Narcissus and Goldmund is a film that, despite the undoubted mastery of director Stefan Ruzowitzky, despite the high budget employed and a respectable cast, despite visually and symbolically powerful moments, is overall excessively contrived and pretentious.
Kai Wessel’s Fog in August presents a mise-en-scène with mainly monochrome cinematography, in which the lighting is always too low, too weak. A mise-en-scene that is also complemented by a script in which the bravest characters, the most justice-seeking characters never really manage to make their voices heard.