short clip in the trailer, which seems to indicate some of the five girls meet a bloody end in the inn; again, this is not shown in the version I saw. Instead, that seems to indicate two of them got away, as they never appeared in the movie again.

It’s a strange movie, attempting to marry the old with the new. But while I wonder if director Rolf Olsen might have seen and been inspired by Meyer’s Pussycat, I’m quite sure that this movie was seen by and inspired some Edgar Wallace directors. For the role of the sadistic prison warden would appear again in – you guessed it! – a 1968 Edgar Wallace movie, Der Gorilla von Soho (US title: “Gorilla Gang”),taking care of girls in a prison! Finally, the German title of this 1967 movie is Das Rasthaus der grausamen Puppen. “Rasthaus” being the German word for what the translation program tells me in English is “roadhouse; highway restaurant (am.)”. So I’m not quite sure “inn” is the right word for “Rasthaus”. The title for the dubbed American version was The Devil’s Girls, by the way.

Dir: Rolf Olsen
Star: Essy Persson, Helga Anders, Erik Schumann, Margot Trooger
a.k.a. Das Rasthaus der grausamen Puppen

And Tomorrow the Entire World

  By

★★★
“Chewy, yet slightly crunchy.”

Plenty of films in our genre use violence, either as a tool of the plot, or simply for entertainment purposes. Fewer consider the philosophical and moral underpinnings of violent acts, in the way this does. Luisa (Emde) is the daughter of a rich, aristocratic family who is now a law student. She rebels against her upbringing by joining the P81 commune which is fighting against extreme right-wing groups in Germany. But there is a growing schism in the commune, between those who are opposed to injurious violence, and those who feel the ends justify the means. As Luisa drifts into a relationship with group leader Alfa (Saavefra), she finds herself drawn increasingly to the latter camp – albeit without an appreciation for the potential consequences.

It would be easy for this to descend into political polemic, yet it largely manages to avoid that. Luisa and her pals may be “fighting the good fight,” but they’re clearly not without significant flaws. For instance, Alfa regards the group as his own, personal all-you-can-eat buffet of young women, with Luisa just the next platter. It also does a good job of illustrating the slippery slope, from civil disobedience through property damage to full-on violence against people. At which point, I’d say you lose the moral high ground, and the film acknowledges it can become counter-productive. As someone says after a clash between left- and right-wing factions: “They are angry, really angry, and who’s going to pay? You, Alfa? No, it’ll be someone, somewhere, who had nothing to do with this.”

It’s still a shock when the full force of the German state and (the apparently infamous) Section 129 of their criminal code, is dropped on P81, making Luisa and Alfa fugitives. They hide out with Dietmar, a former activist in the 80’s, who spent time in jail for his acts then, and now lives quietly, working as a nurse. He offers a particularly cynical view regarding the futility of their actions, based on his own experiences: “We were absolutely convinced that we could build a new society. I was going to be a minister.” This is lost on Luisa, who steals a hunting rifle from her family’s home and prepares to launch an assault on an enemy gathering.

The film opens with her tossing away the gun, but at that point it’s not clear whether this was after, or instead of, its use. It’s on that decision that the film’s climax pivots: will she step back from the precipice, or embrace wholeheartedly what it means to take a life, even of someone you regard as lower than an animal? [Pointedly, Luisa is vegetarian…] This was Germany’s entry for the 2021 Best Foreign Film Oscar, though it did not make the final list of nominees. It definitely has that sense of earnestness the Academy likes, and is not so much biased ignores any other side exists – which may be the point, it being easier to hate someone who is kept distant and seen only as “the enemy.” But even an entrenched old hack like myself still found it more thought-provoking than I expected.

Dir: Julia von Heinz
Star:  Mala Emde, Noah Saavedra, Tonio Schneider, Luisa-Céline Gaffron