Johannes Silberschneider Movies

As helmed by Markus Rosenmüller, this German-language period saga unfurls in 1931, and centers around a teenager who tells a seemingly innocent and harmless lie. In truth, the act of deception carries devastating and unforeseen consequences that will cast a dark shadow over the young man's future. ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide

Bruce Beresford (Driving Miss Daisy) delivers this fact-based drama about one of the most fascinating private lives of the 20th century. Alma Schindler (Sarah Wynter) was one of the most renowned young beauties in turn-of-the-century Vienna, sought after as a romantic conquest by some of the most famous men in the city, including the artist Gustav Klimt (August Schmolzer). She is won, however, by the most challenging and enigmatic artistic figure of them all, composer/conductor Gustav Mahler (Jonathan Pryce). His one demand is that she give up her own aspirations as a composer, which she has nursed for years. She agrees, and their marriage proves to be a devoted yet loveless union, producing two children but leaving Alma bereft of affection. She suppresses her frustrations as her husband's star rises, sublimating her ambitions completely. His career advances yield extraordinary music but equally notable controversies, and the marriage is riven by stress. When their oldest daughter dies, Alma's health is broken. While convalescing at a sanitarium, she meets another patient, Walter Gropius (Simon Verhoeven). He is gentle and attentive, and they begin an affair, which her husband accidentally learns of later. Their marriage survives, but Mahler also knows that he is a doomed man because of a damaged heart. After his death, Alma Mahler marries Gropius, an ambitious young architect with revolutionary ideas. Their marriage lasts but a few years, for Alma is drawn to another man, the artist Oskar Kokoschka (Vincent Perez). Kokoschka is young, iconoclastic, and daring -- all of the things that the career- and status-oriented Gropius isn't. Their affair yields a renowned painting of Alma that Kokoschka calls Bride of the Wind, a depiction of their passion amid a storm-swept background. They also conceive a child that Alma decides not to carry to term. She returns to Gropius for a time, while Kokoschka sells the painting for enough money to buy a commission in the army, and he is reported killed in action during World War I. Finally, after leaving Gropius, Alma meets a gifted author, Franz Werfel (Gregor Seberg), whom she marries. Her past catches up with her in an odd way, however, when Kokoschka returns, having survived the war and captivity -- he is still obsessed with Alma, to the point that he walks around Vienna in the company of a life-size doll of her, which he destroys in a fit of anger one night at a party. Meanwhile, in Alma's life with Franz Werfel, she finally finds peace and fulfillment, even as a composer -- the movie ends with a 1925 recital at which soprano Frances Alda (Renee Fleming) performed Alma Mahler Werfel's songs. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide

In the port town of Hamburg, Germany, Floyd (Frank Giering) disappoints his sanctimonious boss by announcing that he's shipping out to South Africa and Singapore now that his two-year probation for an unspecified juvenile offense has been completed. When he shares the news with his devoted friends Chubby (Antoine Monot Jr.), a mechanic, and Ricco (Florian Lukas), a fast-food cook and would-be b-boy, they can't comprehend their thoughtful friend's willingness to trade camaraderie for a wider view of the world. Overcoming their anger and bewilderment, the guys decide to spend one last night with Floyd, but the problem, as always, is how to find some fun. A succession of fast-food restaurants, parking garages, and local watering holes chronicles the inherent boredom of life in the provinces. But a run-in with a convention of dragster-racing Elvis impersonators sends the boys and their friend Telsa Julia Hummer on a series of adventures that veers from the farcical to the almost-tragic. Absolute Giganten was screened at the 1999 Flanders Film Festival and thereafter received limited international distribution. ~ Brian J. Dillard, All Movie Guide

Daniil Kharms (Charms in German spelling) was a noted Soviet dadaist author. This intellectually challenging Austrian film from director/screenwriter Michael Kreihsl took some of the poems and prose from the one book Charms wrote before going to his death in a Nazi concentration camp, and fashioned a sort of non-story about the weird adventures of a Russian poet living in Vienna. The resulting episodes are tinged with the surreal, but are actually quite funny once the rhythm and tone of the piece is understood. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Director Peter Sehr offers here another version of the origins of Kaspar Hauser, one of the most enigmatic characters in German history. According to this film, the title character is the real son of Duke Karl of Baden. Karl's brother Ludwig wants the throne for himself so he secretly orders a dying baby to be exchanged for the newborn heir. The real baby heir is promptly sent with a nurse to the countryside, but then is kidnapped by the Bavarians who are antagonistic to Baden. After Ludwig becomes a ruler of Baden, the young boy is kept in a cellar by the Bavarians, and then in 1828, after 12 years of confinement, he is brought to a square in Nuremberg in the early morning and left there alone. Unable to talk or walk, the young man is given the name Kaspar Hauser and is brought to the home of the kind professor Daumer, who teaches him to talk and introduces him to a civilized life. However, while the tension between the two rival countries increases, Ludwig of Baden sends his spies to seek out and eliminate the missing heir. Unlike Werner Herzog's The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser, which treated the leading character as a mysterious man of the universe, this is a rather straightforward tale of political intrigue, where Kaspar is merely a pawn in someone else's wicked game, and the film barely rises above the level of a beautifully crafted costume drama. ~ Yuri German, All Movie Guide

This is the second film in a trilogy by director Axel Corti on the effects of Nazism on Austria and Austrians. In this story, set at the beginning of World War II, a group of refugee Jews have successfully fled to New York City, and despite the fact that they are technically safe from the Nazis, they have any number of daunting obstacles to overcome. One of the survivors, a teen who was rescued by Ferry, the hero whose story is told in the first film of the series, plans to go to Santa Fe, New Mexico, with the idea of becoming a cowboy. Instead, he discovers a whole community of emigres and artists living in New York, and opts to fight for his adopted country. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

Even with good acting, pleasant music, and artistic photography, this "love-boat" story of romance is more like Alice in Wonderland rather than Alice on the streets of Zurich. The Zurich Alice is a flautist who plays for the passersby like many another street or Metro musician. While so engaged, she meets a VIP Russian flautist who has defected and is living in the city. He falls in love with her and as a gesture of his devotion decides to arrange her solo concert debut. Meanwhile, Alice easily figures out what his plans are and devises her own secret scheme. When the day of the performance arrives, her Russian heartthrob is in for a flattering surprise, sure to end his bachelor status. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide