Toni Erdmann is the film one does not expect. Is it, perhaps, a comedy? A drama? The story of a tender but complex father-daughter relationship? A deep social investigation in which we are shown how capitalism seems to have definitively taken over our lives? Probably, each of these elements.
by Xaver Schwarzenberger grade: 6.5 Xaver Schwarzenberger and his wife Ulrike – author of the screenplay – deliberately leave certain questions open and make a subtle ambiguity an essential element… Read more »
If, on the one hand, Twinni seems, from a directorial point of view, a little naïve, it is above all the carefully studied cinematography in predominantly pastel tones that immediately takes us back to the 1980s, with a series of poetic and nostalgic images that never seem excessive or cloying.
In Nikolaus Leytner’s Half a Life, alongside a clear television character, far more complex moral issues concerning anger, resentment, deep sorrow and, last but not least, a heartbreaking sense of guilt are raised.
If The Trouble with Being Born – directed by Sandra Wollner – on the one hand, reveals a good knowledge of film medium, on the other hand, it ends up being an essentially inconclusive film, which does not always make the most of its potential.
With a good touch of irony and just as a strong criticism of the National Health Service (and others), Wolfgang Murnberger’s Come Sweet Death sees its protagonist – played by comedian Josef Hader – as a sort of unintentional hero, an apparently bored man who does nothing but turn to alcohol and smoking to forget his loneliness. The director, on the other hand, does not hesitate to show us the worst of society without sparing us anything.