Taraparain
Tells a fascinating and unsettling true story, and does so well, without pretending to have all the answers.
Horst in Translation ([email protected])
"Bungalow" is a German movie from 2002 that is also mostly in the German language. It has its 15th anniversary this year and was the first full feature film work by director Ulrich Köhler, who is also one of the two writers. The cast includes some relatively known names even today 1.5 decades later like Striesow, Castel and Dyrholm. strangely enough Lennie Burmeister, who was the lead in here has not acted in almost 10 years now. Looking his name up, it seems as if he is focusing more on skateboarding apparently. But back to this movie. It is a pretty short work, only runs for roughly 80 minutes and it is the story of a young man who decides to leave his army squad (Bundeswehr) and disobey orders this way. So the soldiers are basically looking for him for the entire film, but this is just a subplot. The real action is about the boy returning home to see his (ex-)girlfriend and brother once again and we find out about his relationship with these two and how it was in the past and what it may or may not look like in the future. A major addition is also the brother's girlfriend who is considerably older than our protagonist, but still not only goes on a tour with him, but even has sex with him. Eventually, this one is one of just a few aspects that make the film appear somewhat unrealistic at times. This is quite a shame as the general premise isn't a bad one and could have made for a decent, relatively tense and atmospheric family drama. But I guess Köhler was not at his best yet (as the good moments like the ending were just too rare) or he just doesn't appeal to me as I for example wasn't impressed at all by his considerably later work "Schlafkrankheit". I can only say the stuff I already saw from him does not make me curious about what I haven't seen yet. As for this one here, I have to give it a thumbs-down and I believe it was a missed opportunity as with some better writing, love to detail and perhaps actors as well this could have turned out a much better film. I think all the awards attention is not justified. Watch something else instead.
Richard von Lust
This has to be one of the most tedious, pointless and plot less films of all time. It's only redeeming quality is that the experience of sitting through an hour of it allows an appreciation of every other film one can think of - even the ubiquitous 'Attack of the killer tomatoes'.In the days of compulsory National Service, a young man deserts the Army and goes home where he finds himself attracted to his brother's girlfriend. That's the plot. The pace can only be described as static. The lead actor is a handsome young man who drops his underpants in at least four scenes. In fact one might be forgiven for thinking that the whole point of this production was the director's urge to get this young unknown actor to be naked on set for as long as possible. There is even a scene where he actually begins to explicitly masturbate on camera. This did not exactly propel him into stardom as he appeared in only 4 more productions. One really has to question the value and the purpose of his displays in this production.After an hour I had to fast forward the last fifteen minutes to reach the climax. It was that bad. So boring are the characters that any interest in their fate evaporates in the warmth of drowsiness. And when I opened my eyes the plot had advanced to an entirely predictable, utterly unpoetical and completely banal ending. Don't bother watching this.
hasosch
This is an enigmatic movie made in the good tradition of the land of the thinkers, but applied to a generation that seems to be lost. The figures move nervously, undecided, contradictorily - are they puppets guided by someone or not even that? The protagonist obviously cannot stand the breathtaking narrowness of the "Bundeswehr" (German army) anymore. Penned and crammed we see him amidst of his soldier colleagues on the track. During a refreshing break, he just remains sitting, while the others go back to their duties. Via auto-stop, train and on feet, he reaches the bungalow of his parents, where he meets his brother and the brother's girl-friend. From bunker to bungalow. You will seldom find a movie that makes you this menacing imprisoning narrowness everywhere feel creepier: even the swimming-pool is small, the protagonist swims his round on the horizontal like the tiger goes back and forth in the vertical.So far for the impression of this minimalist movie whose lack of dialog remembers to French New Wave. But what is the story? Did the protagonist know that he would meet his brother's girlfriend in whom he is interested? He seems not to be astonished when the two arrive. Moreover, he must have known that the bungalow is the first place where the army-police would look for him. But he shows no sign of fear, although hard prison for his desertion is awaiting him. Planless, aimless, goalless, he lives between his bedroom, the swimming-pool and sometimes a bottle of "Scharlachberg". More and more it turns out that he has one goal: to sleep with this brother's girlfriend. Not even the break-up of his own girlfriend torments him much, and when she comes back and invites him to stay overnight with her, he does not go. Finally, his more and more acute danger to get caught by the military police seems to awake the mother-instinct of his brother's girlfriend. When they come home, they see the army cars standing before the bungalow, they drive on, obviously unrecognized. In a little hotel they rent a room, and finally, the protagonist gets what he was yearning for so intensely: he and his brother's girlfriend sleep with one another. However, before she is picked up later by his brother, the protagonist calls the military-police and turns himself in. The question is why. Is he tired of the cat-and-mouse game? Did he simply reach what he wanted so dearly, and - "after me the Ogygian deluge"? Or did he break his brother in a most important moment? We don't know, and without any commentary on the disc, we will never know. However, Fassbinder said once that a movie is good if it does not stop when the cinema is over, when it stays in the heads of the audience. This movie does not go out of your head.
sechriwa
Bungalow definetely is one of the best German films I've ever seen, maybe even the best. But it is also a love-or-hate movie. I loved it for personal reasons and if you can't identify with one of the characters, you'll probably ask yourself what the director intended to show the audience or you'll simply find 'Bungalow' boring. For me, it wasn't. It felt like a longer version of Marcus Weiler's short 'Always crashing in the same car', a German version of Larry Clark's study of aimlessness and loneliless in 'Ken Park' or even a German version of Richard Kelly's masterpiece 'Donnie Darko' reduced to that feeling of being somehow lost, without a direction to follow that seems right.The acting is brilliant and the (non-)dialogues are brilliant. If you are German and born in the 80s, maybe you'll love this movie. I was impressed. 10 out of 10.
