Steineded How sad is this?

GazerRise Fantastic!

SpecialsTarget Disturbing yet enthralling

Helllins It is both painfully honest and laugh-out-loud funny at the same time.

Ersbel Oraph This movie does not have a script. It does however have a mess of the Writer slash Director's issues. Like the shifty West German, the complex East Germans, and so on. The film is obviously made with state money, because the story is at best a medium-short feature, maybe 30-35 minutes.The subject is the girl. The boys are all gay, bisexual at best, which makes me believe the Writer slash Director is also gay and he is having trouble coping with the subject. Because the girl is completely opaque. And to make things worse she is two. And the two end up fighting each other.The temporal axis is badly messed up. The dream scenes are badly marked. Are they dream or are they any form of magic reality? Who knows. By two thirds into the movie I was quite certain the Writer has no idea at all.But the worst part is the extra film. And the Director has to fill it with fluff, which he masquerades as mood. One character looking somewhere off screen for no reason other than justify the funding to some state bureaucrats. The scenes are doubled in a pointless manner until you get to see the old Soviet technique of "having something to show".Contact me with Questions, Comments or Suggestions ryitfork @ bitmail.ch

Horst in Translation (filmreviews@web.de) "Nachthelle" or "Bright Night" is a German 85-minute movie from last year. The director and one of the writers is Florian Gottschick and this relative short full feature film we have here is a contender for his most known work so far. It is basically the story of two couples (one straight, one gay) and how they meet again after a long time and how memories come back, some good, some not so good. The most central character of the story is played by Anna Grisebach and I must say I am not familiar with her as an actress at all. But what I saw here also did not get me curious. There are some more known actors in here though too, namely for example Benno Fürmann who plays one of the male protagonists and Michael Gwisdek, who only shows up in one scene. I already talked a bit about the story, but I would like to go into detail about it again a bit more. I must say it has nothing to do with reality in my opinion. One example would be how apparently all the characters really hate each other so much, yet they share such intimate stories and moments that makes me question the sense of the film as a whole. And the sex scene at the end, which clearly was intended as artistic and a happy ending for (almost) everybody involved rang very very false to me. All these conflicts earlier on and how do we solve them? Oh lets just have an orgy. Maybe Gottschick also understood that he does not have the talent to come up with a subtly convincing ending or solution to this film. Heck, it does not even have to be a happy ending at all. Eventually, just make it seem realistic. But they messed up on so many occasions before and the ending is nothing different to that regard. The characters' actions felt stupid and the acting was over-the-top on many occasions. The question to be asked here is not if you should see this movie. The question is if it is possible to say what the worst individual component of this film is. I guess the script takes the "prize". The dialogues sounded pretentious at times and the way the filmmakers tried so hard to convince us the characters are important and relevant, it was painful and cringeworthy to watch. Apart from that, shades are fine, but they were all unlikable and the way they tried to make them multi-layered did not work out either in keeping the audience interested. The rating here on IMDb for this film is not too high anyway, but it is still too high. This film was a mess and in my opinion, it is a contender for Top5 worst of 2015. As I have seen a lot (also a lot bad stuff) from that year, that is quite an "honor". Do yourself a favor and stay far far away from this movie. The only good thing I can say about it is really that it stays easily under the 1.5-hour mark. A character study gone very wrong.

Gordon-11 This film tells the story of two couples who meet in one of their childhood home. They have not seen each other for a long time, and they haven't visited the house for years. It's a trip down the memory lane, making old devils resurface.The first part of the film is slow but intriguing. The relationship of the four people is slowly revealed. As the past is unveiled, jealousy and sexual tension rise, and the story gets more interesting. However, the second part of the film suddenly contains this twist that makes me super confused. It seems as if it wants to be a sci-fi film suddenly. I tried figuring this bit of the plot out, but the plot just doesn't make sense. I wish this bit of the plot doesn't exist, and the film should just concentrate on the tension between the four of them.

Rodrigo Amaro Two couples spending some time visiting a country house from their past, sharing more than just stories from an old time but also bringing back to surface bitter memories, passions, curiosities, sexual tension and much more. First couple is Anna (Anna Grisebach) and Stefan (Vladimir Burlakov), who are buying the house from the second couple Bernd (Benno Fürmann) and Marc (Kai Ivo Baulitz). Fact is that Anna, at one time, was deeply involved with Bernd when they were teenagers; she was his first true love but something happened on the way, best leave out. In between nice dinners and lovely breakfasts, the present always finds a way to bring something dark and broody about the past; and during this minor chaos, Marc audaciously flirts with the clueless Stefan, paying no mind that his boyfriend is seeing (as later we discover, they have an open relationship). If from all that it seems the film has nowhere to go, well, it is actually. What triggers us in seeing is mostly to see how this quartet are going to survive through the weekend without killing each other or if the couples will indeed trade; there's some strange occurrences going on with objects falling and muddy footsteps to shake those characters nerves, and it'll get revealed in the end.Writer/director Florian Gottschick and his co-writers created something good despite the uncountable clichés. It's a thoughtful drama that reveals how frail yet strong human relations are. Yet another story of the paradox of life. I didn't find that love was an important aspect of the film, or better saying, didn't find the characters were honest when they kept saying they loved each other (not blaming the actors, they're good. The lines as written weren't convincing), I didn't buy their love mostly being the light reflected in their partners eyes instead of actions - though Stefan seems the one who cares the most about the annoying Anna, he's genuine despite the naivety of youth, after all he's the youngest member of the quartet and the one who knew little about his own partner. In terms of displaying seduction, lust or just sex, the movie succeeds a little more. What bothered me is that a movie so open and frank about sexuality issues decides to portray the intimacy of a gay couple only through sounds while the straight is there for everyone to see (and no, the foursome scene from the poster is just for show. Beautiful photograph, but weirdly filmed when the moment came)."Bright Night" has plenty of gripping elements that will generate the interest of the audience (the one who tends to like quiet moments and plenty of dialogs). What blocks the movie from reaching its full potential is the almost silly third act, as if taken from "Inception". Sure, this is the kind of film where odd things happen all the time, its expected to get those slightly unusual story treatments but those close to the edge scenes with Anna getting back in time seeing things from a difference perspective was just wrong. In fact, seeing most of the movie through her perspective is quite painful since she doesn't generate any kind of sympathy, she's filled with prejudice and tries to be thoughtful about everything. Had Bergman or Polanski writing this kind of story, they'd make something revealing (the setting is perfect, the house location), and they would use dream-like imagery or symbolisms that wouldn't affect the film's progress. Whatever the case, the problems with "Bright Night" aren't bigger than its qualities. There's some good acting, it's very involving and the more stories the characters share about their past the more fascinating the film gets, it's all very intriguing, just losing the step at the final moments. Positively enjoyable, almost no harm. Gottschick just need to learn to widen his vision to present things, elaborate better scenarios and stick with the tension. 8/10