After spending three years doing field installation work in West Africa, Fred returns home to his old neighbourhood, an industrial region on the outskirts of a major city. He is filled with confidence and optimism for a new start. He has brought home with him a pile of money that he made in Africa. But he never wrote to his wife Rita. He only wired her a money transfer every month. In the meantime, Rita has a new life that she now shares with a GI. Fred rents a room in the “Royal”, a sleazy hotel. There, he meets Alma, who takes care of the rooms and the guests and who is being kept by her sugar daddy – the aging hotel director. A passionate encounter with his old girlfriend Vera, who had high hopes for the two of them at some earlier time, dissipates into a brief carnal episode.
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Tag Archives: Germany
Der Himmel über Berlin / Wings of Desire (1987) Wim Wenders, Bruno Ganz, Solveig Dommartin, Otto Sander, Drama, Fantasy, Romance
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 weiter Ferne, so nah! / Faraway, So Close! (1993) Wim Wenders, Otto Sander, Bruno Ganz, Peter Falk, Drama, Fantasy, Romance
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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Dead Pigeon on Beethoven Street (1973) Samuel Fuller, Glenn Corbett, Christa Lang, Sieghardt Rupp, Crime, Thriller
Following Shark!, Sam Fuller’s luck getting films funded didn’t change much; Dead Pigeon on Beethoven Street is Fuller’s only film of the ’70s. Technically, it’s not even a proper film, but if you didn’t know it was made as an episode of the German cop series Tatort (which is amazingly still running), you’d never have guessed it. Where American television stifled Fuller’s creative spirit and made him conform to the norms of whatever show he was working on, the producers of Tatort allowed Fuller the freedom to make whatever he wanted. He took this freedom and ran with it, crafting a unique, exciting picture unlike anything else in the Fuller catalog. Part crime thriller, part farcical comedy, Dead Pigeon on Beethoven Street is a hidden gem in Fuller’s filmography.
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Harte Jungs / Ants in the Pants (2000) Marc Rothemund, Tobias Schenke, Axel Stein, Luise Helm, Comedy, Fantasy
A late bloomer, 15-year-old Flo experiences his sexual awakening, relentlessly targeting his gorgeous classmate Leonie. Flos friends eagerly try to help him out. The only problem may be Leonies boyfriend.
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Der Herrscher / The Sovereign (1937) Veit Harlan, Emil Jannings, Paul Wagner, Hannes Stelzer, Drama
Der Herrscher (The Sovereign) was based on Before Sunset, a play by Gerhart Hauptmann. The great Emil Jannings stars as Mathias Clausen, a self-made businessman who is forced to do a great deal of soul-searching when his wife unexpectedly dies. Determining to start life anew, he falls in love with his secretary Inken (Marianne Hoppe) and impulsively takes a vacation to Italy. Clausen’s selfish grown children, not wishing to share their father’s affections – nor his money – with his new wife-to-be, go to court demanding that Clausen be declared mentally incompetent. Upon finding this out, Clausen flies into a rage, leaving the audience to wonder whether or not he really as gone off his trolley.
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Kuzu / The Lamb (2014) Kutlug Ataman, Erdal Yildiz, Taner Birsel, Sila Lara Cantürk, Drama, Family
A village in the highlands of eastern Anatolia. As is required by age-old tradition, families here celebrate circumcision with a feast. Little Mert is to undergo the procedure but his father ?smail has no money to pay for the feast. His mother Medine ekes out a meagre living collecting willow rods. Nobody is willing to give them the lamb that must be served to their guests. Mert’s sister terrifies her brother by explaining that, should their father fail to find a lamb, he will have to slaughter his own son…
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Prison tres speciale pour femmes (1982) Gérard Kikoïne, Olinka Hardiman, Connie Hörnum, Christine Schwarz, Adult, Thriller
Three girls are arrested under false pretenses and transferred to a small private prison that caters white slaves to rich sheiks.
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Night People (1954) Nunnally Johnson, Gregory Peck, Broderick Crawford, Anita Björk, Adventure, Crime, Mystery
Post WWII yarn about a young GI abducted by the Soviets in West Berlin and hauled off to the East. His recovery gets complicated as Colonel Steve Van Dyke (Peck) tries to sort out the usefulness of informants, spies, bureaucrats, and the abductee’s influential father (Crawford)!
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Cola Candy Chocolate (1979) Sigi Rothemund, Olivia Pascal, Philippe Ricci, Dolly Dollar, Comedy, Romance, Erotic
After a nasty argument with her boyfriend Carl, young Gaby spontaneously accepts her girlfriend invitation to join her on a vacation to Manila. Her plans to forget about Carl succeed very rapidly as she meets Dr. Andreas Witzig, a young scholar who plans to marry his fiancee on the island. During the following days, Gaby tries her best to convince the man of her dreams to change his mind.
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