Finsterworld (2013) Reviews

• Contemporary German cinema worth watching

  karlstevenson2014-10-12

  A sharp and thoughtful look at contemporary German approach to dealing with the country's weighted past. Finsterwalder crafts the film with strange and yet ordinary moments that make us think about our own morals, expectations, and judgments. We get a glimpse into the life of each character - a mere sketch - (but a very accurate one at that) and that is enough for us to fill in the gaps and relate to them; the viewer need not be of German descent to understand the inherent turmoil present in our parents' and grandparent' generations; it is all very fluid, very grounded, very human. However life is, with its good and its evil, we have to accept it and keep living - somehow, is what she seems to be saying. An excellent, and daring film.

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• An emotionally challenging film

  Gordon-112014-11-02

  This film tells the stories of a pedicurist, a bird lover, an elderly woman in an old age home, a group of students going for a day trip, a married couple who disliked Germany, a policeman who has a thing for fur, a teacher and a documentary filmmaker. Their lives are very varied but connected in some ways to each other. However, the biggest connection of all is the tragedy of reality. Every character in the film is flawed, and most of them end up in varying degrees of tragedy. It is a captivating film that makes me reflect on life, and appreciate the fact that reality is harsh and unwelcoming. Good things do not necessarily happen to good people is the prominent message. Despite the depressing content, I thoroughly enjoyed watching this emotionally challenging film.

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• A lunatic becomes the most relatable person

  pietschbastian-766-1191262013-12-14

  Christian Kracht is know for his out-of-the-frame world view. In his first motion picture, which also is a first for director Frauke Finsterwalder, he celebrates evil. The film starts of with a stranger in a forest who finds a raven and keeps him as a pet. He has turned on society in the most drastic way, lives only for himself and nature - a lunatic one might think. The other story lines who, as the film proceeds begin to intertwine, seem a lot more profane: A schools field trip - though to Auschwitz -, the struggles of a pediatric for the elderly or the story of a couple who begins to divide. Nothing really special one might think. But the views begin to shift when the most average people turn to pure evil. Kracht puts a giant spot on every kink, every flaw and every little devil in his characters and exaggerates them until only pure evil is left. The viewer gets struck by scenes that paint a detailed picture of the underlying abysses that totally average people carry with them. Good and relatable turns to appalling. And even the few people who stay on the good side of this movies plot become increasingly strange for the audience. Their decisions go beyond everything one would comprehend in normal life. In the end, even the lunatic from the forest becomes a victim of the random hatred in the world, this movie celebrates in the most delicate way. As he seems all that mattered to him violated for no reason he turns on his peaceful nature. This is the start to a finale that is controversial in every way. It looks and feels like the typical "happy ending" but everything told is slightly wrong. None of the main characters gets the outcome, you would have expected in the beginning of the picture. And in the end the Krachts film once and for all turns his back on a straight-forward world view with the last frame. It is splendid, beautiful and jet disturbing. Therewith it summarizes this truly extraordinary movie, that will first make your feel, then think and if you don't take care maybe in the end give up on the fundamental good itself.

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• Everything is linked, everything is lost

  Horst_In_Translation2013-10-17

  "Finsterworld" is Frauke Finsterwalder's first fictional film after two documentaries. On the one hand, the title is a play of words with her surname (translated Finsterwood), on the other it uses the German term for "gloomy". And this is a nice description for the general tone of the movie. It's really a bit of a nightmarish world and you could certainly make a point for putting this in the horror genre, at first really more subtle, but towards the end drama ensues on all fronts (some catastrophic, some minor). The film features a prominent cast, especially looking at the female actors: Sandra Hüller is one of the greatest German talents since "Requiem" (always reminds me a bit of Michelle Williams), Carla Juri just had her big breakthrough in Charlotte Roche's "Feuchtgebiete", Margit Carstensen is experience personified and already starred in Fassbinder's films back in the 70s and Corinna Harfouch may be the closest we have to Meryl Streep with lots of excellent performances under her belt (the most known possibly Magda Goebbels in "Der Untergang"). So all the ingredients are there, right? Well, unfortunately not. While the world created in the first 75 minutes was surely an interesting one and not really too different from ours with everybody having their very own flaws, the director seemed eager to end it with a bang on almost all fronts and sadly sacrificed credibility and tension for it. The outcast seems to have really no purpose in the story than to shoot the boy in the car near the end exactly when he discovers his very own path out of his chains. Quite the irony. What I liked though was the final scene of the Sandberg family, who's pretty much the center of the film and creates links to all sub-stories, at the nursing home. It teaches us to care for our elderly before it's too late. The storyline with Zehrfeld and Hüller as a couple, however, did add absolutely nothing to the movie, even if it was well-acted, and I got the feeling it was really only in there for the furry-part to kinda shock and amuse the audience at the same time. It just was not interesting at all. Actually I'd say, the two would have rather deserved their own film showing his police-work and fetishes and her job struggles, but the way it was displayed here, it just felt rushed in there shoddily with no real character development. Admittedly, the final shot at the bench was not too bad, maybe the best thing about their story. As a whole, the movie suffered from too many incongruencies (yes it was weird and supposed to be so, but still) and here and there even a glaring plot hole. The shooting was unnecessary, the pushing into the chamber as well and I just can't believe the teacher could end up as the scapegoat anyhow. He freed her and, even if the situation could indeed have been misinterpreted initially, there's no way Juri's character wouldn't say that he got her out and she did not see who pushed her in. Of course it's the guys who keep bullying her and her friend all the time. That was really the main problem I had with the ending, not that she pretty much turned into "normal" afterward again, but how it all unfolded. Even if I didn't really like the film, I'd like to end it on a positive note. The Cat Stevens song used at the start and end was a nice inclusion and "Finsterworld" is packed with many interesting movie references.

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• Falls apart in the end

  belden_fox2014-03-08

  This is one of those movies where multiple characters weave and interconnect through multiple stories which all reach their dramatic conclusions in a burst of activity at the end of the film. Unfortunately whatever charms this movie has in its first half evaporate in the second, when the director tries to inject a false sense of dramatic weight by having almost every storyline devolve into meanness and tragedy. In the final quarter the movie piles on more and more contrived events and inexplicable reactions from the characters, glossing over the more glaring ones by stuffing them into a where-are-they-now montage at the very end. And even the first half relies a bit much on caricatures, such as the German couple who spend an inordinate amount of time discussing how much they loathe everything German while simultaneously reveling in the wealth Germany's economic might has bestowed on them. If you're really in the mood for this sort of thing go watch Robert Altman's "Short Cuts" instead.

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