Birgit Minichmayr Movies

In a village in Protestant northern Germany, on the eve of World War I, the children of a church and school run by the village schoolteacher and their families experience a series of bizarre incidents that inexplicably assume the characteristics of a punishment ritual. Who could be responsible for such bizarre transgressions? Leonie Benesch, Josef Bierbichler, and Rainer Bock star in director Michael Haneke's Palm d'Or-winning period drama. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

An elderly husband suffering from a terminal illness begins to appreciate his wife on a whole new level after she dies suddenly during a trip to see their children and grandchildren in Berlin. Rudi is not long for this world, but only his doctor and his wife, Trudi, know how serious his condition has truly become. As Trudi wrestles with whether or not to break the news to her ailing husband, the doctor recommends to her that the couple perhaps do something that they have been planning for years but could never find the time to fit into their busy schedules. Later, after convincing Rudi to travel with her to Berlin and visit their family for the first time in years, the couple is heartbroken to realize that their children have no time for them. When Trudi suddenly passes away and Rudi realizes that he never knew his wife as well as he wanted to or expressed his affection in a way that truly reverberated, the widower is devastated to discover just what sacrifices Trudi had made to be with him. In the aftermath of that discovery, Rudi dedicates his remaining days to realizing Trudi's unfulfilled dreams and traveling to Tokyo to celebrate her life during the breathtaking cherry blossom festival -- a colorful festival staged to celebrate beauty, impermanence, and new beginnings. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

The death of a schoolteacher leads to a reunion between a handful of close friends in this drama from writer and director Barbara Albert. Five longtime friends return to the town where they grew up for the first time since they were teenagers in order to pay their respects to a teacher who had a major impact on their lives. However, fate has taken the five women in very different directions since they left school. Carmen (Kathrin Resetarits) has become a working actress, Alex (Ursula Strauss) is a clerk at an unemployment office, Brigitte (Birgit Minichmayr) works as a schoolteacher, Nina (Nina Proll) is out of a job and anticipating the birth a baby is two months, and Nicole (Gabriela Hegedus) has fallen into a life of crime and has been given a furlough from prison to attend the funeral, with her 12-year-old daughter Daphne (Ina Strand) in tow. As the women look back at the possibilities of their youth, they must also consider the circumstances which led them where they are today, and the bonds of friendship which still hold them together despite the physical distance between them. Falling was screened in competition at the 2006 Venice Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

An obsessive French perfumer with a highly developed olfactory sense and an all-consuming drive to capture the essence of love eventually resorts to murder in his unrepentant quest to find the key ingredient for his recipe in director Tom Tykwer's adaptation of author Patrick Suskind's best-selling 1985 novel. Born in a fetid fish market and raised in a dilapidated orphanage, Jean-Baptiste Grenouille (Ben Whishaw) toiled his childhood away in a rank tannery run by the thuggish Grimal (Sam Douglas). Subsequently obsessed by smell, Grenouille's keen olfactory sense becomes so finely tuned that it eventually overpowers such human qualities as love and compassion. Though he has indeed discovered the unmistakable scent of a woman, Grenouille finds it impossible to connect with the fairer sex on any sort of meaningful level. Roaming the streets of Paris late one night, Grenouille catches the scent of a young girl selling plums and impulsively strangles her, later sniffing her nude corpse in a twisted attempt to preserve the distinctive scent in his memory. After persuading legendary perfumer Giuseppe Baldini (Dustin Hoffman) to take him on as an apprentice, Grenouille travels to the town of Grasse in Southern France in order to learn the art of enfleurage at a firm run by the highly respected Mme. Arnulfi (Corinna Harfouch). It is there that Grenouille becomes dangerously drawn to the vestal aroma of the young and beautiful Laura (Rachel Hurd-Wood), the daughter of widower merchant Antione Richis (Alan Rickman). Soon driven to madness by such a pure scent, the spellbound Grenouille continues to claim the lives of the numerous young girls in a tragic attempt to bottle the impossibly elusive smell of virginal womanhood. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

A woman discovers that an old hotel hides some unexpected secrets in this psychological thriller. Irene (Franziska Weisz) is hired as a desk clerk at a luxury hotel in Austria following the disappearance of Eva Stein, who had previously held the position. Having moved to the city to take the job, Irene takes a room in the hotel for the meantime, and is eager to learn more about her new home and business, though her boss Kros (Peter Strauss) seems curiously guarded about what goes on at the hotel. Though Irene makes friends with some of the staff members, she still spends a great deal of her time trying to uncover the mysteries of the building, and when she discovers a pair of Eva Stein's glasses, she begins to wonder if the girl ever went missing at all or if she might still be on the premises somewhere. Hotel was screened as part of the "Un Certain Regard" series at the 2004 Cannes Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

Set in Germany in 1946, Taking Sides tells the story of the investigation of Wilhelm Furtwängler (Stellan Skarsgård), the renowned conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic and Vienna Philharmonic orchestras, by the American occupying army. Major Steve Arnold (Harvey Keitel) has been told by his superiors that they want Furtwängler convicted of being a willing participant in the crimes of the Hitler regime, by virtue of his supposed support for and support from the Hitler government. They haven't got the time or resources to go after every ex-Nazi, so they want Furtwängler, as the biggest cultural target they can hit. Arnold does his loud, boorish best to first humiliate and then attack the conductor over the supposed favoritism that he was shown by Hitler, Goering, Himmler, et al. and his conducting of a concert at the 1934 Nuremberg rally and at Hitler's 53rd birthday. Arnold finds, to his eventual distress but not dissuasion, that nothing is as simple as he would like to make it. His civilian secretary, Emmi Straube (Birgit Minichmayr), a concentration camp survivor whose father was part of the German Army plot to kill Hitler, and Lt. David Wills (Moritz Bleibtreu), a German-born Jew representing the War Crimes Tribunal, keep trying to remind Arnold that life and politics in Germany only deteriorated gradually after 1933, and in ways that couldn't always be anticipated by those who were there. Germans who chose not to leave weren't necessarily casting their lot with Hitler, but with protecting what was decent or even great about Germany, including her orchestras and music. Arnold knows nothing about music and even less about Germany and her people, and won't be deterred from his goal. Wills and Straube wish to resign from working with him, until they realize that they're facing the same choice that Furtwängler faced -- to leave a horrendous situation and have no way of affecting its conduct or outcome, or remain and do their best to stand up for decency and truth. In the process of doing that, they find out that Furtwängler is not only a great artist -- which they knew already -- but a great and brave man, who also has his flaws. The latter include an outsized ego that may have caused him to participate a little too willingly at times in the dangerous game he played of maintaining the excellence of Germany's musical institutions while protecting them (and also many musicians) from the worst ravages of the Nazi regime, at the same time also keeping lesser, more compliant figures from usurping his control. ~ Bruce Eder, Rovi