Actuakers One of my all time favorites.

Matialth Good concept, poorly executed.

TrueHello Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

Dana An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

cheese_cake the German response to the french new wave. hardly! this movie follows the true lineage of main stream German cinema, in that while exploring human relationships and human drama it does not get too existentialist about it. the characters and story is grounded in reality and has a little bit of action, a la German TV detective shows, to quicken the pulse. the story is about two women sharing a house somewhere in the German mountains/alps. one of them is in a destructive yet highly sexual relationship with a ski instructor. the other mops around feeling lonely and meets an intriguing new stranger. the ski instructor is well defined in that while he is a cad and cheats prolificly on his girlfriend, he is not too one dimensional. the feeling one gets about him is that he is young and full of his strength and sexuality. although, there are scenes where in typical new wave backlash to the immancipation of the German male, he sits back and picks lint out of his navel while ordering his "woman" around. as in get the coffee, biatch. not to spoil the story, but he gets his just reward in the end. the mysterious stranger who becomes a seemingly rewarding boyfriend for the other female lead is less well defined. he is weird and i kept thinking now he will be a junkie or a serial killer, but he just gets amnesia. although he does steal a car in the beginning with disastrous results for a local farmer, which is one of the plot tangents which is meant to evoke universal human suffering empathy. the two lead females are humdrum boring and seem to get along well, while searching for a good man. personally, a good dog and more masturbation, is what i would recommend to them. the movie also features some good cinematography, especially the shot in the end of the blonde girl in the red sweater, smoking a cigarette, as she looks out of the frosty window at the cloud draped mountains. all in all, twyker delivers an entertaining film, which is perfect for a Saturday afternoon after a heavy meal, when heavy thoughts and philosophies are best avoided. might i also recommend taking your buxom (if your'e lucky) girl toy ;) to this movie in a dark theatre. geocities.c*m/free_love98

manoj252 The film Winter Sleepers took the audience on a twisty-curvy journey through the experiences of five people, whose lives intersected in an ironic and sometimes tragic way. The plot was somewhat Mementoesque fashion, although the use of multiple flash-backs and flash-forwards weren't employed. I was impressed to see that that this film came out in 1997, several years before Memento; I wonder if the idea for Memento was somewhat inspired by this film. The film did a good job of creating a setting that was enticing and believable. The scenery of small-town Bavaria in winter was very pastoral, and the mountain shots (presumably the Alps) were breathtaking. The lighting was soft and warm, creating the sensation of being snug despite the wintry beauty outside. The coziness and clutteredness of the character Rebecca's house also helped to create this illusion. **Plot Spoilers Ahead** I felt that the plot and/or character development could have been a bit tighter. For instance, Theo's character seems to spin in circles for a good portion of the movie, and when he finally finds his direction and decides to take action, the action he decides to take is shocking and tragic. In a twist of fate, he ends up driving Marco off a cliff for committing a crime he didn't commit. I wasn't too sad to see Marco go, given his nasty habit of cheating on his girlfriend; however, I found Theo's actions to be implausible given the previous context of his character, and his character's identity essentially was undermined. In addition to this minor flaw, there was a general failure to resolve the conflicts set forth in the film in any meaningful way. When the film ended, I was left unsatisfied and a little disappointed. I know that European movies don't always end in the same perfect-world way that most American movies do; however, I still felt that more resolution could have been achieved in this film.Overall, however, I did enjoy the film very much, and felt that the strong points outweighed the week points. I would give this film an 8 out of 10 for its ability to draw my attention with an interesting plot and likeable characters.

liangdong Contains Spoilers Ren¨¦: Typical intellectual, director's alter-ego who seems to have a meditative pursuit of life. He has a strange way of dealing with his amnesia: taking photographs of his personal life Being a projectionist is a good symbol of his life attitude: detachment with no obsession or rebelliousness. However, he does not shirk the relationship with other people blindly but accept what his destiny arranges for him, as symbolized by the baby in his lap at the end of the film.Marco: Typical male animal, in addition to chasing opposite sex all the time, his only concern is watching TV and consuming garbage food. His trouble besides jealousy is that he fails to penetrate Rebecca's spiritual world. He has this smug clinging fascination to material things that he even ask for the exact price of Rebecca's mother's inheritance auction. Eager to show off his new sports car but disappointed to find out that his girlfriend is not interested at all. His reaction after losing his car makes a strong contrast to other people's indifference to material wealth. It is interesting that he keep asking Rebecca to do one more part-time job, for what? For giving him more money to those libidinal excursion? That final sequence of falling in the air is wonderful.Rebecca: Female with temperament of literature. Her need of Marco is at one side a prove of the advantages body has over spirit, on the side the yearning and beautification of her curious mind to what Marco represent, a primitive, wild force. However, both he and she felt unquestionably her intellectually superiority and it seems quite normal for a woman like her to establish man-woman relationship like this: She need him but not love him, so need him just like a dildo which can be reasonably substituted by masturbation, or even preferred in certain cases. To piss under the tree is probably from Simone de Beauvoir's Second Sex and I am sure Laura wouldn't think of doing that.Laura: Female of melancholy who has less intellectual superiority but more emotional sensitivity and prefers bonny intellectual to simple-minded male animal. Her job in the film is just sitting there watching the patient dying and drinking with other nurses afterwards. She express her female quality in activities such as going to beauty salon and visiting Ren¨¦ after he failed to show up on a date. Her repugnance to Marco is just what we expected.

raymond-15 This is the first I have seen of Tom Tykwer's work. In a word, outstanding. This movie has all the necessary elements for a successful production and ensures a completely entertaining evening. The opening (and what an opening!) sets the mood..... A chilly landscape of deep snow with helicopter shots racing across treetops heavily weighed down with a recent fall.....And the music with its tremulous monotone suggests impending drama. I wait expectantly.....Into the picture comes Rene. At first glance an odd-looking guy who suffers from a kind of amnesia. He knows his name and where he lives but can't remember anything else. That's why he photographs every little incident to jog his memory. Laura who works as a hospital nurse agrees he's a bit weird but is fascinated just the same. You get the feeling he's up to something.Her friend Rebecca, an attractive blond who works as a translator is having trouble with her boy friend Marco. He's so possessive. They congregate in Laura's house where much of the dialogue takes place. Rebecca and Marco are continually arguing, falling in and out of love. These scenes are exceptional.In some strange coincidence these four characters are in one way or another involved in the aftermath of a serious accident involving two cars swerving on the slippery highway. In one of the cars a farmer who is taking his horse float to the vet. is knocked unconscious. Later he is unable to convince the police that a second car was involved. So he sets out on a mission to find the other car and the man responsible for the death of his daughter who died in hospital as a result of the accident.Marco the skiing instructor has an eye for the girls and there are some exciting scenes on the ski slopes as they engage the treacherous terrain. It's a matter of "Hold tight!" as the skiers disappear into the foggy atmosphere.The snow bound landscape is for me a most unusual setting for the drama and I enjoyed every exciting minute. The ending left me almost open-mouthed! And I'm not telling!