Gunther Malzacher Movies
- 1973
Once the acknowledged king of the Polish cinema, director Alexander Ford was forced out of his native land by political pressure in 1969. His first non-Polish effort was the Danish/German The First Circle, ostensibly set in Russia but filmed in its entirety in Denmark. Based on a Solzhenitsyn novel, the film stars Gunther Malthasar as a Russian iconoclast. His outspokenness results in his being shipped to Siberia, there to die of starvation. As he awaits his doom, Malthasar takes heart in the fact that his tormentors have not been able to squelch his independent spirit. Alexander Ford chose to film The First Circle in English; so indecipherable were the various accents of the cast that the American distributor was compelled to redub the soundtrack. Despite its budget shortcomings and the fact that everyone is conversing in an unfamiliar language, The First Circle is one of Ford's best and most effective projects. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
The Serpent's Egg, or Das Schlangenei is director Ingmar Bergman's second English language production (The Touch was his first). It is, however, his first completely non-Swedish production, made after his voluntary self-exile from Sweden over taxation issues. Set in Berlin in the early 1920s, it explores the fear and despair the city evokes in Manuela and Abel Rosenberg (Liv Ullmann and David Carradine), two Jewish trapeze artists. The suicide of Manuela's husband (Abel's brother), has stranded them in Berlin. Berlin is shown to already possess the sinister elements of cruelty and anti-Semitism which laid the groundwork for the later Nazi takeover. A series of misadventures gets them sent to a medical clinic for treatment. However, the clinic is actually a site for Nazi-type "racial" experiments on humans, which generally either madden or kill the subjects. Das Schlangenei was savaged by the critics for its improbable-seeming story and more particularly, for casting David Carradine (best known for his earlier appearances in the Kung Fu U.S. television series) in a crucial role. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Liv Ullmann, David Carradine, (more)
- 1978
The strains of Richard Wagner's operatic music and the tale of Lorelei, which an old man is telling his granddaughter, set the tone for this tense and highly symbolic crime thriller, which takes place on board the TEE Rheingold train travelling from Germany to Basel, Switzerland. The murderer, a highly sympathetic character, commits his fatal deed under high stress, which only increases when, after exiting the train, he realizes that he left incriminating evidence onboard. Now he must race in an automobile across Germany and attempt to reboard the train to recover the evidence before the killing is discovered. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Rudiger Kirschstein, Elke Haltaufderheide, (more)
- 1980
Talented Iranian director Sohrab Shahid Saless has succeeded in taking on an unusual project -- the life and times of a German literary figure -- and making it interesting. Christian Dietrich Grabbes lived a very short life in the first half of the 19th century and is primarily known for his satire, skepticism, basurd theater, and the fact that he presaged the Postmodern movement in literature. Hannibal and Don Juan and Faust are two of his better-known works. In this docudrama, his Comedy, Satire, Irony, and Deeper Meaning is featured partly because it gives a drubbing to the icons of German thought that had a stranglehold on the creative process. One memorable moment in this three-and-a-half-hour story is when the alcoholic writer is caught in the throes of delirium and comes around to see his own mother as a figure of death. The irony is that an Iranian director could capture the spirit and age of a German writer so well. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Renata Schroeter
- 1982
In a Germany still divided between East and West, the glow of western gilt-edged security, and the pizzazz of fashion, cars, and computers create a "light trap" that lures East Germans into fantasizing about a better life. When a spy from East Germany goes through the motions of picking up his contact in Munich, he is led into her double life in an opulent villa, with an attractive and lusty daughter. As detectives and the police come in and out of the scenario, it becomes difficult to know who has been caught in the "light trap" and who might be a double agent -- or not. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Armin Mueller-Stahl, Beatrice Kessler, (more)
- 1984
In an interesting tale of romantic obsession, an introverted young projectionist catches some love-making going on in one corner of the dark movie theater where he works, and recognizes the woman involved as a popular television newscaster he adores. He manages to steal the key to her apartment from her purse, and later lets himself in. This is the first step that leads to a love affair between the two, but soon he becomes fixated on the woman - spying on her, needing to control the relationship totally. His attitude is a disaster waiting to happen. Writer, director, and editor Niklaus Schilling shot this drama with a video camera and then transferred the tape to celluloid film in the laboratory, perhaps adding a little "TV verité" to the end product, but also creating a lot of graininess in the process. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Gerhard Acktun, Isolde Barth, (more)
- 1992
- R
Peter Keller has come back to his native village in Switzerland from Berlin to investigate a murder. It seems that an old army buddy of his is the accused. As he pokes around, it becomes clear that his having roots there cuts no ice with the locals: they all seem to have something to hide and resent his presence on the scene. Among the tensions seething beneath the placid surface of the place is the resentment a religious commune has provoked locally, and schemes which are designed to take their land away from them. This drama about a particularly tenacious and methodical investigation is based on a novel by mystery writer Sam Juan. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Bruno Ganz, Barbara Auer, (more)
