Films of the week: »The White Silence«, »Axiom«, »The Best Movie Ever« (copy)

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Leading actress Cruz in »The Best Movie of All Time«: In the Shredder of Vanities

Photo: Manolo Pavon / Studiocanal

In cinemas from June 30th

"The best movie ever"

In an amusing scene in this film, director Lola Cuevas, played by Penélope Cruz, destroys the many acting awards that the two have won throughout their careers in front of her two male stars.

The film star Félix Rivero (Antonio Banderas) and the celebrated stage veteran Iván Torres (Oscar Martínez) have to look on helplessly.

Cuevas, who stands for award-winning art-house cinema, has a somewhat drastic way of making it clear to the two that their merits don't count.

The masterpiece she wants to create with them should be like nothing that already exists.

»The best film of all time«, staged by the Argentinian director duo Gaston Duprat and Mariano Cohn, tells an entertaining and perceptive account of the vanity of the cinema industry.

After the premiere at last year's Venice Festival, the black comedy, which tells of the preparations for a bestseller adaptation, is now showing in Germany.

Hardly anyone is spared by Duprat and Cohn.

You experience a financier who buys the film rights to a successful book without rhyme or reason, a director who threatens to stand in her own way with her claims to art, and two actors with inflated egos.

Although a chamber play with only a few characters, the film takes place in large, hall-like spaces.

In the sometimes breathtaking long shots, the figures, with all their ambitions and airs, seem increasingly small and lost.

It's a pleasure to watch Cruz, Banderas and Martínez poke fun at themselves and the oddities of the film people, without sapping their characters' artistic passion.

»The best film of all time«, Argentina/Spain 2021. Written and directed by Gastón Duprat, Mariano Cohn.

With Penelope Cruz, Antonio Banderas, Oscar Matinez.

114 minutes.

"Axiom"

Series about impostors like »Inventing Anna« or »The Dropout« are booming.

In this respect, Jöns Jönsson fits into a trend at first glance with his debut film »Axiom«: His main character Julius (Moritz von Treuenfels) is also someone who easily knows how to convince those around him that he is someone completely different, better, more interesting is.

While Anna Sorokin duped New York's high society and Elizabeth Holmes duped Silicon Valley, Julius is someone you could meet anywhere in Germany.

For example in the Museum Ludwig in Cologne, where he works as a guard.

But nothing more should be revealed about »Axiom«, because the attraction of the great staged and even better acted story (in addition to Treuenfels, Thomas Schubert stands out from the ensemble, as always), is that you know next to nothing about Julius and constantly having to put together a new image of him.

The tension that arises acts subcutaneously.

»Axiom« is a thriller that is not on the trail of crime but of humanity: why we lie, why we trust where we would have fallen for Julius, where we would have become suspicious.

There are hardly any certainties in »Axiom« – only that with Jönsson a real directorial talent has entered the scene.

»Axiom«, Germany 2022. Written and directed by Jöns Jönsson.

With: Moritz von Treuenfels, Thomas Schubert, Ricarda Seifried.

112 minutes.

In the media libraries

»Life in the Fuchun Mountains« (in the Arte media library)

In times of Marvel films, in which the next superhero spectacle is announced in several post-credit scenes, one can get annoyed by previews of sequels.

Not so with »Life in the Fuchun Mountains«.

When the last text to appear at the world premiere in Cannes 2019 was “To be continued”, a joyful smile spread across the faces of the audience: Should we continue with this enchanting social panorama from the Chinese provinces?

What luck!

Although this is a debut film, writer-director Xiaogang Gu demonstrates the calm and serenity of a master storyteller with »Fuchun Mountain Life«.

At a birthday party in honor of their mother, the four sons of the Yu family come together – as an exception, because normally they have more in common than they have in common: one has constant money worries, the other has to look after a disabled child, the next is being fiancéed by the parents not accepted, the last one has his hands full with his restaurant.

The film tells what they all experience within a year as gently as the seasons change: Everything is constantly changing, but the moments in which one becomes aware of these changes are rare and precious.

Xiaogang Gu manages to catch her and release her immediately.

You want to see this magic trick again and again - hopefully soon in the sequel.

»Life in the Fuchun Mountains« China 2019. Written and directed by Xiaogang Gu.

Starring: Qian Youfa, Wang Fengjuan, Yi Jiang, Luqi Peng, Du Hongjun.

144 minutes

In streaming

The Man From Toronto (on Netflix)

He had announced it.

And his critics are to blame.

Last year, American comedian Kevin Hart fired off a barrage of Twitter messages touting his commercial accomplishments and letting the world know, "The hate and slander drive me to do more." So there we have it of it: the really bad Netflix action film The Man from Toronto, which is marketed as a comedy and about as enjoyable as a root canal.

Without anesthesia.

It's not just Hart.

Much about this pickle gives cause for anger: How listlessly the genre of buddy comedy, which is no longer fresh any more, is attempted;

how unoriginal and smoothly staged the action scenes;

and that an actually fantastic actor like Woody Harrelson is not too good for this mess.

At least Kevin Hart has no room to fall artistically low, the hurdle is low anyway.

Comparing Omar Sy's performance in The Best of Friends to the US remake, in which Hart took over his role, gets a sense of just how deep.

It doesn't get any better in »The Man from Toronto«: He plays a hapless fitness trainer who, due to a mix-up, has to make common cause with a hitman in order to see his wife again.

For the most part, his scenes alternate clutter with clowns that make Adam Sandler's worst comedies look like masterpieces of wit.

Hart just isn't funny at all, and that's a problem for a comedian.

On the other hand: the man has his audience, he's right: commercially he is as successful as few other comedians.

So what do I know?

The question goes to the audience: Feel free to write in the forum if you have a bad idea about Kevin Hart.

I am curious about any explanation how to do this.

»The Man from Toronto«, USA 2022. Director: Patrick Hughes.

Screenplay: Robbie Fox, Chris Bremner.

With Kevin Hart, Woody Harrelson.

112 minutes.

»The White Silence« (on RTL+)

In a montage of unadorned court scenes and exciting flashbacks, director Esther Gronenborn tells her fictionalized interpretation of the true case of Niels Högel, who murdered at least 85 patients in various German clinics between 1999 and 2005 as a »death nurse«.

As recently as 2019, he was sentenced to life imprisonment for it, with the assumption that he could have committed more than twice that number of murders.

In the real case, as in the semi-fictional adaptation, his motivation is narcissistic megalomania: the addiction to the extreme situation, to being able to play the decisive cog between life and death, and the greed for fame, when the whole thing has turned out well again, he is a human being successfully massaged back into life.

These motives quickly become clear, Kostja Ullmann plays the nurse, who is called Rico Weber here, without frills and breaks, very physical and to the point.

However, the main focus of "The White Silence" is not on the perpetrator, which is as surprising as it is beneficial.

There is no psychologizing here, no attempts at explanations that can quickly slip in the direction of justification, and no lurid exaggeration.

The great achievement of "The White Silence" lies instead - in addition to the very good acting performances, also by Julia Jentsch as Weber's colleague - in the careful look at the different degrees of guilt, because the film is not satisfied with the simplest solution, the simple one Demonizing the egomaniacal killer.

In fact, in the moral assessment of the case, he almost seems like a marginal figure: Weber commits the murders, but doesn't he have silent accomplices in colleagues, senior physicians and the clinic management, who see his actions but consciously ignore them?

»The White Silence«, Germany 2022. Director: Esther Gronenborn.

Screenplay: Gronenborn, Sönke Lars Neuwohner.

With Julia Jentsch, Kostja Ullmann.

90 minutes.