Stefan Ruzowitzky Movies
Writer/director Stefan Ruzowitzky explores the moral corrosion of Nazi complicity with this tightly wound adaptation of Adolf Burger's fact-based book The Devil's Workshop. Salomon Sorowitsch (Karl Markovics) may be a talented artist at heart, but his desire for wealth has driven him to use his creativity for more nefarious means. Arrested by the police inspector Herzog (Devid Striesow) at the onset of World War II, Sorowitsch is sent to the notorious Mauthausen concentration camp. It's not long before Salomon's thinly veiled opportunism earns him a relatively comfortable position as the camp's resident sketch artist, and five years later he is mysteriously swept away to Sachsenhausen. Upon arriving at the camp, Sorowitsch discovers that Herzog, now a commandant, is attempting to destabilize the economies of the Allies while simultaneously funding the Nazi war machine by assembling a special team of counterfeit artists to create millions in fraudulent pounds and dollars. As the operation gets under way, Sorowitsch finds the efforts of the team continually undermined by unyieldingly idealistic collotype specialist Adolf Burger (August Diehl). In the months that follow, the team wrestles with their consciences as Axis forces are gradually overwhelmed by Allied might. The Counterfeiters won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Karl Markovics, August Diehl, (more)
An ambitious, working-class medical graduate with dreams of becoming a research physician arrives in Berlin eager to begin his internship at a reputable clinic in director Stefan Ruzowitzky's sequel to his 2000 sleeper Anatomie. Motivated by his desire to provide patients with human warmth often lacking in medical treatment, and driven by his desire to discover a cure for the rare muscle disease that has crippled his brother Willi, Jo (Barnaby Metschurat) eagerly begins his internship as scheduled. When Jo is approached to perform an unauthorized operation on the daughter of a colleague, he initially refuses, only relenting after personally witnessing the graveness of her situation. His successful operation and detailed dissertation drawing the attention of Professor Mueller-LaRousse (Herbert Knaup), the charismatic Mueller-LaRousse subsequently invites Jo to join in weekly gatherings in his "research salon." As Jo becomes a member of Mueller-LaRousse's elite group of talented physicians, the stress of his internship is soon lifted, replaced by a compromising situation that may not only cost Jo his career, but his life as well. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Barnaby Metschurat, Herbert Knaup, (more)
A few good men are sent on a secret mission as a few good women in this comic tale of wartime espionage, loosely based upon a true story. Steven O'Rourke (Matt LeBlanc) is an American intelligence agent who, during World War II, has been assigned to obtain an Enigma machine, a special encoding-and-decoding device that Axis forces have developed to transmit their most sensitive secret information. A working Enigma machine would be invaluable to the Allied cause; O'Rourke is able to obtain a machine, but Col. Aiken (Edward Fox), a British officer whose stiff upper lip sometimes overwhelms his common sense, mistakes O'Rourke for a plunderer and destroys the previous gadget, which is hidden in a typewriter. An altercation with Aiken lands O'Rourke in military prison, but he's released in time to carry out a new plan to obtain an Enigma for Allied use. A small factory has been set up in rural Germany to build the machines, which is entirely staffed by women, so O'Rourke, communications expert Johnno (David Birkin), and veteran intelligence man Archie (James Cosmo) are to infiltrate the plant disguised as women, with Tony (Eddie Izzard), an agent who moonlights as a drag performer, giving the men a crash course in looking and acting like women. All the Queen's Men also features Nicolette Krebitz as Romy, a double agent working at the Enigma plant, and Udo Kier as Lansdorf, a Nazi general. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Matt LeBlanc, Eddie Izzard, (more)
A determined medical student uncovers shady goings on during a prestigious summer anatomy course in this German thriller. When Paula Henning (Run Lola Run's Franka Potente) learns that she's been accepted to a highly competitive internship at a Heidelberg research institution, she's ecstatic. The daughter of a simple family doctor, she prefers to model herself after her terminally ill grandfather, who was once dean of the same Heidelberg university. Stern lecturer Prof. Grombek (Traugott Buhre) promises that half the students won't be around when the course ends; his prediction turns out to be true, but it's not because of the brutal exams. It seems that a group of renegade doctors is performing dissections on unwilling, still-living victims, which helps explain the artful laboratory in which plasticized human remains are lovingly displayed. Paula stumbles onto this plot when a recent acquaintance turns up on her dissection table, his blood the consistency of rubber. Studious to the extreme, Paula investigates his death with scientific determination -- despite the flirtations of handsome fellow student Caspar (Sebastian Blomberg) and the feel-good urgings of Gretchen (Anna Loos), her sexually promiscuous but utterly brilliant roommate. Just as Paula is preparing to expose the existence of the Anti-Hippocratic Society, a Nazi-affiliated group of medical malcontents, Gretchen falls prey to their extreme methods. Soon Paula, too, is in danger of becoming just another addition to the display case. Extremely popular in its native country, Anatomie was dubbed into English for American release under the title Anatomy. A sequel was in production as of 2002. ~ Brian J. Dillard, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Franka Potente, Benno Fürmann, (more)
In an Austrian farming village during the '30s, narrator Severin (Lars Rudolph) watches an old woman, Rosalind (Elisabeth Orth) visit the bed of sleeping farmhand Lukas (Simon Schwarz). Rosalind is accused when the owner of the farm is found dead. Local farmers believe his land will be divided among them, since he had no heirs, but his will states that both farm and livestock are left to his peasant workers. When the seven peasants decide not to sell, they join the ranks of the landed gentry. The community's established farmers, led by Danninger (Ulrich Wildgruber), first attack the seven peasants with slander and ridicule and then turn violent. Shot in Super 16 with a blowup to 35mm, this film had its world premiere at the 1998 Rotterdam Film Festival where it won a Tiger Award. ~ Bhob Stewart, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Simon Schwarz, Sophie Rois, (more)
