Extending his fascination with genre cinema, Petzold’s second feature is a made-for-television variation on the 1945 noir Detour, transposing Ulmer’s Poverty Row classic from the gloomy backroads of postwar America to the drab railway stations and sunlit autobahns of 1990s Europe. Across this colorless landscape, homeless drifter Tom tracks ex-lover-turned-prostitute Tina with the questionable assistance of a slick rich guy named Jimmy, pursuing parallel paths on a desperate odyssey westward that just might lead all the way to Cuba.
Tag: GERMANY
An adaptation of Bedřich Smetana’s opera The Bartered Bride. Set in 19th century Bohemia, the matchmaker Kezal wants to bring the mayor’s daughter Marie and the rich landowner’s son Wenzel together. Both of them, however, have already fallen in love with someone else. The endearing characters, a whimsical storyline and quiet humor combine with catchy tunes, a pastoral setting and fluid camera work. A last hurrah in the wanning days of Weimar cinema.
The paths of people from various countries cross during the course of one night. They speak different languages, but they are fatefully bound together by the solitary quest for happiness and deliverance. Sloping paths are all that’s left for them in an age of lost perspectives, lost refuges and lost homelands. They sink deeper with every movement that should be liberating them. Every gesture of love becomes a gesture of humiliation. The desperate dance of their life has become a passionate dance of death.
Doctor Gesellius travels to China to research the effects of opium. There, he frees a young woman named Sin from a mafia led by Nun Chiang, who swears vengeance. On the way back to his home, Gesellius discovers that Sin is the illegitimate daughter of one of his colleagues, whose son is having an affair with the doctor’s wife. After the revealing discovery, his colleague’s son turns up poisoned, making Gesellius the prime suspect.
After the death of his son, father Walter throws away his red jacket. With an aid transport, the jacket arrives in the embattled Sarajevo, where little Nikola steals it. The red jacket becomes a loyal companion on the boy’s escape from the war.
This film tries to solve the classic brain-teaser “How can you get a wolf, a sheep and a cabbage across a river one at a time, without them eating each other.” The rational solution seems fine in theory, but does not work when applied to conflicts in real life.
Frantisek, the main character is returning to his family. Until now he’s been, “successfully” avoiding all relationships. He is an ingenuous and a pure person and thus, is regarded as an idiot. He becomes involved in various love and family conflicts. It is because he hasn’t experienced much of the “real” life that he is able to perceive human relationships in their genuineness.
Inge Duhan lives with her husband, the lawyer Erich Duhan, and her little daughter Susi in Berlin. Inge is a very attractive woman. She loves her husband and has always been faithful to him. On a holiday trip to the French Riviera Inge meet the charming painter Francard. A brief affair begins that turns into blackmail.