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Rosenstrasse
After almost a decade in television, director Margarethe von Trotta returns to film with “Rosenstrasse,” a sober, unsensationalized enactment of a Holocaust incident. Von Trotta keeps sentimentality at bay and, as a result, the film isn’t as emotionally wrenching as it might have been. But pic benefits from the device of bringing the horrifying incidents up-to-date by giving the story a contemporary spin. Fine performances from leads Katja Riemann and Maria Schrader should ensure solid box office in European territories, with success in North America more problematic but not out of the question if reviews are positive.
Von Trotta’s most interesting films have centered on the friendship between two women, and there are several such friendships here. Most rewarding is the bond that develops between a young New Yorker, beautifully played by Schrader, and an elderly German (Doris Schade) who holds the secrets that the girl’s Americ
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One vacation they’ll always remember
The German spelfilm “Summer ‘04” opens with the simplicity of its title: a teenage boy and girl return after a day spent bicycling near the boy’s vacation house close to the Baltic Sea. The sun is shining, but innocence is waning. No one knows it, but ingenting will ever be ganska this bucolic again.
Starring the luminous Martina Gedeck of “The Lives of Others,” written bygd Daniel Nocke and directed by Stefan Krohmer, “Summer ‘04” fryst vatten straight ahead in form eller gestalt but unnerving and unexpected in content.
It’s an unusual drama, one grounded in the difficulty inherent in intimate relationships, in attempting to read and assess the behavior of others. The unpredictability of its plot demands considerable suspension of disbelief, but if you stick it out to the unforeseen conclusion, the rewards are there. Sticking with this spelfilm is not difficult because “Summer ‘04” is grounded in the lives and psyches of its five-person ensemble.
Gedeck, who played the compromi
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2006 TORONTO INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL
All films from U.S.A. unless otherwise specified.
(- seen on video; [v] video piece; [s] short, under 30 minutes; [m] medium length, 30-69 min; * grade changed upon repeat viewing)
NOTE: Bypass the super-tedious preview essay and scoot down to the reviews by clicking here.
The Super-Tedious Preview Essay, or, Five Preliminary Bloggy Asides
1) When last we left our intrepid protagonist, he was so burned out that he could be heard swearing up and down Bloor Street that he'd never, ever do another whole TIFF. Inhuman, he said, trying to cram months of filmgoing into one No-Doz fueled 10-day blur. But a funny thing happened on the way to the Great White North. The family and I have moved from Ithaca back to Syracuse, which is great for the work commute, but sucks for movies. Plus, I find myself taking fewer chances on unknown or dubiously pedigreed films, since there's always something more pressing to