Some language in German and Italian with subtitles
Culture Representation: Taking place mostly in 1838 Germany, the horror film “Nosferatu” features an all-white cast of characters representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.
Culture Clash: A vampire demon named Count Orlok targets a young woman to be his bride.
Culture Audience: “Nosferatu” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners, filmmaker Robert Eggers, and artfully made horror movies that have more haunting images than storytelling suspense.
Nicholas Hoult in “Nosferatu” (Photo by Aidan Monaghan/ Focus Features)
Artsy filmmaker Robert Eggers’ somewhat overhyped version of “Nosferatu” delivers the expected grotesque and macabre in this vampire movie that tends to drag with repetition. The acting and visuals are better than the screenplay. It’s the type of movie that takes much too long to get to showing the villain doing what was announced at the beginning of the movie. At 133 minutes long, some parts of “Nosferatu” didn’t need to be in the film at all.
Written and directed by Eggers, this version of “Nosferatu” was inspired by the classic 1922 German silent horror film “Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror,” directed by Henrik Galeen. This 1922 movie was inspired by Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel “Dracula,” which is used as a template for basically any horror story where there is a male vampire with the title of count or some other royal title. Eggers’ version of “Nosferatu” doesn’t really do anything groundbreaking, but it does have some very unique imagery that will stay in viewers’ memories.
“Nosferatu” begins by showing a young German woman Ellen (played by Lily Rose-Depp) having a nightmare that she is the bride of vampire and is succumbing to his sexual advances. She wakes up from this horrific dream. The movie then fast forwards “several years later,” to 1838, in an unnamed part of Germany, that is later revealed to be the Baltic region of Germany. (“Nosferatu” was actually filmed in the Czech Republic.)
Ellen is now a newlywed named Ellen Hutter, whose husband Thomas Hutter (played by Nicholas Hoult) is an estate agent. Thomas is loving and attentive, but he is in debt and looking for a way to earn more money. Ellen wants to start a family with Thomas, but he would rather wait until he is more financially stable.
It just so happens that Thomas’ boss Herr Knock (played by Simon McBurney) has an offer that Thomas can’t refuse: Go to Transylvania and get the wealthy Count Orlok (played by Bill Skarsgård) as a client. Herr Knock tells Thomas: “Secure the count, and you will secure your position in the firm.” Herr Knock also says that Count Orlok, who is “too ill” to travel, has insisted that an agent visit Count Orlok “in the flesh.” Thomas needs this type of job promotion, so he takes the assignment with almost no hesitation.
The assignment requires a trip away from home for about six weeks. Thomas stays with friends Friedrich Harding (played by Aaron Taylor-Johnson) and his wife Anna Harding (played by Emma Corrin), who are happily married with two daughters: Louise Harding (played by Milena Konstantinova), who’s about 6 or 7, and Clara Harding (played by Adéla Hesová), who’s about 4 or 5.
Friedrich is a wealthy ship merchant. Anna is pregnant with their third child. Their family doctor and trusted friend Dr. Wilhelm Sievers (played by Ralph Ineson) plays an important part in the story, when Ellen eventually comes to stay with the Harding family too, and all hell starts to break loose in the last third of the movie.
“Nosferatu” doesn’t waste time in telling Count Orlokf’s primary goal: It’s revealed within the first 15 minutes of the movie that ever since Ellen was a child, she’s been having dreams of this mysterious vampire hunting her down so he can take her as his bride. The main flaw with “Nosferatu” is that it takes an almost excruciatingly long time in the movie for Count Orlok to even begin this hunt, even though it doesn’t take long for Count Orlok to come into contact with Ellen’s husband Thomas. It should come as no surprise that Thomas’ visit to Count Orlok is a setup to get Thomas into Count Orlok’s lair.
“Nosferatu” excels when it comes to setting up scenes with great atmosphere. The production design, costume design, cinematography and makeup are top-notch. But the dialogue is a little clunky, simplistic and at times unintentionally comedic.
And there are many times a viewer might wonder, “Where is Count Orlok? Ellen isn’t that hard to find. Does he need a map?” The movie tends to over-rely on jump scare scenes where it’s revealed that what was shown was really someone having a nightmare. But then, the movie also hints this nightmare could have been a sleepwalking episode.
“Nosferatu” is at its best in scenes with eccentric Professor Albin Eberhart von Franz (played by Willem Dafoe), an occult expert who is recruited by Dr. Sievers to help investigate some of the chaos that’s happening. For a long time, Friedrich remains staunchly skeptical that there are supernatural reasons for Ellen’s visions and other terrible things that start happening in the household. And you can easily predict what can happen to a skeptical character in a supernatural horror movie.
Dafoe’s performance as kooky Professor Eberhart livens up an otherwise relentlessly dour movie that could have used better character development. One of the more memorable lines that Professor Eberhart says is, “I’ve seen things in this world that would make Isaac Newton crawl back into the womb.” Depp and Hoult handle dramatic scenes quite well, but there’s not much more to the characters of Ellen and Thomas than this couple being targeted victims of Count Orlok. Skarsgård is effectively sinister as Count Orlok, who isn’t in the movie as often as you might think for a film where Count Orlok is the chief villain.
“Nosferatu” also has a few plot holes and unanswered questions. For example, one of the main characters gets feasted on by Count Orlok, but several days later, that vampire victim never shows signs of becoming a real vampire, such as having vampire cravings and being vulnerable in sunlight. The climax/showdown for the movie is also a bit weak and will make viewers wonder, “Why didn’t the characters do something like this sooner?” Despite these flaws, “Nosferatu” is still better than the average vampire movie. Just don’t expect any clever surprises or characters that are completely developed.
Focus Features will release “Nosferatu” in U.S. cinemas on December 25, 2024. The movie will be released on digital and VOD on January 21, 2025.
Culture Representation: Taking place from 1914 to 1945, in Europe and in the United States, the dramatic film “Bonhoeffer: Pastor. Spy. Assassin.” (a biopic of German pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer) features a predominantly white cast of characters (with some African Americans) representing the working-class and middle-class.
Culture Clash: Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who was executed by Nazis in 1945, was an outspoken pacificist and activist against the Nazi regime that caused the Holocaust and other atrocities.
Culture Audience: “Bonhoeffer: Pastor. Spy. Assassin.” will appeal mainly to people who are interested in World War II-era historical dramas and faith-based films, but this heavy-handed movie distorts facts to make it look like Christianity was the driving force for the anti-Nazi movement.
David Jonsson, Clarke Peters and Jonas Dassler in “Bonhoeffer: Pastor. Spy. Assassin.” (Photo courtesy of Angel Studios)
“Bonhoeffer: Pastor. Spy. Assassin.” is an example of a faith-based movie that tries to pass itself off as a credible historical drama but has alarmed many experts on the film’s subject matter for how this movie could be used for a Christian nationalist agenda. This tedious and inaccurate biopic of German pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer makes his suffering from Nazi hate look more important than the non-Aryan targets of the same hate. Several cast members have condemned any Christian nationalism co-opting of this movie. Even without this condemnation, “Bonhoeffer: Pastor. Spy. Assassin.” is a misguided movie that’s a hokey and jumbled mess.
Written and directed by Todd Komarnicki, “Bonhoeffer: Pastor. Spy. Assassin.” (formerly titled “God’s Spy”) seems to have very good intentions in its messages of how Bonhoeffer was an activist against Nazi hate. And to be clear: “Bonhoeffer: Pastor. Spy. Assassin.” does convey the same messages that say Nazi ideology is evil and poisonous to humanity. However, the offensive preachiness and inaccuracies in the movie have to do with sidelining people who’ve experienced the worst punishments from Nazi hate, in order to make it look like Bonhoeffer had a brand of “white savior” Christianity that deserves the most praise in fighting against Nazi hate.
The International Bonhoeffer Society and several principal cast members from “Bonhoeffer: Pastor. Spy. Assassin.” have, according to a statement, “distanced themselves from possible misuses of the film. They stand behind the calls from Bonhoeffer scholars, church leaders, and extended members of the Bonhoeffer family to stop the distortion of Bonhoeffer’s life and legacy to justify Christian Nationalism and political violence.” Read the full statement here. The International Bonhoeffer Society is a non-profit group “dedicated to advancing the theology and legacy of German pastor-theologian and Nazi resister, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, in the academy, church, and world,” according to a description on the International Bonhoeffer Society’s website.
The 10 cast members who have disavowed this movie being used by Christian nationalists or to justify political violence:
Jonas Dassler (who plays the adult Dietrich Bonhoeffer)
August Diehl (who plays German theologian Martin Niemöller)
David Jonsson (who plays American Baptist Church worker Frank Fisher)
Moritz Bleibtreu (who plays Karl Bonhoeffer, Dietrich’s father)
Nadine Heidenreich (who plays Paula Bonhoeffer, Dietrich’s mother)
James Flynn (who plays Dr. Rascher, a Nazi medical doctor)
Lisa Hofer (who plays Sabine Bonhoeffer, Dietrich’s twin sister)
Felix von Bredow (who plays Rudolf-Christoph von Gersdorf, a German intelligence officer)
Patrick Moelleken (who plays Walter Bonhoeffer, Dietrich’s older brother)
In “Bonhoeffer: Pastor. Spy. Assassin.,” there’s plenty in the movie that shows Dietrich as a pastor. But there’s a bare minimum showing him as a spy and even less showing him as a would-be (not actual) assassin. Adding to the misleading title, the movie’s main poster shows Dietrich holding a gun, which goes completely against the real Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s pacificist beliefs.
The movie’s marketing materials make it look like “Bonhoeffer: Pastor. Spy. Assassin.” is about a vengeful religious crusader who’s intent on murdering Nazi leader Adolf Hitler to stop the Holocaust and to be a World War II hero. In real life, in 1945, Dietrich Bonhoeffer (who was 39 years old at the time) was executed by hanging in Flossenbürg, Germany, after he was accused of money laundering and a conspiracy to assassinate Hitler. In the movie, this death is depicted in a way that looks uncomfortably like a toned-down and misleading version of what really happened to someone imprisoned by Nazis for an accusation of planning to assassinate Hitler.
“Bonhoeffer: Pastor. Spy. Assassin.” begins in 1914, by showing 8-year-old Dietrich (played by Phileas Heyblom) having an idyllic childhood in his hometown of Breslau, a city that was part of Germany at the time but is now part of Poland. Dietrich’s psychiatrist/neurologist father Karl Bonhoeffer and Dietrich’s teacher mother Paula Bonhoeffer are depicted in the movie as having six children, including Dietrich’s twin sister Sabine (played by Luise Landau) and eldest child Walter, who was Dietrich’s most beloved sibling. An early scene in the movie shows Walter playing hide-and-go-seek games with Dietrich.
Dietrich’s childhood bliss is shattered in 1914, when Walter goes away for military service in World War I and is killed during this military duty. The movie’s timeline jumps all over the place in a way that will cause confusion for anyone who doesn’t know Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s story. After Walter’s death, the movie cuts to a quick scene of Dietrich in a Nazi prison in Buchenwald, Germany, in 1945, with no real context for why he is there until much later in the movie.
The movie then abruptly cuts to 1930, to show the origins of Dietrich becoming a Lutheran pastor. But even that part of his history is truncated, because the movie completely omits his university education in Germany, where he received a Ph.D. in theology from Humboldt University of Berlin in 1927. The first time that movie shows Dietrich as a theology student, it’s in 1930, when he’s a German immigrant at Union Theological Seminary in New York City.
Dietrich is considered to be a brilliant student in this American seminary, where he gets some jealousy and curiosity from other students in the seminary. While at Union Theological Seminary, Dietrich meets and befriends fellow student Frank Fisher, who introduces Dietrich to jazz nightclubs and the Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem, where Frank is a member of the congregation. And the next thing you know, Dietrich is instantly accepted as the only white member of the congregation, and he becomes a Sunday school teacher for the church.
“Bonhoeffer: Pastor. Spy. Assassin.” pretends that any realistic racial tension or racial skepticism that Dietrich might have experienced just didn’t exist for him as a white person who hung out with only African Americans. Instead, the movie makes it look like he was able to seamlessly and easily become a part of the African American community with no racial obstacles whatsoever. At a jazz club, Dietrich becomes a star attraction due to his piano-playing skills and gets even more applause and more attention than the African American musicians who regularly play there.
Dietrich is invited to a group dinner at the home of Reverend Powell Sr. (played by Clarke Peters), the leader of the Abyssinian Baptist Church. Frank is also a guest at this dinner. Once again, Dietrich is the only white person in the room, but he is treated like the most important person in the room. His thoughts and needs get the highest priorities.
When Dietrich makes an apology on behalf of white people about the white supremacist racism that he hears is rampant in America, Frank tells Dietrich that he expects Dietrich to set an example to other white people on how not to be racist: “We don’t need to you to be sorry, D. We just need you to show the world.” At this point, Dietrich might as well be wearing a T-shirt that says: “I’m a being propped up as a white Christian savior in this movie.”
The closest that “Bonhoeffer: Pastor. Spy. Assassin” comes to showing the brutality of white supremacist racism in America is in a scene where Frank wants Dietrich to learn a lesson by seeing this type of racism firsthand. When Dietrich and Frank are on a visiting trip in Washington, D.C., Frank tells Dietrich to rent a room at a nearby inn. Dietrich is able to easily rent the room from the white innkeeper (played by Scott Winters) on duty at the front desk. The manager is polite and helpful to Dietrich.
Within a few minutes of Dietrich renting the room and getting the room key, Frank goes into the inn and tells the innkeeper that he’s a friend of Dietrich’s and will be sharing the room with him. The innkeeper’s attitude immediately turns hostile. The innkeeper pulls out a shotgun, points it at Frank and Dietrich, and orders both of them to return the room key and leave the building. Dietrich is shocked, but Frank is not shocked at all.
Once again, Dietrich becomes the center of attention as the “white savior” when he insists that Frank should be allowed to use the room too. The innkeeper violently reacts by using the gun to hit Dietrich on the forehead and causes a bloody wound from this assault. The innkeeper doesn’t do anything to Frank except call him a racial insult. In real life, Frank would be more likely than Dietrich to get physically attacked by this racist, but “Bonhoeffer: Pastor. Spy. Assassin.” is insistent on making Dietrich look like a saintly hero who suffers and sacrifices himself more than those he’s trying to save.
As Frank and Dietrich leave the inn, Dietrich has the nerve to say to Frank about this blatant racism: “I’m so fortunate that we don’t have this in Germany.” Frank replies, “My brother, hate comes in many colors. Your eyes haven’t been fully opened yet.”
The movie never really shows Dietrich getting to know the African American people in this church community except in the context of what he can do to teach them as a white person in a “theologist knows best” role. There are never any honest or meaningful conversations about racism in this movie. What “Bonhoeffer: Pastor. Spy. Assassin.” has is racial condescension that doesn’t think it’s racial condescension.
By 1933, Dietrich is back in Germany with his family. He has become such a jazz aficionado, he plays jazz for his family to show off his knowledge of this new type of music that is exotic to his family. Dietrich also announces that he’s giving up his theology studies because, as he says,”In Harlem, I saw real faith.”
Dietrich is surprised and alarmed when he hears about the rise of the Nazi Party in Germany. And quicker than you can say “problematic and preachy movie,” Dietrich has become a pastor who gives blistering sermons that scold anyone in his congregation who directly or indirectly supports the Nazis. Dietrich is warned about the dangers of being an anti-Nazi activist, but he still carries on with this type of preaching.
“Bonhoeffer: Pastor. Spy. Assassin” gives only surface-level depictions of the horrors of the Holocaust. The movie has more scenes of Dietrich being distressed by himself in a prison cell than scenes of persecuted Jewish people being sent to Nazi death camps. Any scene of Dietrich interacting with captured Jews on their way to a death camp is brief and superficial, like he’s just a pastor dropping in to give some comfort, but then he can easily go back to his own home because he has the privilege of being a white German Christian.
When Dietrich goes to England and back to New York City to visit, he is shown doing more preaching and rehearsing of speeches. He decides to return to Germany because he feels it’s the right thing to do to fight Nazism there. But even when Dietrich returns to Germany, he goes back into “preaching from the pulpit” mode and seems very aloof from the difficult activism that the real Dietrich was involved in with the Resistance movement against the Nazis.
Dietrich’s allies depicted in the movie include Bishop Martin Niemöller, who goes from being a skeptic of Dietrich to a supporter; adult Sabine, who has become the sibling who’s Dietrich’s closest friend since the death of their brother Walter; and Hans von Dohnányi (played by Flula Borg), who is married to Dietrich’s sister Christel (played by Jade Matthew). Hans is the one who comes up with the idea to assassinate Hitler. Dietrich is portrayed as someone who reluctantly goes along with the idea.
“Bonhoeffer: Pastor. Spy. Assassin” shows Dietrich first and foremost as a recruiter for Christianity, with his Resistance activism in support of Jewish people often being secondary. When Dietrich rehearses an anti-Nazi speech, he talks about Jesus Christ and asks the intended recipients of the speech: “Will you follow him all the way to the cross?” It’s a speech that doesn’t take into account that you don’t have to be a Christian to be against Nazis.
Dietrich was obviously a Christian pastor, which undoubtedly influenced his religious views. But his brand of anti-Nazism has a somewhat condescending tone to Jewish people in this movie. No one in the movie is seen meeting with Jewish leaders to help fight the Nazis. Dietrich is only shown making plans with other Christians. And that in itself sums up the attitude of this misguided movie.
The fact of the matter is that people of many religions—as well as atheists and agnostics—joined forces to fight against Nazis during World War II. And this war against the Nazis was not just fought by white people but also by people of many different races. But you’d never know that factual history if you only believed what is presented in “Bonhoeffer: Pastor. Spy. Assassin.”
The movie’s acting performances are adequate but offer nothing that deserves awards. The film editing and screenplay (which is filled with drab and trite dialogue) are so muddled and tiresome, even if this movie had been told in chronological order, it still has problems with its selective rewriting of World War II history as it related to Dietrich Bonhoeffer. The cinematography is dull and makes the movie look washed-out.
The epilogue to “Bonhoeffer: Pastor. Spy. Assassin.” gives emotionally rousing captioned statements about the Holocaust and the evils of Nazism, but it’s told with a very biased religious perspective of Christianity being the main reason why the Nazis were defeated in World War II. “Bonhoeffer: Pastor. Spy. Assassin.” might be praised by people who aren’t very knowledgeable of the real Dietrich Bonhoeffer and World War II history and just want to see a movie about a Christian pastor who preached against Nazism during World War II. The “assassin” part of this movie’s title is very misleading, so anyone expecting this film to depict assassin antics against Nazis should watch the 2009 Oscar-winning action flick “Inglourious Basterds” instead. And there are several documentaries and dramas about Dietrich Bonhoeffer that are far better than “Bonhoeffer: Pastor. Spy. Assassin.”
Angel Studios will release “Bonhoeffer: Pastor. Spy. Assassin.” in U.S. cinemas on November 22, 2024. Sneak previews of the movie were held in U.S. cinemas on November 11, November 18, and November 20, 2024.
Culture Representation: Taking place in Germany and in the United States, from 1986 to 1998 (with some flashbacks to previous years), the dramatic biographical film “Girl You Know It’s True” (based on the story of pop duo Milli Vanilli) features a cast of white and black characters representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.
Culture Clash: German native Rob Pilatus and French native Fabrice “Fab” Morvan form a pop music duo called Milli Vanilli and agree to German music producer Frank Farian’s demands to pretend to the world that Pilatus and Morvan sang the vocals on Milli Vanilli’s first album.
Culture Audience: “Girl You Know It’s True” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of Milli Vanilli, late 1980s pop music and dramas based on real-life celebrity scandals.
Matthias Schweighöfer and Bella Dayne in “Girl You Know It’s True” (Photo courtesy of Vertical)
The biopic “Girl You Know It’s True” has both tawdriness and gravitas in chronicling the rise and fall of lip-syncing pop duo Milli Vanilli. Some scenes are very rushed, but the acting is solid, and there’s some satirical comedy that’s handled well. The movie’s combination of tabloid spectacle and tragic downfall can be expected because it’s a reflection of the real-life story of Milli Vanilli, a musical act that flamed out after just two years of hit-making stardom, when it was revealed in 1990 that the two members of Milli Vanilli didn’t sing any of their vocals on their smash debut album. In 1998, former Milli Vanilli member Rob Pilatus died of an overdose of alcohol and prescription medication, after years of battling substance abuse. Pilatus’ year of birth has been disputed, but he was believed to be 32 or 33 when he died.
Written and directed by Simon Verhoeven, “Girl You Know It’s True” was released less than a year after the 2023 Paramount+ documentary “Milli Vanilli” (directed by Luke Korem), which has a fuller story than this low-budget biopic. Several of the people who participated as interviewees in the “Milli Vanilli” documentary are among the associate producers for “Girl You Know It’s True” and are portrayed by actors in this biopic: Ingrid Segieth, who was part of Milli Vanilli’s music production team; Brad Howell, one of the singers who did the real vocals on Milli Vanilli’s first album; Todd Headlee, who was part of Milli Vanilli’s management team; and Carmen Pilatus, who was the adoptive older sister of former Milli Vanilli member Rob Pilatus.
Also listed as an associate producer of the “Girl You Know It’s True” movie is John Davis, one of the singers who did the real vocals on Milli Vanilli’s first album. Davis died in 2021, at the age of 66. Two of the co-producers of the “Girl You Know It’s True” movie are Fabrice “Fab” Morvan (one of the former members of Milli Vanilli) and Milli Vanilli fraud mastermind Frank Farian, who are obviously two of the main characters in the movie. In real life, Farian died on January 23, 2024. He was 82.
Because so many of the real-life people involved with Milli Vanilli were also involved in the making of “Girl You Know It’s True,” this movie is essentially an authorized biopic. Most of Milli Vanilli’s hits (the original recordings and/or versions recorded by the movie’s actors) are in the movie, such as “Girl You Know It’s True,” “Blame It on the Rain,” “Baby Don’t Forget My Number” and “Girl I’m Gonna Miss You.” The recreations of Milli Vanilli concerts and music videos are mostly faithful to what they looked like in real life, but you never forget that you’re watching actors. For the purposes of this review, the characters in this movie are referred to by their first names.
“Girl You Know It’s True” opens with Rob (played by Tijan Njie) and Fab (played by Elan Ben Ali) lounging in a recording studio in Germany and looking back on their Milli Vanilli journey in a somewhat morbid context. In these hindsight scenes, Rob is supposed to be a “ghost” who shares the narration with Fab, who says in the introduction, “There’s another side to the story” about the Milli Vanilli scandal. Actually, there’s nothing in “Girl You Know It’s True” that hasn’t already been revealed in documentaries and news reports.
Rob is the more flamboyant, reckless and extroverted member of the duo. Fab is quieter, more thoughtful and more level-headed. It’s shown repeatedly that they both treated each other like brothers. However, “Girl You Know It’s True” (which is somewhat jumbled in the beginning of the movie) only shows Rob’s childhood and his family. Fab’s childhood (he was born in 1966 in Paris) is never shown. In real life, Morvan has given interviews saying that he had an unhappy childhood, and his family was not supportive of him wanting to be an entertainer. In the movie, Fab is shown making phone calls to his mother.
Before showing the early years part of Rob’s life, “Girl You Know It’s True” does a quick run-through of the origins of music producer Frank Farian (played by Matthias Schweighöfer), the music producer who created the Milli Vanilli concept and co-wrote much of Milli Vanilli’s songs. As Fab says in a voiceover: “Without this guy, our story wouldn’t have happened.” The movie then does a brief flashback to 1953 to Kirn, West Germany, to show 12-year-old Frank (played by David Verhoeven) playing outside somewhere. This scene lasts for less than two minutes before the movie abruptly fast forwards to 1973, when 32-year-old Frank is working as a producer with the German pop/R&B group Boney M, his first big successful music act.
Boney M’s best-known songs (which were mostly hits in Europe in the late 1970s and early 1980s) included “Daddy Cool,” “Ma Baker,” “Belfast,” “Sunny,” “Rasputin,” “Mary’s Boy Child/Oh My Lord” and “Rivers of Babylon.” Boney M, just like Milli Vanilli, was later exposed as a lip-syncing music act whose songs were sung by other people because Farian wanted more physically attractive people to be presented as the singers instead of the real singers. There are implications of racial exploitation in both cases, because Farian was white and Boney M and Milli Vanilli were black.
As a child, Rob (played by Romeo Guy Da Silva) wasn’t fully accepted by the racist people in the community where he grew up in Munich because he was biracial. (His single mother, who gave him up for adoption, was white. His father was black. What the movie doesn’t mention is that Rob’s mother was a stripper.) Rob lived in an orphanage for the first four years of his life until he was adopted by spouses Hans Pilatus (played by Thomas Bading) and Antonie Pilatus (played by Ulrike Arnold), who considered themselves to be progressive because they adopted a child of another race.
“Girl You Know It’s True” downplays the racism that Rob experienced as a child. By most accounts, in real life, Rob was viciously bullied by people in his school and other people in the community because he wasn’t white. However, in the movie, the only “racism” that Rob experiences as a child is he gets hostile stares from white people who look at him as if he’s some type of alien.
Rob is very close to his adoptive sister Carmen (played by Tijan Marei), who has to tell underage Rob that he’s not related to Boney M, a group that he greatly admires and is one of the few black German entertainment acts that he sees on TV. Carmen is also the one who tells Rob that his biological father is an American military soldier who had a short-lived relationship with Rob’s biological mother. Years later, after Milli Vanilli became famous, this biological father—Andrew Harrison (played by Cornell Adams)—makes his identity known.
“Girl You Know It’s True” then fast-forwards to 1986 and 1987 in Munich, during the early years of Rob and Fab’s relationship. The movie depicts Rob and Fab (a recent immigrant from France) meeting at an audition to be backup dancers for a pop singer. The two young men instantly become friends and move in together, as they struggle to make it in showbiz. Rob is depicted as the one who came up with the idea for them to get their famous long braids because he said that all superstar music artists have well-known hairstyles.
As Rob and Fab live in obscurity and poverty in Munich, successful music producer Frank is doing an interview with a magazine journalist named Ingrid Segieth (played by Bella Dayne), who asks him if the rumors are true that the members of Boney M aren’t the real singers of Boney M songs. Frank gets defensive and tells Ingrid that no other media outlets have questioned Boney M’s validity. Ingrid then goes from interrogating Frank to asking if she can work for him.
The movie shows what happened in real life: Ingrid, whose nickname was Milli, became Frank’s lover and his most trusted assistant. What’s fabricated or exaggerated for the movie is a scene where Ingrid sees Rob and Fab dancing at a Munich nightclub and tells Frank about this charismatic and good-looking duo. Frank then invites Rob and Fab to his studio. More likely in real life, Frank found out about Rob and Fab through some of the local media exposure that the two pals were getting as dancers and DJs.
During this first meeting, Rob and Fab assume that Frank is interested in them to be singers for his next album project. But, as the movie depicts, Frank had already planned (with Ingrid being in on the plan from the beginning) for this album to be recorded by other singers, while Rob and Fab would be “front men” impersonators because of Rob’s and Fab’s good looks. “Girl You Know It’s True” makes it look like Frank thought of the name Milli Vanilli because it was a combination of Ingrid’s nickname Milli and because she was eating vanilla ice cream during this first jubilant meeting where Fab and Rob agreed to work with Frank.
All of the real singers of the first Milli Vanilli album were from the United States: Brad Howell (played by David Mayonga), who did the vocals that Rob Pilatus lip synced in public; Charles Shaw and John Davis (played by Samuel S. Franklin), who did the vocals that Morvan lip synced in public; and twin sisters Linda Rocco (played by Ramona Gianvecchio) and Jodie Rocco (played by Bonita Lubliner), who both did backup vocals on the album. In real life, Shaw was the first to go public (in 1988) about Rob Pilatus and Morvan not singing on Milli Vanilli’s first album. But by Shaw’s own admission, Farian paid him off, and Shaw retracted his statements at the time. Shaw (who is mentioned but not depicted by an actor in “Girl You Know It’s True) was replaced by Davis.
In “Girl You Know It’s True,” Frank offers to pay for everything to develop the career of Milli Vanilli. But when Fab takes a closer look at the contract and sees that he and Rob will not be singers on the album, Fab is hesitant to sign the contract and thinks an attorney should look at it. By contrast, Rob is eager to sign the contract because he wants to be a star as quickly as possible. Rob tells Fab that they can convince Frank to have Rob and Fab sing vocals on the second Milli Vanilli album.
Many people watching the movie know the rest: Milli Vanilli’s 1989 debut album, “Girl You Know It’s True,” was an instant smash, first in Europe (where the album was released in 1988, under the title “All or Nothing,” with a slightly different track listing) and then in several other continents. As depicted in the biopic, Rob and Fab relocate to Los Angeles, where they get caught up in a “sex, drugs and rock’n’roll” lifestyle. (“Girl You Know It’s True” was filmed in Los Angeles, Munich and Berlin.) Rob is shown as the Milli Vanilli member who became seriously addicted to drugs (especially cocaine) and living a hedonistic lifestyle.
In the movie “Girl You Know It’s True,” Milli Vanilli’s manager Benny Dorn (played by Ashley Downs) is depicted as an opportunist who knew about the singing scam, but only after the first Milli Vanilli album was recorded. In real life, Sandy Gallin (who died in 2017, at the age of 76) was Milli Vanilli’s manager at the height of Milli Vanilli’s fame. It can be assumed that Gallin’s name was changed for this movie for legal reasons.
Gallin’s real-life assistant at the time was Todd Headlee (played by Graham Rogers), who is portrayed as someone who spent more time with Rob and Fab than anyone else in Milli Vanilli’s Los Angeles entourage. There’s also a vocal coach named Lisa (played by Natasha Loring) who is part of Milli Vanilli’s Los Angeles-based team. Todd and Lisa are portrayed as enthusiastic employees who did not know about the lip syncing scam until it could no longer be kept a secret. Even so, Lisa noticed early on that Rob’s and Fab’s heavy European accents and real vocals didn’t match what was heard on the recorded songs that were released under the Milli Vanilli name.
Kevin Liles (played by SteVonté Hart), one of the writers of the “Girl You Know It’s True” song, has a small role in the movie, which depicts Liles’ early career in the music industry, before he went on to high-ranking positions at Def Jam, Island Def Jam and Warner Music Group. Liles is one of the executive producers of the movie “Girl You Know It’s True.” As shown in the movie, he and the co-writers of the song “Girl You Know It’s True” were involved in a copyright legal dispute with Frank, who initially used the song for Milli Vanilli without permission.
Throughout the Milli Vanilli fraud, Frank is depicted in “Girl You Know It’s True” as a tyrannical control freak who was paranoid about people finding out about the scam and who would fly into rages if he thought he was losing control over Rob and Fab. For example, Frank is furious about Rob and Fab’s move to Los Angeles because Frank won’t be able to supervise them as much as he would if Rob and Fab stayed in Germany. Ingrid is depicted as a cheerful accomplice who repeatedly describes this scam as being one big “art project.”
Milli Vanilli was signed to Arista Records in the United States. In the “Girl You Know It’s True” movie, Clive Davis (who was president of Arista at the time) is not portrayed by any actor, but he is mentioned as someone who knew about the fraud all along. The record company executives who appear briefly in the movie are depicted as soulless and greedy corporate types. “Girl You Know It’s True” undoubtedly portrays Frank as the person who is most to blame for the scandal, but the movie lets a lot of other people off the hook (such as Segieth and record company executives) too easily.
As for the performances in the movie, Njie is more convincing as Rob than Ben Ali is as Fab. That’s because Njie has a credible German accent, while Ben Ali’s French accent isn’t very consistent. Still, Njie and Ben Ali have very good chemistry together and effectively portray the brotherly bond between Rob and Fab. There’s also some comic relief in the film when Rob and Fab bicker over petty things, or when something ridiculous happens that can only happen to people living an over-the-top celebrity lifestyle.
“Girl You Know It’s True” checks all the boxes of well-known moments in Milli Vanilli’s career. These moments include the notorious Club MTV concert in Bristol, Connecticut, on July 21, 1989, when the on-stage recording malfunctioned, and Milli Vanilli cut short the concert in embarrassment; Milli Vanilli winning the Grammy Award for Best New Artist in February 1990; and Milli Vanilli returning the Grammy Award in shame at a Los Angeles press conference in November 1990, after Milli Vanilli was exposed as lip syncers. Farian had gone public with the scam in a separate press conference held six days earlier because Milli Vanilli had threatened to go public first if Farian didn’t let Rob Pilatus and Morvan sing on Milli Vanilli’s second album.
Although “Girl You Know It’s True” has plenty of these expected career moments of Milli Vanilli, what’s missing from the movie is a deeper sense of who these people were apart from their music careers. It’s mentioned briefly that Frank Farian grew up in poverty, but there is no information on what led up to him becoming such a big fraudster in the music business. Likewise, Rob and Fab are rarely shown interacting with anyone who isn’t making money off of them or who isn’t a hanger-on. It might be the movie’s way of showing how empty a celebrity’s life can be without real friends or family for emotional support. But it still comes across as a little too superficial, when lesser-known aspects of Milli Vanilli’s lives could have been explored in this movie.
Milli Vanilli’s post-scandal existence is rushed in at the end of the movie, with no depiction of Rob and Fab’s real-life failed attempted comeback under the stage name Rob & Fab. There’s a brief portrayal of Rob’s downward spiral, including his three-month prison stint in 1996, for assault, vandalism and attempted robbery. Ingrid is shown asking Frank for money to help Rob with these legal problems, and she is the one to take Rob home when he is released from prison. As it stands, “Girl You Know It’s True” competently follows the usual celebrity biopic formula. This movie could’ve gotten so many things wrong in telling this real-life story, but “Girl You Know It’s True” gets things mostly right.
Vertical released “Girl You Know It’s True” in select U.S. cinemas on August 9, 2024. The movie was released in Germany on December 21, 2023.
Culture Representation: Taking place in the Bavarian Alps in Germany, the sci-fi/horror film “Cuckoo” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with few Asian people and Latin people) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.
Culture Clash: A 17-year-old girl has nightmarish experiences and finds out that something sinister is going on at the vacation resort where her family is visiting.
Culture Audience: “Cuckoo” will appeal primarily to the fans of the movie’s headlines and will appeal people who don’t mind watching horror movies that are better at having terrifying moments than having mostly appealing characters.
Dan Stevens in “Cuckoo” (Photo courtesy of Neon)
The erratic horror film “Cuckoo” isn’t as clever as it thinks it is, but Hunter Schafer’s lead performance and some genuinely unique terror scenes elevate the story when it starts to become conventional and repetitive. The movie’s ending will be divisive to many viewers.
Written and directed by Tilman Singer, “Cuckoo” had its world premiere at the 2024 Berlin International Film Festival and its U.S. premiere at the SXSW Film & TV Festival. The movie uses a lot of formulaic stereotypes of horror film about family “stuck” in a remote area where something sinister is happening. However, “Cuckoo” has some imaginative scenes and scenarios that give “Cuckoo” enough to hold most viewers’ interest.
In “Cuckoo,” 17-year-old American girl Gretchen Vanderkurt (played by Hunter Schafer) has reluctantly traveled to the Bavarian Alps in Germany with her British-born father Luis (played by Márton Csókás); her American stepmother Beth (played by Jessica Henwick); and Gretchen’s 7-year-old mute half-sister Alma (played by Mila Lieu), who is the biological daughter of Luis and Beth. Gretchen’s biological mother is deceased. The family has been invited to a remote “nature preserve” resort by Luis’ mysterious and smirking boss Herr König (played by Dan Stevens), who is clearly up to no good from the moment that Herr König is seen on screen.
Luis and Beth want to build their own resort and are staying at Herr König’s resort for ideas and inspiration. Moody and pouty Gretchen is bored, so Herr König offers her a part-time job working as a front-desk receptionist at the resort. A friendly staffer named Beatrix, also known as Trixie (played by Greta Fernández), trains Gretchen in this new job. Beatrix has a lover named Erik (played by Konrad Singer), who’s a police officer.
It doesn’t take long for Gretchen to notice that the resort’s front-desk employees seem to disappear at around 10 p.m., with no explanation. She also notices that women show up in the resort lobby and vomit. And when a woman vomits in a movie, and she’s not drunk or intoxicated, there’s usually another predictable reason why.
Meanwhile, Gretchen starts having nightmarish visions when she’s asleep and when she’s awake. She has terrifying experiences of being stalked by a hooded woman (played by Kaylin Morrow), but no one seems to believe Gretchen. And so, the movie indulges in another horror cliché: the female who experiences terror but she is not believed by most people around her, and she’s deemed mentally ill.
Someone who believes Gretchen is Henry Landau (played by Jan Bluthardt), who tells Gretchen that he needs her help in finding the hooded woman, whom he says is wanted for murder. Early on in the movie, a resort neighbor named Dr. Bonomo (played by Proschat Madani) introduced herself to Gretchen. It should come as no surprise that Henry and Dr. Bonomo have secrets
There’s a not-very-interesting subplot about Gretchen getting romantically involved with a resort guest named Ed (played by Àstrid Bergès-Frisbey), who is in her 30s and has a sarcastic and rebellious personality. Some viewers of “Cuckoo” will think the age gap between Ed and Gretchen (who will soon turn 18) is very inappropriate. It should be noted that in many European countries, including Germany, the minimum age of sexual consent is 14. Although the age gap between Ed and Gretchen might be inappropriate to some viewers, it’s legal in this part of the world.
“Cuckoo” has very effective sound design and recurring close-ups of pulsating necks as a creepy visual motif. Gretchen also frequently listens to music, which makes a room vibrate in eerie ways that could be supernatural or part of Gretchen’s imagination. Grief is a big theme in “Cuckoo,” as Gretchen is very much in mourning over the death of her mother. There are multiple scenes where Gretchen is shown leaving messages on her dead mother’s voice mail.
Schafer holds many scenes together with her authentic-looking performance. Stevens’ performance gets increasingly campy, which might irritate viewers into really disliking the movie. “Cuckoo” is not a great horror movie, but it might be considered good enough for people who want some freaky jump scares and a mystery that’s fairly easy to solve.
Neon will release “Cuckoo” in U.S. cinemas on August 9, 2024.
Culture Representation: Taking place in an unnamed city in Germany, the dramatic film “The Teachers’ Lounge” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with some black people and people of Arabic heritage) representing the working-class and middle-class.
Culture Clash: At a middle school that is experiencing mysterious thefts, a teacher gets caught up in a scandal that is related to the thefts.
Culture Audience: “The Teachers’ Lounge” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in well-acted psychological thrillers about how people deal with ethical issues.
Leo Stettnisch in “The Teachers’ Lounge” (Photo by Judith Kaufmann/Sony Pictures Classics)
“The Teachers’ Lounge” is like a cauldron that effectively stirs up suspense and suspicion in this tale of a school thrown into chaos over theft accusations. Some viewers might not like how the movie ends, but the story in the film is riveting. The movie is best enjoyed by people who don’t mind film with conclusions that are open to interpretation.
Directed by Ilker Çatak (who co-wrote “The Teachers’ Lounge” screenplay with Johannes Duncker), “The Teachers’ Lounge” takes place in an unnamed city in Germany. The movie had its world premiere at the 2023 Berlin International Film Festival. “The Teachers’ Lounge” was also selected as German’s official entry in the Best International Feature Film category for the 2024 Academy Awards.
The central character in “The Teachers’ Lounge” is Carla Nowak (played by Leonie Benesch), a mathematics and physical education teacher at an unnamed middle school, where she teaches seventh graders. Carla is enthusiastic about her job, and she cares about her students. Her favorite student is Oskar Kuhn (played by Leonard Stettnisch), who has math skills that are far superior to everyone else in the Carla’s classroom. However, Oskar is socially awkward loner who is sometimes bullied by other students.
There has been increasing tension at the school, which has been experiencing thefts of personal items and cash. Students and school employees are victims of the thefts, which do not have a clear pattern of what will be taken or when. The school’s ongoing investigation has not resulted in any suspects. Observant viewers will notice at the beginning of the movie, the school has made it an internal investigation and haven’t filed any police reports.
An early scene in the movie shows two senior-level teachers named Milosz Dudek (played by Rafael Stachowiak) and Thomas Liebenwerda (played by Michael Klammer) meeting with two student representatives of the seventh-grade class: Lukas (played by Oscar Zickur) and Jenny (played by Antonia Küpper), who are given a list of students. Lukas and Jenny are then pressured by Milosz and Thomas to name any students on the list who are most likely to be suspects. Lukas and Jenny then reluctantly comply with this request.
It leads to Thomas and Milosz barging into Carla’s classroom unannounced to order the girls out of the classroom and then searching the wallets of the boys in the classroom. A student named Ali Yilmaz (played by Can Rodenbostel) is found to have a large amount of cash in his wallet. He is then taken out of the classroom and interrogated. Ali vehemently denies that the money was stolen and denies that he had anything to do with the thefts at the school.
The school summons Ali’s parents (played by Özgür Karadeniz and Uygar Tamer) for a meeting that includes Ali and school principal Dr. Bettina Böhm (played by Anne-Kathrin Gummich), who tries to remain nuetral. Ali’s mother demands to know why Ali was singled out as the most “suspicious” student. Bettina says that it’s because Ali had an unusually large amount of cash in his wallet that day.
Ali’s parents explain that they gave him the cash so that Ali could buy a birthday present for his cousin. There are racial and ethnic undertones to this conversation, because Ali’s parents (who are immigrants from an unnamed Arabic country) seem to be wondering if Ali was really singled out because he’s one of the few non-white students in the school’s seventh-grade class. Ali’s parents say that they are offended by the false accusation.
With no proof that he committed any theft, Ali is let go and is not punished. But the gossip about Ali being interrogated spreads throughout the school, and it makes some people permanently suspicious of Ali. Carla thinks that Ali was unfairly targeted and isn’t afraid to say so when she talks about it to other faculty members in the teachers’ lounge.
Carla is outraged at the way the investigation is being handled and thinks that it was inappropriate for Thomas and Milosz to interrupt her class to search students’ wallets. She also thinks that people should be treated as innocent until proven guilty. Two of the other teacher colleagues at the school include Vanessa König (played by Sarah Bauerett) and Lore Semnik (played by Kathrin Wehlisch), whose personalities aren’t very memorable.
Thomas is defiant and unapologetic. He says that the thefts have been going on for too long and something needs to be done about this crime spree. Thomas also says that Ali is in danger of flunking, as if Ali’s academic grades are somehow related to the thefts. Milosz is remorseful though, and he tells Carla that he’s sorry about how he and Thomas handled the investigation. Carla accepts the apology.
Not long after this heated conversation, Carla notices a female teacher casually steal some coins from a piggy bank in the lounge. Carla doesn’t say anything to anyone about this theft that she witnessed. This scene is supposed to make viewers wonder if a teacher, not a student, could be a culprit committing the thefts.
Carla then makes a fateful decision that changes the course of the story: She deliberately sets a video surveillance trap. Carla leaves her coat and laptop computer in the teachers’ lounge. Inside one of the coat pockets is a wallet with cash in it. The laptop computer is open, with the camera operating.
What happens next has some twists and turns. It’s enough to say that Carla’s attempt to do her own investigation ends up backfiring on her. She becomes the center of a scandal that also involves a teacher colleague named Friederike Kuhn (played by Eva Löbau), who is Oskar’s emotionally high-strung mother.
Benesch gives a compelling performance as Carla, who finds out how paranoia and mistrust can cut both ways. Nothing about Carla’s personal life is revealed in the movie, which gives viewers the impression that Carla’s life revolves around her job, thereby making the stakes even higher for her. Stettnisch also gives a very good performance as Felix, who becomes increasingly troubled as events unfold.
“The Teachers’ Lounge” is a gripping story that embodies the old adage: “The road to hell is paved with good intentions.” It’s a movie that is steeped in realism, until the movie’s last few minutes, which take on a dream-like tone that might be divisive to viewers. This is not a movie where all questions will be answered, but it’s an above-average cinematic portrait about how quickly and how often judgments are made based on perceptions instead of facts.
Sony Pictures Classics released “The Teachers’ Lounge” in select U.S. cinemas on December 25, 2023.
Some language in French, Japanese, German and Russian with subtitles
Culture Representation: Taking place in the United States, France, Japan and Germany, the action film “John Wick: Chapter 4” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with some Asians and African Americans) representing the working-class, middle-class, wealthy and criminal underground.
Culture Clash: Notorious mercenary John Wick fights several opponents in various countries, in order to be released from his servitude punishment from the High Table, a council of 12 crime lords who oversee the underworld’s most powerful criminal groups.
Culture Audience: “John Wick: Chapter 4” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the “John Wick” franchise, star Keanu Reeves, and action-packed movies that can get very violent.
Donnie Yen, Bill Skarsgård and Marko Zaror in “John Wick: Chapter 4” (Photo by Murray Close/Lionsgate)
“John Wick: Chapter 4” is the most stunning and stylish-looking of the “John Wick” movies. Elaborate fight scenes are the movie’s biggest assets, but there’s also plenty of suspense, well-placed comedy and a meaningful story of humanity at the heart of this ultra-violent movie. “John Wick: Chapter 4” is an ending chapter of this franchise, but an end-credits scene in the movie hints that the saga will continue in another storyline.
Directed by Chad Stahelski, “John Wick: Chapter 4” was written by Shay Hatten and Michael Finch. The movie had its world premiere at the 2023 SXSW Film & TV Festival. It’s an epic movie (with a total running time of 169 minutes) that is filled with adrenalin-pumping action that is never boring but can be overwhelming or offensive for people who have a low tolerance for violence in movies. At this point, most people who want to see a “John Wick” movie already that “John Wick” movies have a lot murders and mayhem. Everyone else should be prepared for ths onslaught.
It’s not necessary to see the previous “John Wick” movies, but it helps give better context to some of the relationships in the movie. The plot of “John Wick: Chapter 4” is fairly simple: Notorious mercenary John Wick (played by Keanu Reeves) fights several opponents in various countries, in order to be released from his servitude punishment from the High Table, a council of 12 crime lords who oversee the underworld’s most powerful criminal groups. The current leader of the table is a ruthless sadist named Marquis (played by Bill Skarsgård), who is based in Paris. Even among these criminals, there are rules and codes of conduct that must be followed.
John’s quest leads him from his native United States to various other countries, including Japan, France and Germany. Some of his allies can turn into enemies, while some of his enemies can turn into allies. The characters he encounters include Winston (played Ian McShane), owner of the Continental Hotel in New York City; Continental Hotel concierge Charon (played by Lance Reddick, who died on March 17, 2023, one week before the release date of “John Wick: Chapter 4”); and Bowery King (played by Laurence Fishburne), leader of the Soup Kitchen, a New York City-based underworld intelligence network that is disguised as a homeless shelter.
In “John Wick: Chapter 4,” John has two hit men who have been hired to kill him: blind assassin Caine (played by Donnie Yen) and bounty hunter Tracker (played by Shamier Anderson), who is accompanied by his loyal German Shepherd. While in Japan, John interacts with Shimazu (played by Hiroyuki Sanada), the manager of the Continental Hotel in Osaka, as well as Shimazu’s daughter Akira (played by Rina Sawayama), who is a high-ranking manager at the hotel. Also in the movie are a Russian mafia princess named Katia (played by Natalia Tena); Chidi (played by Marko Zaror), who is Marquis’ second-in-command henchman; and Harbinger (played by Clancy Brown), who is a high-ranking member of the High Table.
Visually, “John Wick: Chapter 4” is the most vibrant of the “John Wick” movies. Dan Laustsen’s exquisite cinematography has gorgeously rich hues and eye-popping camera angles. Some critics might argue that this movie makes violence took glamorous, but there’s no denying that “John Wick: Chapter 4” is an achievement in visual arts for action films. And let’s be clear: The movie has no ambiguity in rooting for who the “good” characters are.
“John Wick: Chapter 4” takes on many qualities of a comic book come to life, such as the way that word fonts look on screen, how the action scenes are choreographed, and the manner in which some of the villains are portrayed. (And to its detriment, “John Wick: Chapter 4” has very simplistic dialogue, similar to a comic book.) Scott Adkins plays a German crime boss named Killa (the leader of the High Table’s German operations), who is a character that looks like he was inspired by the Kingpin villain in Marvel Comics. Killa is a massive thug who wears a business suit and has gold-plated front teeth. You can imagine how those gold teeth will be used as comic relief in one of the fight scenes.
“John Wick: Chapter 4” certainly has some very cartoonish violence. However, the violence gets much more realistic in the last third of the movie. There’s an unusual and somewhat comedic action sequence involving a long flight of stairs that is sure to be one of the most memorable aspects of “John Wick: Chapter 4.” And the last 15 minutes of the movie just might make some viewers cry. “John Wick: Chapter 4” goes beyond what typical action movies do by not just offering unique fight scenes but also stirring up complex emotions for the main characters in ways that can be unexpected.
Lionsgate will release “John Wick: Chapter 4” in U.S. cinemas on March 24, 2023.
Culture Representation: Taking place in Germany and France, from 1917 to 1918, the World War I dramatic film “All Quiet on the Western Front” (based on the novel of the same name) features an all-white cast of characters representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.
Culture Clash: A teenager loses his innocence after he becomes a soldier in the German Army during World War I, while a ruthless general and a liberal politician have different ideas about how Germany should handle the war.
Culture Audience: “All Quiet on the Western Front” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of realistic war movies and Erich Maria Remarque’s 1929 novel of the same name.
Daniel Brühl (pictured at far right) in “All Quiet on the Western Front” (Photo by Reiner Bajo/Netflix)
Told from a German perspective, this version of “All Quiet on the Western Front” is the most brutal and harrowing in showing the horrors of World War I. The movie has well-crafted technical assets, but the personalities of the characters are underdeveloped. The main protagonist is a teenage German soldier. The actor portraying this character has less than 15 minutes of dialogue in this 147-minute movie.
Directed by Edward Berger, the 2022 version of “All Quiet on the Western Front” is based on Erich Maria Remarque’s 1929 novel of the same name. Berger co-wrote the adapted screenplay with Lesley Paterson and Ian Stokell. It’s the third movie version of the novel, following the 1930 version (directed by Lewis Milestone) and the 1979 TV-movie version (directed by by Delbert Mann).
The first two movie adaptations of “All Quiet on the Western Front” were American-made and starred American actors portraying Europeans. The 2022 version of “All Quiet on the Western Front” (which was filmed in the Czech Republic) is a German production and has German actors in the majority of the starring roles. The movie had its world premiere at the 2022 Toronto International Film Festival.
In the 2022 version “All Quiet at the Western Front” (which takes place in Germany and France from 1917 to 1918), viewers see the transformation of teenage German soldier Paul Bäumer (played by Felix Kammerer) from being a naïve recruit who’s eager to participate in the war to an emotionally devastated war veteran who has been worn down by all the death and destruction around him. Meanwhile, the movie shows how two very different government officials have contrasting views on Germany’s actions during this war. One is a liberal politician who wants to negotiate to end the war, while the other is a ruthless general who wants Germany to win the war at any cost.
“All Quiet on the Western Front” begins in early 1917, by showing a young German soldier named Heinrich Gerber (played by Jakob Schmidt) fighting on a battlefield. The movie does a freeze-frame, right when he’s about to attack a French soldier. What happened?
Viewers then see that Heinrich has died, because his body is dumped in a truck that is transporting the corpses of other German military men. The movie then shows that Henrich’s former military uniform has been sent for repairs to a factory in Germany. His name tag is still on the uniform.
In the spring of 1917, quiet and amiable 17-year-old Paul is joyously celebrating his graduation from an all-boys high school at a ceremony attended by by fellow classmates. The school’s headmaster gives the graduates a patriotic pep talk about Germany’s involvement in World War I. Whether or not Paul was thinking about joining the German Army before this pep talk, Paul enlists in the army soon after his graduation.
When he gets his military uniform, Paul notices right away that it has the name tag Heinrich Gerber. He tells the person who gave the uniform to Paul that there must be a mistake, because he was given someone else’s uniform. The uniform is taken away, and Paul is given another uniform. Paul is given an explanation that the uniform that Paul was given by mistake was probably discarded by the previous owner because the uniform was too small.
Of course, viewers (but not Paul) know that the Henrich is dead. And the fact that the German Army is recycling a dead man’s uniform is a symbol of how impersonal and “assembly line” a war can be, in terms of how thousands or millions of soldiers on the front line are treated. Paul is about to find out the hard way that he’s just another number in this vicious war. The movie also shows this “assembly line” symbolism when Paul is assigned the task of collecting military identification tags from dead bodies on battlefields.
Paul and his troop are eventually sent to France, which is occupied by Germany at this time. The expected horrific battle scenes ensue, with graphic depictions of killings and other deaths during combat. But amid the madness and mayhem, Paul bonds with some of his fellow soldiers. The movie’s brightest and most endearing moments come from scenes showing these friendships.
One of Paul’s army buddies is Albert Kropp (played by Aaron Hilmer), who is about the same age as Paul and who becomes Paul’s best friend in this war. Albert, who sees himself as somewhat of a charming ladies’ man, often talks about how he can’t wait for the war to end so he can go back to being around women. As a new recruit, Albert is terrified and very nervous, compared to Paul, who starts off being very enthusiastic and confident about serving his country in this war. But that confidence is then destroyed by several traumatic experiences.
Four other men from Paul’s troop become part of a tight-knit circle of close acquaintances, including Paul. Stanislaus “Kat” Katczinsky (played by Albrecht Schuch), who is in his 30s, likes to portray himself as a cocky “alpha male” type. However, there’s a very poignant scene where Kat (who cannot read) asks Paul to read a letter from Kat’s wife. The letter reveals that Kat’s somewhat arrogant demeanor actually masks a lot of personal pain.
Two of Paul’s classmates from high school are also part of the troop: Franz Müller (played by Moritz Klaus) and Ludwig Behm (played by Adrian Grünewald). Ludwig doesn’t hesitate to show how afraid he is about being in combat. While hiding out with other troop members in a bunker, Ludwig cries out for his mother. He gets some insults from a few of the soldiers, who think Ludwig is being wimpy, but Paul can understand this fear because he feels it too.
Tjaden Stackfleet (played by Edin Hasanovic), who is in his late 20s or early 30s, is a military police officer who dreams of being promoted to the position of corporal. Kat scoffs at Tjaden by saying, “You’ll never be a corporal.” Tjaden (who is deeply insecure) takes this comment as a personal insult but attempts to brush it off, so as not to let it show how much this comment hurt his feelings.
Through it all, Paul tries to hold on to his humanity when the harsh realities of war fighting force Paul and other people in combat to do some very inhumane things. Just like almost every movie that has a lot of war combat scenes, the soldiers face moral dilemmas and have to make split-second decisions that could mean life or death. And for all-male troops, there are machismo issues about who can look the toughest and the bravest.
“All Quiet on the Western Front” is not subtle at all in contrasting the filthy and dangerous living conditions of the soldiers on the front lines of combat and comparing all of it to the pampered and safe living conditions of the leaders who cause these wars. The movie cuts back and forth betwen these contrasts in several scenes. It’s a way to put an emphasis on who really benefits financially from war, which can be a profitable business for some people.
Libeal politician Matthias Erzberger (played by Daniel Brühl) wants to end the war by having Germany peacefully negotiate with France. He meets with France’s Marshal Ferdinand Foch (played by Thibault de Montalembert), who offers a deal that is non-negotiable, with Germany given a deadline of 72 hours to respond to the deal. Erzberger is put in a tough situation: He doesn’t want to give in to these demands too easily, because he knows he might be branded as a traitor to Germany. France’s Generalmajor Maxime Weygand (played by Gabriel Dufay) also plays a role in these tense German-French war discussions.
Being open to negotiating a truce is in direct contrast to what’s desired by General Friedrich (played by Devid Striesow), who is usually shown dining in mansions that are far removed from the war. General Friedrich wants to use the war for his own personal gain, so that he can achieve military glory and all the financial rewards and fame that come with it. Needless to say, General Friedrich is fanatical about Germany winning the war, no matter what the human cost of Germans who die.
“All Quiet on the Western Front” has top-notch production design, cinematography, original score music and sound editing/sound mixing. Where the movie isn’t as stellar is in some of the film editing (which makes the story look a little choppy and abrupt in some scene transitions) and in the screenplay, which has dialogue that tends to be over-simplistic. The screenplay makes many of the movie’s principal characters a little too vague or stereotypical.
Most of the perspective of “All Quiet on the Western Front” comes from Paul, but viewers don’t really get to know a lot of basic things about him during this lengthy film. For example, the movie never shows or tells who Paul’s family is, or what Paul wants to do with his life after the war. And because he doesn’t talk much in this movie, the Paul character could have easily been no more complex than a character in a video game.
However, thanks to the admirable talent of Kammerer in the role of Paul, this character becomes more than just a generic soldier. Kammerer (who has a background in theater/stage acting) makes his feature-film debut in “All Quiet on the Western Front.” He is very effective at showing Paul’s feelings through his eyes, facial expressions and body language.
Paul is the heart and soul of the movie, but it’s a heart and soul that the filmmakers have shrouded in a certain amount of mystery. Even with some things about Paul remaining enigmatic, there’s no mystery over how emotionally shattered Paul becomes during the course of this story. By the end of “All Quiet on the Western Front,” viewers will be emotionally affected too, no matter what people think about war.
Netflix released “All Quiet on the Western Front” in select U.S. cinemas on October 7, 2022. The movie premiered on Netflix on October 28, 2022.
So-called “honor killings” are part of an extremely conservative Muslim culture that teaches that it’s acceptable to murder a family member who brings shame upon the family. This type of killing is usually committed by a male against a female, and it usually has to do with the female’s sexuality. The German film “A Regular Woman” is the dramatic, scripted version of the real-life “honor killing” of 23-year-old Hatun “Aynur” Sürücü, a Turkish-Kurdish woman who was murdered by one of her brothers in 2005 in Berlin.
In the movie, she’s played by Almila Bagriacik as a woman who’s truly a victim of her circumstances. At 16, Aynur was forced into a marriage to a cousin who physically and emotionally abused her. She has a son named Can with her husband, but when Aynur can no longer take the abuse, she leaves her husband and flees with Can to Germany, where they start a new life.
It’s revealed in the beginning of the film that Aynur is a murder victim. The crime scene is shown with her dead body covered, and Aynur (who’s supposed to be speaking as a dead person in another dimension) narrates the film in voiceovers and tells the audience that one of her brothers murdered her. The rest of the movie is a series of flashbacks showing the events leading up to the murder and its aftermath.
Even though Aynur begins her new life in Berlin, she can’t really escape from her large, meddling family. Three of her brothers—Nuri (played by Rauand Taleb), Tarik (played by Aram Arami) and Sinan (played by Mehmet Atesci)—are especially offended that Aynur has rejected a traditional life as a subservient Muslim wife, and they keep tabs on what she’s been doing in Berlin. When the brothers see that Aynur has stopped wearing a hijab and has begun wearing Western clothes such as jeans and T-shirts, they feel scandalized. Youngest brother Nuri is the one who is the angriest with Aynur, especially when she begins dating a German man named Tim (played by Jacob Matschenz). Aynur and Tim end up living together, and it isn’t long before Aynur’s brothers start harassing him.
Aynur has a slightly better relationship with her brother Aram (played by Armin Wahedi Yeganeh), whom she trusts the most, and sister Shirin (played by Merve Askoy), but all of her siblings are still influenced by their extreme religious beliefs, and they have varying levels of disapproval of Aynur’s new lifestyle. Aynur has a love/hate relationship with her family. Although she knows that they think she’s an immoral harlot, she can’t quite cut herself off from them. A part of her knows they will never approve of her new life, but a part of her is in denial and thinks that they might eventually accept it.
Meanwhile, Aynur has jumped from one male-dominated environment into another. She enrolls in school to become an electrician, and she’s the only female in her class. She eventually decides to move from Berlin to Freiburg, shortly after she turns 23. Because “A Regular Woman” reveals in the beginning of the film that Aynur is going to be murdered by one of her brothers, the movie sacrifices a lot of suspense that could have been experienced by people who don’t know what happened in real life. (Her murder was big news in Germany, but not well-known in many other countries.) Therefore, the first and second acts of the film are basically a countdown to the heinous crime.
What the movie doesn’t reveal until the third act is what happened to the murderer, who else knew about the crime before it happened, and who ended up being punished for it. “A Regular Woman” director Sherry Hormann does a capable job of telling Aynur’s story, while actress Bagriacik does a believable and sympathetic portrayal of a young woman trying to find her identity in the midst of this family turmoil.
This movie is not a judgment against the Muslim religion but an unflinching critique of anyone who devalues women’s lives or treats women as always inferior to men. Unfortunately, there are so many movies and TV shows being made about women who are murdered, that “A Regular Woman” might get lost in this over-saturation. What’s even more tragic is that these stories are all too often based on what happened in real life.
UPDATE: Corinth Films will release “A Regular Woman” in select U.S. virtual cinemas on June 26, 2020.
