Mathias Gnädinger Movies
- 2000
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
- Starring:
- Tina Engel, Bruno Ganz, (more)
- 2000
A black comedy set at a retirement home, Comedian was a big hit at the 2000 Locarno Film Festival. Roni Beck (Beat Schlatter) is an aspiring comic whose inability to make even his mother laugh poses a major career stumbling block. His mother lives in a retirement home, and after the home's director, Serge (Patrick Frey), discovers Beck sleeping in her room, he puts him to work as an orderly and also tries to promote the hapless young man's entertainment career. Unfortunately, Beck's stand-up routine proves to be a huge disaster, and catalyzes a series of funerals among the home's residents. To top it all off, a triangle develops between Beck, Serge, and Serge's neglected girlfriend (Brigitte Beyeler) that mirrors the rivalry of two geriatric lotharios for Beck's mother. ~ Rebecca Flint Marx, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Patrick Frey
- 1994
Elements of mystery and fantasy are deftly interwoven and presented from a child's perspective in this unique film. The basic plot focuses on a police marksman, Max. Recently Max had accidentally shot a hostage, and now his confidence is shaken. He is offered special bullets by a peer. These bullets help him to earn a high score during target shooting. Subsequently, Max receives a special assignment to guard chess grand master, Maxim who must not know a bodyguard has been assigned to him. When Maxim meets Eva, Max's wife, and her daughter Lili, the two are attracted to each other. Their attraction is observed by a sniper. In a parallel subplot, which has a medieval fairy tale setting, a group of do-gooders including Max and Kaspar (the magic bullet man) are battling evil. The film's surprising ending represents Lili's view of recent events. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Gary Kemp, Alexander Kaidanovsky, (more)
- 1994
This modern drama focuses on interracial, adolescent love between opposites. Marie is a fourteen year old beauty. The daughter of a black woman and a failed alcoholic writer, Marie has dropped out of school to live a life of petty crime. When she accidently meets Joe, a nerd from a conservative, Christian home, they fall instantly in love. Because their kind of love is forbidden, the couple finds a hideaway in cemetery vault where they consummate their love and escape from prying eyes. Marie's life gets her into trouble after she kills a man. The media is outraged by the relationship and by her actions. All Joe and Marie want is to be left alone so that she can give birth to their baby in a safe and peaceful place. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Estelle Vincent, Gay Etgar, (more)
- 1994
Kissing seems to be a popular activity in this Swiss epic costume drama based on an 1880 novel. The story begins in Munich with lots of people vigorously kissing in the midst of a bacchanalia carnival. Two men, Lys and Henry are even going at it. Henry, a sensitive artist, is wearing a green suit which symbolizes his jealousy and immaturity. He, angry at Lys for cheating on his fiancee, challenges Lys to a duel upon the morrow. What Henry is really angry at is his own failure to marry his true love. The movie jumps back to Switzerland during Henry's childhood soon after he lost his father. He wants his mother's love, but she remains strict and aloof. At school Henry is picked on and it is only when he finds the theater that he meets the beautiful actress Judith. He becomes enamored and forgets all about his love affair with cousin Anna. Time passes quickly and an older Henry returns home to find dear Anna. His attentions are again diverted when the ageless Judith again appears. He does not realize that beloved but unappreciated Anna is soon to die of tuberculosis. Tragedy ensues. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Thibault de Montalembert, Florence Darel, (more)
- 1993
Quite a few years ago, Isaak Kohler (Maximillian Schell) cooly walked up to a man everyone assumed was his friend and shot him dead. This took place in front of dozens of witnesses in a busy restaurant, and there was no question about his guilt. What he never revealed was his motive. He has been in prison serving a twenty year sentence ever since. Perhaps in order to ease his daughter's pain about the incident, he has hired a legal representative to arrange for him to receive a retrial. He is still unforthcoming about his reasons for committing the crime, and invites the struggling lawyer to make something up. This crime and courtroom drama is based on a novel by Friedrich Durrenmatt, whose works are highly respected within the German-speaking intellectual community but whose appeal has proved difficult to translate. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Maximilian Schell, Thomas Heinze, (more)
- 1992
As controversial films go, this is a rather easygoing examination of the excesses practiced and believed in by the devoutly religious. Few of the issues raised are likely to electrify anyone not brought up as a Roman Catholic. In the story, a tourist bus is carrying a crowd of pilgrims (whose devotion to the faith varies widely) to the shrine to the Virgin at Lourdes. Among the passengers is a very old-guard and very formidable old dame, who likely thinks that Vatican II was a big mistake and insists on celibacy and that sort of old-fashioned thing. Another passenger is a priest traveling with his pregnant girlfriend, who has his doubts about the whole institution, regarding its beliefs generally as a variably benign superstition. As the story develops, the intolerant grow more so, and the tolerant prove to be generally from the ultra-liberal camp, and the main item on the table for discussion proves to be celibacy. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Barbara Auer, Christiane Horbiger, (more)
- 1992
It's easy to get comfortable indulging in righteous indignation at the cultural genocide the American government and religious organizations attempted with that country's Native populations, but when one learns of a new outrage committed by the usually innocuous Swiss, it puts the situation in a whole new light. In this case, a private foundation was established with full governmental support which had as its avowed purpose the removal of gypsy children from their families and culture at an early age so that they might be brought up in a "decent, settled, and civilized manner." That was in 1927. When the population of Switzerland learned of the organization in 1977, to their credit, they were horrified -- and it was immediately disbanded. By then, hundreds of children had been legally abducted from their families. In this movie, a girl who was raised in this manner from the age of five but was constantly reminded of her disreputable background has finally reached child-bearing age. To her dismay, her child too is removed from her by this well-meaning organization. As a consequence, she is forced to kidnap her own child and flee across the border. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jasmin Tabatabai
- 1991
In 1922, a weather observer and his wife (Mathias Gnädinger and Susanne Lothar) lived in a remote cabin high in the Swiss Alps. As this drama begins, they are being joined by a third person, an Austrian (Peter Simonischek) who coveted the job the Swiss man had won in this bleak location. Not only that, but he also has his eyes on the Swiss man's lovely wife. The Austrian has charm, so he wins some hospitality from the couple. The three live together for a little while, but the rivalry between the two men soon erupts with tragic consequences. This drama is based on a true story. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Susanne Lothar, Mathias Gnädinger, (more)
- 1990
- PG
Xavier Koller's fact-based drama chronicles the hardships suffered by a family of Turkish farmers who sell all of their worldly possessions in order to fund an escape to the greener pastures of Switzerland. En route, they fall prey to a group of smugglers, who direct them to access Switzerland via an illegal and dangerous mountain pass. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Nur Surer, Emin Sivas, (more)
- 1990
In this crime action feature, Sturzi (Ruedi Walter) and Bingo (Mathias Gnädinger) are prison buddies. Sturzi is well past the age of retirement, and plans to use his savings when he gets out of prison to go with Bingo to Brazil. Instead, he finds that he has debts that must be paid with the money. Unwilling to relinquish the dream which has sustained them for so long, the two men team up to rob a bank. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Ruedi Walter, Mathias Gnädinger, (more)
- 1990
In this touching romantic drama, Leo (Mathias Gnaginger) has a married friend with a problem: his Thai girlfriend (Ankie Beilke-Lau) cannot stay in the country unless she marries a Swiss citizen. He asks Leo to marry her as a favor to him. Leo is not a physically attractive specimen, but as he and the Thai girl get to know one another, they genuinely fall in love with each other, much to the discomfort of Leo's philandering friend. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Mathias Gnädinger, Christian Kohlund, (more)
- 1989
These days, things have gotten a little out of hand even in the Swiss countryside. At least, this is what Windleter (Wolfram Berger) thinks, on his farm in the mountains. Even the local girls are a little too forward for him. When he goes to Zurich on a brief jaunt, he visits a "girlie bar" there which showcases Asian girls. On the lookout for a suitable wife, he arranges to have a Thai farmer's daughter sent to him. She duly arrives a few weeks later, and things proceed much to his satisfaction (if not hers), since he is not interested in having sex, even after they marry. They pursue their rather unsatisfying lives together, but the suspicion and racism of their neighbors eventually grow out of control, with tragic consequences. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Wolfram Berger, Werner Herzog, (more)
- 1989
A nearly forgotten accident (or was it murder?) takes on new life when a 50th year class reunion is convened at the remote Alpine mountain chalet of one of the students. During an excursion in the mountains many years before, just after their graduation, one of the least popular of students fell to his death from a high waterfall. We find out that the hostess of this reunion was the dead boy's lover and was pregnant with his child. In this Agatha Christie-type story a series of deaths ensues, some accidental, some not, en route to a surprise ending. The cast of this Swiss production includes nine of the their most prominent native actors, including international star Ursula Andress, who had never before appeared in a Swiss film. Anne-Marie Blanc, who plays the hostess, is one of the great stars of Swiss theater. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Anne Marie Blanc, Paul Hubschmid, (more)
- 1989
In this meditative, poetic comedy, a strait-laced young bureaucrat has been informed that, rather than being promoted, he is being apprenticed to the town archivist in anticipation of taking over his job whenever the old man retires, which doesn't look like it will happen anytime soon. A vengeful anarchist sets the town hall aflood, and something changes in the minds of the lad and his new mentor, so that we see them happily folding soggy, ruined official forms into boats and sending them down the river. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Magali Noël, Michel Robin, (more)
- 1986
Julia and Romeo are two disenchanted lovers who want to break up but are unwilling to suffer the pain. After a nasty fight, Romeo storms off and unsuccessfully vents his frustration with a black prostitute. While visiting the ramshackle brothel, he sees a strange man, who may be a government official, handing over a huge wad of money. Later, he and Julia reunite and go to an upscale golden anniversary party. There a handsome American flirts with Julia. After yet another row, Romeo and Julia retire to the balcony for a love scene. Unfortunately, their making up is interrupted by a sudden power outage. When the lights go back on, Romeo finds the knifed corpse of the party's hostess at his feet. Naturally, he's accused of the crime, but before the other partygoers can get him, he and Julia flee into the Berlin summer night. Their strange series ensuing adventures comprise the rest of the film. This low-budget debut of German director Helmut Berger (not to be confused with the actor Helmut Berger) was shot in grainy black and white and is alternately known as Du Mich Auch and So What? ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Anja Franke, Dani Levy, (more)
- 1984
In this carefully paced human drama, Mathias Gnädinger skillfully portrays the mayor of a growing town involved in two major crises, neither of which seem within anyone's ability to handle. In one crisis, a celebrated architect has acquired a house with the promise to renovate it, but instead he plans on using the house in speculative real estate deals -- a fact which is sparking protests. The mayor is caught in the middle between the architect, who has helped him in the past, and his sympathy with the protesters who have occupied the house. In the second crisis, a close friend of the mayor's dies in a tragic accident and simply because the man was gay, the widowed mayor is suspected of being a homosexual, a suspicion that could ruin his career in this provincial town. For the first time in his official career, the mayor is faced with personal and professional difficulties that pit his sense of ethics against his political future. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Mathias Gnädinger
Based on fact, The Boat is Full is set during World War II. A group of Jewish refugees desperately attempt to escape to the safety of neutral Switzerland. The problem: too many refugees, and too little room in the boat commissioned for the trip. Director Markus Imhoof is neither a polished nor a subtle filmmaker, nor is the acting of the highest calibre. This hardly matters: the intensity and sincerity of everyone involved in The Boat is Full compensates for any and all production crudities. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Tina Engel, Martin Walz, (more)
- 1980
In this interesting World War I drama, Bruno Ganz gives a compelling performance as Jakob, an obsessive inventor who lives in a Swiss village. He receives unconditional support from his friend Otti (Walo Luond), but that is about all; the other villagers do not tolerate Jakob's eccentricities very well, and regard him as a crackpot. He perserveres in spite of this obstacle and finally invents a viable carriage that does not run on wheels but on a tread. Unfortunately for Jakob, the military have already come up with the same invention: the tank. The discovery finally breaks him, and he is quickly shuttled off to an asylum. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Bruno Ganz, Walo Lüönd, (more)
