Bruno Ganz Movies

Martin (Matthias Habich) has a settled and materially successful life. During his birthday party, he begins to have qualms about the whole thing, and escapes a life that has suddenly become claustrophobic by going to Paris. There, he has a quick one-night stand with a young girl, an encounter which he wishes was more meaningful to her. He attempts to see her again, and eventually finds that she has been injured while participating in a political protest. Meanwhile, his wife understands what is going on and sympathizes with him - which only adds to his frustrations. ~ 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top guns were not only well educated but had creative bents - Hitler was a frustrated watercolorist, Goebbels had an unpublished novel and play to his credit and von Sitach was a poet.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

Damiel (Bruno Ganz) and Cassiel (Otto Sander) are angels who watch over the city of Berlin. They don't have harps or wings (well, they usually don't have wings) and they prefer overcoats to gossamer gowns. But they can travel unseen through the city, listening to people's thoughts, watching their actions and studying their lives. While they can make their presence felt in small ways, only children and other angels can see them. They spend their days serenely observing, unable to interact with people, and they feel neither pain nor joy. One day, Damiel finds his way into a circus and sees Marion (Solveig Dommartin), a high-wire artist, practicing her act; he is immediately smitten. After the owners of the circus tell the company that the show is out of money and must disband, Marion sinks into a funk, shuffling back to her trailer to ponder what to do next. As he watches her, Damiel makes a decision: he wants to be human, and he wants to be with Marion, to lift her spirits and, if need be, to share her pain. Wim Wenders' Wings of Desire is a remarkable modern fairy tale about the nature of being alive. The angels witness the gamut of human emotions, and they experience the luxury of simple pleasures (even a cup of coffee and a cigarette) as ones who've never known them. From the angels' viewpoint, Berlin is seen in gorgeous black-and-white -- strikingly beautiful but unreal; when they join the humans, the image shifts to rough but natural-looking color, and the waltz-like grace of the angels' drift through the city changes to a harsher rhythm. Peter Falk appears as himself, revealing a secret that we may not have known about the man who played Columbo, and there's also a brief but powerful appearance by Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds. Wings of Desire hinges on the intangible and elusive, and it builds something beautiful from those qualities. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

This is the final film in a trilogy by Bernhard Giger that examines a man's struggle to find and defend his personal identity. In Winterstadt, a young wanderer discovers himself through his interactions with people in a small town, and in Der Gemeindeprasident, a mayor fights hard to maintain his personal and public ethical standards. Now in this drama, a young man vacillates between abiding the law and a life of crime. Tom (Andreas Loeffel) has been coerced into informing on his underworld buddies by a tough, aggressive police inspector (Bruno Ganz). Although he did not volunteer the information, Tom hides both his criminal past and current connections to the police from his girlfriend of the moment. His main concern is to live the best life he can regardless of what happens to others; he does not question his own identity as long as he has the amenities he wants. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

In a complex plot that loses punch through weak dialogue, a computer hack, his love interest, and a friend plan a bank heist involving the transfer of funds from a Berlin bank to a bank in Zurich "over the wires." They have everything worked out when they realize that they will have to join forces with some gangsters in order to physically reach the bank's computer -- and in that process, a guard is killed. Somehow, things still work out and the trio is off to Zurich to pick up their millions -- though no one can guarantee that absolutely nothing will go wrong from this point onward. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

Two well-known German actors, Curt Bois (1901-1991) and Bernhard Minetti (b. 1905) reminisce about their work on the stage in this charming documentary by directors Bruno Ganz and Otto Sander. Bois emigrated to the U.S. in 1933 but he found it difficult to obtain work in Hollywood or in New York and returned to Germany after the war. He met Charles Laughton, Bertolt Brecht, Buster Keaton, and other notables of stage and screen while he was in America. Minetti is shown at work in a rehearsal of "Faust" and at an empty, cavernous Olympic Stadium where he and friends think back to previous great soccer matches. Both Minetti and Bois contribute insights and information about their profession that only seasoned veterans like themselves can impart. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

This two-hour documentary and fiction film was a cooperative writing effort by five different German writers and/or directors, one of the most noted being the 1972 Nobel prize winner Heinrich Böll. Böll was specifically responsible for three fictive episodes at the end of the film that promote an anti-nuclear, pro-peace message ("Space Talk," "Atom Bunker," and "Kill Your Sister"). Documentary footage of Chancellors Helmut Kohl and Helmut Schmidt in action, along with various European and American leaders highlight the urgent issues of the day. At a time when this film partly addresses these issues and partly hedges its bets, religious leaders in Europe were coming out with a very strong anti-war statement. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

Random encounters, random dialogue, and random thinking characterize one man's journey from the south end of Europe to his home, after his wife has left him shell-shocked by exiting from his life and getting on with hers. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

In the original story of Camille by Alexandre Dumas, Jr. La Dame aux Camelias, a beautiful Parisian courtesan, Marguerite Gautier, (called "Camille" because of her love for camelias) is supported by a series of aristocratic lovers, but does not fall in love until she meets Armand Duval. Armand's father lets it be known that Camille would ruin Armand because of her "low" past, and she leaves to save his reputation, saying she does not love him anymore. She soon contracts tuberculosis, and Armand hears that she is dying. He rushes to her side, finds out she has loved him all along, and she dies knowing he has always loved her. The True Story of Camille uses the ploy of Alexandre Dumas, Jr. doing his version of "Camille" at the turn of the 20th century, as a means of introducing a flashback to the "real" story behind the "real" Camille, Alphonsine Plessis. In the film, Alphonsine (Isabelle Huppert) - a country girl - was sold by her father to a wealthy neighbor, which starts her off on a round of living in expansive palaces and keeping company with wealthy aristocrats and eventually, Alexandre Dumas, Jr. himself. But that trajectory did not happen all at once. Alphonsine first survives, barely, as a seamstress in Paris. Then she becomes a prostitute, after which a Count Peregaunts (Bruno Ganz) marries her, then more or less disappears, leaving her to become a high-class courtesan. As she makes her way from one handsome, aristocratic client to the next, a noble protector, Count Stechelberg (Fernando Rey) keeps her out of harm's way. By the time she and Dumas meet, she has become infected with tuberculosis - and she has created the inspiration for Dumas' story of Camille. Her father comes along at this point, however, ready to trounce Dumas for romanticizing his daughter's wretched life - the same father that sold her off in the first place. If the viewer can remember that the characters of Marguerite Gautier (Carla Fracci) and Armand Duval from Dumas' story of Camille have been given their "real" personas as Alphonsine Plessis and Dumas in this film, then the story within a story make more sense. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

A surreal and often abstruse tale about a woman and her innermost feelings, Oggetti Smarriti starts out with Marta (Mariangela Melato) and her husband taking a long train ride to go pick up their daughter from grandmother's house. Theory and practice are immediately at odds when the husband gets off the train to buy something to read and it starts chugging out of the station. Marta jumps off to go look for him, but he thinks the train has left with her on it, and he leaves the station. As Marta wanders around in search of her husband, she comes across a German (Bruno Ganz) whom she thinks she met while still a child. The two strike up a relationship, and Marta indulges in both alcohol and drugs on her way to falling in love with the mysterious "stranger." Stranger yet is the continuation of her saga as she may -- or may not -- find herself at last. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide