Wolke 9 (2008) Reviews

• Bravo Germany, Bravo European Cinema

  groggo2009-08-11

  I don't think there is another film in the history of cinema that examines the lives of seniors (including -- gasp! -- their sex lives) with such honesty, poignancy and, yes, accuracy as Wolke Neun (Cloud Nine). Those characters on the screen could be your parents or grandparents, and there they are, still grappling painfully with the problems of love after all these years. This is a powerful film that is about much more than a mere examination of old people f***ing. Despite the typical stress on the (non-explicit) sex, it is a film more about the discovery of first love by a woman well advanced in years, a woman who should have known all this stuff (or so the theory goes) 45 years before. Hats off to director/co-writer Andreas Dresen for giving us this honest, courageous film that can upset and depress you at the same time as it can ultimately uplift you. Ursula Werner provides a shattering, bravura performance as the besieged, 66-year-old Inge, a married woman who is strongly attracted to a man ten years older (Karl, played by Horst Westphal). She engages in an affair with Karl while still proclaiming her love for Werner (Horst Rehberg), her husband of 30 years. Inge cannot understand the startling turn of events, or why they happened, but she discovers she loves Karl. Inge says, again and again: 'I didn't want this!', but the camera forces the viewer to challenge her. This woman has lived a life hidden from herself; she has spent 30 years being protected by Werner, who helped to raise her child. After a sheltered life dotted by drudgery and routine (she goes on aimless train trips to please her train-loving husband; she sings methodically in a church choir), we see Inge coming to the painful realization that she is finally emerging as a real person at the age of 66. She begins to understand, with tortuous internal conflict, what love really is. There is a riveting scene in the film when the sublime Werner (Inge) stands by railroad tracks in cascading rain. With her back to the camera, she screams at the earth (or is it at herself?), then turns and walks towards us: we see then a face of boundless anguish, a face that has realized something for the first time: after all these years, it is, for her, a terrifying and devastating discovery. There are flaws in this film (we know little about Karl or Werner, for example), but I still highly recommend it. This is a first in cinema, an adult film about REAL 'old people,' and we'll probably not see another like it for a long time to come. Finally, seniors in cinema have been given a genuine, authentic voice. It is a tribute to Germany, and perhaps Europe in general, that a film like this could be made. It's a work that would never (repeat, NEVER) be considered in the dumbed-down, juvenile, cartoonish world of Hollywood, which prefers to mass-produce movies that have little to do with the reality and pain of everyday human existence.

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• Beautiful film. Fell in love with the story and the characters.

  stamboltsyan_sona2008-06-12

  I saw this film at the Cannes Film Festival 2008 and I must say of the 20+ films that I saw this was the most beautiful and most moving. This by far is the best film that I have seen in a long time. It takes a level of mental maturity to get past the "eeww old people sex" and see the story for itself. The film is touching, honest and emotional. The director did an amazing job in conveying the raw emotion of the situation. The actress that plays Inge was phenomenal. I could not see anyone else in that role. She was not playing a role but actually being. I highly recommend this film to anyone that enjoys true, honest, emotional and full films. If you like the light fluffy films this isn't for you. This is a film that will stay with you for awhile. (heck I saw it almost a month ago and I'm still thinking about it).

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• The Mike Leigh of German cinema

  ginamalke2009-04-12

  Andreas Dresen has given us the most memorable movie in a long time. Great actors in front of a patient camera that either stands still to let action evolve or focuses on the faces. There is hardly any dialog in the first half of the film, character development occurs through the camera. It's the cinematic language that brings to mind Mike Leigh's films. As to the buzz about "old sex" - it's true, Mr. Dresen has broken into new realms showing elderly people making love good and proper, with lots of detail but never once overstepping limits of good taste. This movie concerns every one of us. Especially those over 60 will come out of the show and not be able to stop talking about it for hours, as it happened in Buenos Aires when strangers started lively discussions while walking out into the bright late afternoon. Don't miss it! It will shake you, but not break you, and certainly stay with you for a long time.

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• Something New and Wonderful

  johnpetersca2009-09-24

  The people in Cloud Nine are not motivated by middle class psychology, such factors as relationships with parents and emotional deprivations in childhood. Rather, their motivations emerge from their basic characters. To a surprising extent, their characters reflect elemental types. Inga, a sixty-seven year old woman, is a feeling type who works as a seamstress and is a member of a choir. She has been married for thirty years to Werner, a thinking type who likes railroads and timetables. Their daughter, Petra, is a sensate type. She has young children and favors practical solutions. Karl, Inga's lover, is an intuitive type who impulsively makes love to her when he tries on a pair of trousers that she has mended. These types are not pure or absolute. As in everyday life, aspects of people's characters continually rub against themselves and against aspects of other people's characters. This rubbing is what the movie's about. Inga, a bright, shining, and moderately overweight woman, is delighted by her affair. Contrary to her daughter's advice, she tells her husband about it. He considers their marriage a happy one (we see nothing to contradict this) and finds it incomprehensible that she would want another lover. Inga and Werner separate. Inga moves in with Karl. Werner kills himself. Cloud Nine's plot is the structure within which its characters interact. All dialog is improvised. The improvisation is by skilled actors who have a full understanding of the relationships among their characters. In terms of naturalness, this approach is highly successful. In a few instances, things that we expect to be there are left out. When Werner says to Inga that he assumes her affair is with a younger man, she does not tell him that Karl is nine years older than her. And no one states explicitly that Werner has killed himself. As would happen in real life, we assume it because of the way people act. Many comments on this film, both by reviewers and by people I've talked to, involve its portrayal of nudity and sex among people in their sixties and seventies. The many close-up depictions are both graphic and discreet in ways that would be inconceivable in a Hollywood movie. The scenes stay with the viewer. Old and less than perfect bodies can be admired without cosmetic enhancement. Death's sting is unavoidable but can ultimately be accepted. The cloud nine on which Inga lives is not in outer space but is a beautiful part of nature.

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• Clouding The Issue

  writers_reign2009-07-12

  Definitely not one for the Multiplex so score one for the art house circuit. Ursula Werner is in her sixty sixth year as I write and she leaves actresses half her age dead in the water. She bears a passing facial resemblance to the great Simone Signoret in her Mama Rosa period and her acting compares favorably with that of Signoret and I personally can offer no higher praise than that. There will be those who take exception to a movie like this for all kinds of reasons, graphic - albeit tasteful - sex between geriatrics being one of them, pace being another but the trick is to ignore the sex scenes and the pace and decide if 1) this is a movie with something to say and 2) does it say it, with an optional 3) how well or badly does it say it. Ultimately it is a fine art house film built around an outstanding central performance.

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