Tag Archives: Bruno Ganz

Biography of Martin Luther, the 16th-century priest who led the Christian Reformation and opened up new possibilities in exploration of faith. Read More »

Mourning for a lost relationship can be every bit as devastating as mourning for someone who has died. Read More »

Alexander, an old writer, is ill and prepared to die. Read More »

1938, Romania: at 70, a professor of language and philosophy, Dominic Matei, contemplates suicide: the love of his life is dead Read More »

During the attack on an Italian town by Russian forces, the Marquise of O., the daughter of the colonel in charge of the defence Read More »

Consul Werle holds a reception in honour of the homecoming of his son Gregers. Read More »

Laschen, a German journalist, travels to the city of Beirut during the fights between Christians and Palestinians to produce an essay about the situation. Read More »

Life is often just “for sake of” and we need to know about it and want to benefit when we are presented with the occasion to.
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Nils ploughs snow in the wild winter mountains of Norway, and is recently awarded a Citizen of the Year Award. When his son is murdered for something he did not do, Nils wants revenge. And justice. His actions ignite a war between the vegan gangster “the Count” and the Serbian mafia boss “Papa”. Winning a blood feud isn’t easy, especially not in a welfare state. But Nils has something going for him: Heavy machinery and beginners luck.
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Visible only to those like them and to human children, Damiel and Cassiel are two angels, who have existed even before humankind. Along with several other angels, they currently wander around West Berlin, generally on their own, observing and preserving life, sometimes trying to provide comfort to the troubled, although those efforts are not always successful. Among those they are currently observing are: the cast and crew of a movie – a detective story set in WWII Nazi Germany – which include a sensitive and perceptive Peter Falk; an elderly man named Homer looking for eternal peace; and the troupe of a financially failing circus, which has closed early for the season because of those financial problems. One day, Damiel tells Cassiel that he wants to become human, to feel not only the sensory aspects of physical beings, but also emotional aspects. He embarks on this thought with the full realization that there is no turning back if he decides to do so. His thoughts are largely …
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In Faraway, So Close! angels watch over the people of Berlin. The world weighs heavily upon these men and women. Their attachment to things diminishes their desire for the invisible. As one angel laments, “It’s so exhausting to love people who run away from us.”
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Wim Wenders pays loving homage to rough-and-tumble Hollywood film noir with The American Friend, a loose adaptation of Patricia Highsmith’s novel Ripley’s Game. Dennis Hopper oozes quirky menace as an amoral American art dealer who entangles a terminally ill German everyman, played by Bruno Ganz, in a seedy criminal underworld as revenge for a personal slight – but when the two become embroiled in an ever-deepening murder plot, they form an unlikely bond. Filmed on location in Hamburg and Paris, with some scenes shot in grimy, late-seventies New York City, Wenders’s international breakout is a stripped-down crime story that mixes West German and American film flavors, and it features cameos by filmmakers Jean Eustache, Samuel Fuller, and Nicholas Ray.
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A Swiss sailor jumps ship in Lisbon, tired of the noisy engine room, the ship “a floating factory of crazy people.” He rents a room and does little. He writes letters to his lover, describing the whiteness of the city, the solitude and the silence. He sends his love and emptiness; she replies with love and confusion. He sends movies from his 8mm camera. Then he becomes friendly with Rosa, a chambermaid, and soon it’s a love affair. He continues to send letters and movies home. His Swiss lover is hurt and angry; she sends an ultimatum.
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A scientist who swore off playing chess after a nervous breakdown as a boy wunderkind, creates an undefeated chess program. But the Russian world champ beats Tommy Rosemund’s masterwork in a televised match. So the West German mathematician becomes a top chess pro himself, which the West German media boast will prove the superiority of Germany and democracy. The jowly, white-faced Rosemund believes that the entire Red Communist bloc is out to stop him from vanquishing their atheist pretty boy, Stefan Koruga, to become the next Bobby Fischer and a symbol that ruthless capitalism is preferable to socialism.
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One night when seeking his estranged wife, Hoffmann goes to the youth center where she works. The police are there rounding up radicals who frequent the center – Hoffmann runs into the building and ends up being shot in the head. He awakens with brain trauma, partially paralyzed and unable to speak. The police accuse him of stabbing an officer; the radicals herald him as an innocent victim of police brutality. During his slow recovery at the hospital, Hoffmann must piece together his life and struggle to remember the events of that night.
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