Bruno Ganz Movies

The eventful life of a humble Polish priest who once decried the pomp of the Catholic Church "a circus" and labeled the Pope a "prisoner of the Vatican" before ascending to the papal throne is explored as actor Thomas Kretschmann takes on the role of Pope John Paul II in director Jeff Bleckner's cinematic tribute to the man who would usher Catholicism into the 21st century. Born in Poland and forced to carry on following the untimely death of his family, Karol Wojtyla endured both personal hardships and the rape of his homeland by the Third Reich to spread the word of God through the Catholic Church. Later, as Pope John Paul II, Wojtyla was beloved by millions of Catholics worldwide for his tireless efforts to promote peace, forgiveness, and compassion among the nations of the world. From the sexual-abuse scandal that shook the American Catholic Church in the later-20th century to the murder of Salvatorian Archbishop Oscar Romero and the near-fatal assassination attempt made on his own life, Pope John Paul II endured to bridge the gap between various faiths and encourage an open dialogue between religious people of all denominations until his death resulting from Parkinson's disease in April of 2005. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

Days after the death and funeral of his high-powered army father, children's book author Gianni Orzan (Sergio Rubini) meets the suspicious Gianni Bogliasco (Bruno Ganz), who proceeds to recite an uncomfortable amount of accurate knowledge about the author's life. Gianni ends up running into Bogliasco "accidentally" a number of times, until Bogliasco drops a bombshell: Gianni's father was not an Italian General as he was made to believe, but was instead a Russian-born agent of the KGB who murdered an Italian official and assumed his victim's identity. As Gianni begins to question his memories of his deceased father, as well as his nearly nonexistent relationship with him, his wife Anna reveals another devastating secret -- she has been cheating on him. In the span of days, everything Gianni has taken for granted has been destroyed by lies, thus forcing him to re-examine nearly all aspects of his life in order to determine what is true and what isn't. ~ Ryan Shriver, All Movie Guide

Clemens Klopfenstein directs this oblique, strikingly-shot film about actors in groups of two and three on their way to the Goethe Institute in Rome. Throughout the film, actors recite lines from Chekov, Gorky, Shaw, and Shakespeare against scenes of stunning natural beauty. ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide

Oliver Storz directed this German drama opening with a farm family massacred in August of 1945 when southern Germany is occupied by American troops. Dave Gladbaker (Stefan Kurt) investigates, and refugee Karin (Karoline Eihhorn), a nurse at the farm, becomes a focus of the investigation, with both Gladbaker and police inspector Fehleisen (Bruno Ganz) speculating that it was a ritual execution in which the daughter was mistakenly killed because of her resemblance to Karin. The film's German title translates as "Toward the End of the Night." Shown at the 1998 Cannes Film Festival. ~ Bhob Stewart, All Movie Guide

This arty British effort attempts to pay homage to distinguished and fanciful French author Antoine de Saint-Exupery via a sort of tone poem. Those familiar with the writer's work will get the most from this film as it does not contain any excerpts from the writer's work. The film, though not a documentary, does contain interviews from those who knew and loved Saint-Exupery. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

In this aimless and meandering film, five separate individuals drop out of their lives in order to drift around Europe with no clear end in mind. Despite the diversity of the individuals beginning these journeys, the film apparently offers no appealing characters, incidents, or insights, as it was reportedly very coldly received by even by the usually more sympathetic audiences of the 1992 Venice Film Festival, as very few stayed through to its ending. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

For fans of history, this glimpse of Munich society in the 1920s will be a much-treasured event. The story revolves around an art-gallery manager who puts on a show featuring the scandalous works of a woman artist who committed suicide. He is unjustly accused of having committed adultery with her, and for some reason the authorities decide to make an example of him. He is imprisoned at about the same time that Hitler and the nascent Nazi party attempt the infamous Beer Hall Putsch, and the gallery manager's girlfriend and a Swiss writer valiantly (and unsuccessfully) attempt to get better justice for him. Nobody in authority, it seems, has the courage to take up the challenge of righting this particular injustice. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

Based on the interesting theory that the Third Reich was merely an expression of its architects' desire to create, Peter Cohen has written, directed, produced and edited this compilation documentary. Many of Hitler's top guns were not only well educated but had creative bents - Hitler was a frustrated watercolorist, Goebbels had an unpublished novel and play to his credit and von Sitach was a poet. It is the contention in this "documentary" that the creative urges of these men are what drove them to try to reshape their entire environment into their own unique vision of a perfect society - helping to design everything from the clothing worn to the houses built, and molding even the surviving humans into their own monocular vision of mankind by labeling anything different than the Aryan mold as diseased and degenerate. A unique postulate as to the origins of the Nazi movement, Cohen fails to account for the fact that there were numerous antecedents when Hitler was young who were equally racist and bigoted and their politics can be easily seen in Hitler's own molding and shaping into the monster he became. However, the notion that for Hitler and his group aesthetic considerations often outweighed the mundane and pragmatic is borne out by much of the evidence presented in this documentary, making it worthwhile as a historical perspective from a slightly different angle than usually seen when discussing the rise of the Third Reich. ~ Tana Hobart, All Movie Guide

This is an enigmatic tale of a man's attempt to regain a lost period of youthful happiness. Peter (Bruno Ganz) and his somewhat broken-down wife arrive at a friend's house for an extended visit. Peter has been attracted to the woman of the house; he also once spent an idyllic summer here. He takes up with the couples' three children and engages them in games and child's play, partly as an attempt to regain the joy of that one summer. As the relationships between Peter and the other three adults shift around, his own objective for this visit remains well-hidden from view. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

Set in 1941 in Amsterdam, this is a story of humanity -- specifically, Otto (Gerard Thoolen) the Jewish owner of an ice-cream shop, his best friend Gustav (Bruno Ganz), and his friend Trudi (Renee Soutendijk) -- facing the dangers of an escalating war and the specter of fascism. The outgoing, fun-loving Otto came to Amsterdam from Berlin, and while his shop is a focus for anti-Nazi activists, Otto also cares about making good ice cream and supplying his customers with the best pastries he can manage. When his friend Gustav is on leave from the army for awhile, he spends some time with Otto and falls in love with Otto's friend Trudi. As conditions and the environment around them fluctuate and change, the three friends react differently. But it is certain that Otto's gatherings of anti-Nazi activists are not going to be unnoticed for long -- and whether he is fully aware of it or not, the prognosis is not good.
~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

Originally Dans la Ville Blanche, the Swiss/Portuguese In the White City features Bruno Ganz as a cinematically inclined Swiss sailor. While on liberty in Lisbon, Ganz decides to soak in the sights, committing his visit to posterity with an 8-millimeter movie camera. His ship sets sail, but Ganz remains in Lisbon, trying to explain his "escape" (which includes an affair with chambermaid Teresa Madruga) in long rambling letters to his wife. In the White City was directed by Alain Tanner, best known for his stream-of-consciousness Jonah Who Will be 25 in the Year 2000. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide