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Laurì in »Oskar's Dress«: A bit more complicated
Photo: Juergen Olczyk / Warner Bros.
In cinemas from December 22nd
»Oskar's dress«
A German cinema comedy that tells of the needs of plausible people in an intelligent, touching and often hilarious way – director Hüseyin Tabak and screenwriter Florian David Fitz succeed in this feat in »Oskar’s Dress«.
Fitz plays a police officer who doesn't fare too well in everyday life but is a loving father to his ex-partner's (Maire Burchard) two children.
He reacts in astonishment, disbelief, outrage when he realizes that one of his two children (they are played by Laurì and Ava Petsch) would rather live as a girl than in the role of the boy she was supposedly born as.
In between, chairs are thrown in this film in a psychologist's consultation room, God is discussed in a synagogue and there is a lot of funny shouting.
At the right moments, however, the comedy, which is cast with all sorts of excellent actresses (Senta Berger, for example) and actors, is characterized by a beautiful serenity.
With a sense of tempo and a nice soundtrack, director Tabak shows how children, parents and grandparents happily find their way around in a world in which the search for their own identity is a bit more complicated than usual in the genre of German cinema comedy.
»Oskar's Dress« Germany 2022. Director: Hüseyin Tabak, script: Florian David Fitz.
With Fitz, Ava Petsch, Laura, Senta Berger.
102 minutes
»EO«
It is said that cinema is the medium of empathy.
Across centuries, continents and generations, thanks to moving images, you can empathize with characters that were previously completely foreign, cinema likes to praise itself - and then usually only presents the usual great men and sometimes women of world history.
The Polish veteran director Jerzy Skolimowski, born in 1938, now confirms that cinema is the medium of empathy - by thinking it completely differently: With his experimental film »EO« he puts himself in the role of a donkey.
He lets his audience experience from their point of view what our world has in store for animals in terms of love and cruelty.
Set up as a wild station drama and sometimes also station comedy, Skolimowski and his cameraman Michal Dymek follow the donkey EO through Poland to Italy, make the acquaintance of vain horses, friendly truck drivers and drunk football fans.
You don't have to like the world better after seeing "EO" - but you know it a whole lot better after looking through donkey's eyes.
Hannah Pilarczyk
Read the detailed review of »EO« here
»EO« Poland/Italy 2022. Director: Jerzy Skolimowski.
Book: Ewa Piaskowska, Jerzy Skolimowski.
With: Sandra Drzymalska, Mateusz Kosciukiewicz, Isabelle Huppert.
84 minutes
»Ennio Morricone – The Maestro«
Film music is particularly good when it hardly attracts attention and has a rather subconscious effect, it is said again and again.
Born in Rome, Morricone was far too self-confident to see himself merely as the servant of other artists.
His scores have an enormous impact even without the images.
Some have become classics, such as those for Two Glorious Scoundrels (1966), Play Me the Song of Death (1968) or Mission (1986).
It is not for nothing that the maestro traveled around the world with orchestras and choirs until his death in 2020 and filled huge halls at his concerts.
The director Giuseppe Tornatore, for whose film »Cinema Paradiso« (1988) he composed the music, portrays the composer and draws on a conversation the two had a few years ago.
The documentary has become a polyphonic epic spanning over two and a half hours, in which celebrities from Clint Eastwood to Hans Zimmer, from Terrence Malick to Quentin Tarantino sing hymns to the maestro.
More interesting are Morricone's early companions, who tell how he developed from trumpeter to composer and had to fight for recognition.
But the best part is when Morricone talks about his work.
He does this so passionately, entertainingly and vividly that you are not only entertained, but also learn a great deal.
Lars Olav Beier
»Ennio Morricone – The Maestro« Italy/Belgium/Japan/Netherlands.
2021. Written and directed by Giuseppe Tornatore.
Starring Ennio Morricone, Clint Eastwood, Quentin Tarantino, Hans Zimmer.
156 minutes
»Lost Illusions«
At a ludicrous celebration, the ludicrous host is baptized – to become a journalist.
"In the name of bad faith, false rumors and holy advertising," said his editor-in-chief in the role of priest.
The newly christened journalist is Lucien Chardon - charming, idiotic, tragic hero of Honoré de Balzac's most important novel »The Lost Illusions« and now also of the grandiose film adaptation of the novel by the French Xavier Giannoli.
He omits the parts dealing with Lucien's beginnings in the provinces and his return there, and concentrates entirely on the fatal months in Paris in which Lucien becomes the plaything of the high society: despised first because of his humble origins, then because of his feared for his sharp-tongued newspaper article, finally brought down by his naivety and vanity.
Newcomer Benjamin Voisin embodies this mixture of character weaknesses excellently, so that he can more than hold his own alongside great actors such as Cécile de France in the role of the helpless Louise de Bargeton or director Xavier Dolan as the supposed idealist Nathan d'Anastazio.
In France, Giannoli's film was a surprise hit with more than a million viewers, awarded seven Césars.
In contrast to Lucien, Giannoli has really earned this success: literary adaptations are rarely so pointed and fresh.
Hannah Pilarczyk
»Lost Illusions« France/Belgium 2021. Director: Xavier Giannoli.
Book: Jacques Fieschi, Xavier Giannoli, Yves Stavrides.
With: Benjamin Voisin, Cecile de France, Vincent Lacoste, Xavier Dolan, Jeanne Balibar.
149 minutes