VERSUS THE SCARECROW EPISODE NINE: Yes! German Foreign Films. I decided to challenge myself and really open the doors of my film knowledge and take on “The Scarecrow Video Movie Guide”. It’s 808 pages of movies and movie reviews from some of the most knowledgeable movie people you don’t know. It’s a book put together by a staff that praises, and destroys, some of our favorites and not so favorites. You can read the rest of my series here.
Just a quick refresher: each episode, I’m going to tackle three films from three different categories. Two films will be films I’ve never seen before and one will be one I’ve seen before or own. For the new films, well, new to me, I’m going to review them like a typical FTS review using the TOAST Rating system. But, for the films I’ve seen, I’m going give a quick paragraph or two about why I like or don’t like the film. We’ll try to include the poster and trailer for each film. “….and here. We. Go!”
In this week’s episode, I put my cleverness aside and take a look at German Foreign films. I’ll be looking at Herzog’s Aguirre, der Zorn Gottes (1972), Das Boot (1981), and I’ll be reflecting on the first German foreign film I ever watched: Lola Rennt (1998)
A Relfection on Run Lola Run (1998)
When I first watched this film, years ago, I was bored and confused. Bored because I thought so what? She’s just running the whole time and confused because it was in German. I watched it recently for this episode and found myself underwhelmed. I approached it with an open mind because I had honestly forgotten most things about it, but I guess I was looking for a little more action and less story. Sounds weird, but the more the story would develop after each… how can I say this without spoilers… “event” the more I became disinterested in Lola (Franka Potente, and no, she was not a showgirl) and her relationship with Manni (Moritz Bleibtreu).
Visually it still holds up and there is some impressive camerawork done by director Tom Tykwer (Cloud Atlas). The soundtrack was provided mainly by Tykwer, Johnny Klimek, and Reinhld Heil (again, Cloud Atlas) and was pretty cool, helping the movie keep its pace. Overall it’s a fun film and something to be watched so you can appreciate more of life’s pop culture references.
You can read the rest of episode 9 where I reviewed Aguirre, der Zorn Gottes and Das Boot. If you’re interested in more, you can find the rest of the Versus The Scarecrow series here.