Gudrun Landgrebe Movies

The traditional (and not-so-traditional) mating dances of young people in Munich are examined for comic effect in the film Das Merkwuerdige Verhalten Geschlectsreifer Grossstaedter Zur Paarungzeist/Love Scenes From Planet Earth. Charly (Christoph Waltz) is a writer who is lonely and depressed, so one day he "borrows" his publisher's new car and soon attracts the attention of two women, Hilde (Michaela May) and Cornelia (Gudrun Landgrebe). Meanwhile, Charly's former significant other, Manuela (Ann-Kathrin Kramer), is interested in Sven (Heio Von Stetten), whom she met at a mall while he was taking the baby for a stroll. Except that it's not Sven's baby, but Manuela's; while she had given the tyke to her friend Birgit (Isabella Parkinson) to baby-sit for the day, Birgit wanted to spend the day at the gym owned by Jimmy (Oliver Korittke), whom she recently met at a dance party. However, if Birgit is looking for love, Jimmy is the wrong place to look for it; Jimmy is gay, and was at the party mainly because he had his eyes on the host, Peter (Markus Knuefken). This low-key comedy of romantic errors, the feature directorial debut of Marc Rothemund, was a major success in Germany, where it was the second highest grossing domestic release of 1998. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Though featuring a down-beat ending, this true tale of a Czech journalist who gives her life helping the oppressed during the years prior to WWII is an inspirational one. Milen Jesnska began her quest to help others in 1920 Prague when she defied her father's wishes that she become a doctor like him and went into journalism. For a while she lives in Vienna with her husband, Jewish music critic Ernst Pollack, and during that time begins writing regularly to Franz Kafka. After leaving her husband and returning to Prague to be with her father, she and Kafka meet, and she becomes his friend and translator. In 1923, she covers an important workers' strike and meets and marries Jaromir, a communist architect. Becoming a communist herself, Milena writes articles for a Marxist newspaper. As Nazis come to power in Germany, they become her next cause. She boldly speaks out against them and because of this is sent to a concentration camp during the war. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Most American filmmakers would be praised to the skies for setting their films in exotic locales like Bavaria, Munich, Dusseldorf and the North Rhine. For the makers of the German thriller Die Katze, however, it was simply a matter of shooting in one's own backyard, more or less. Adapted from a suspense novel by Uwe Erichsen, the film stars Gotz George and Gudrun Landgrebe. As indicated by the title, the crime committed during the film is pulled off with catlike grace...and the perpetrators seem to have nine lives each. Originally released in Germany at 110 minutes, the crowd-pleasing Die Katze was expanded to 118 minutes for its general European distribution. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In 1938 Berlin, Gudrun Landgrebe, wife of Nazi functionary Kevin McNally, begins taking art lessons. She makes the acquaintance of another student, Japanese ambassador's daughter Mio Takaki. Soon afterwards, the two women begin a passionate lesbian affair. This leads to a chain reaction of disaster and tragedy, culminating with the inevitable intervention of the Gestapo. Despite the film's galloping sexual passions, The Berlin Affair is an exercise in aloofness, keeping the characters at arm's length-surprising, considering that the director was Liliana Cavani, auteur of the erotic classic The Night Porter (1974). The film was based on The Buddhist Cross, a novel by Junichiro Tanizaki. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The second film in the trilogy made by director Istvan Szabo and actor Klaus Maria Brandauer -- hammocked between Mephisto and Hanussen -- Colonel Redl continues Mephisto's fascination with a man overwhelmed by history. In that film, Brandauer played an actor who tried to ignore the rise of the Third Reich, and here he's an ambitious military officer in pre-World War I Austria whose career path is set early on. In military school, he's forced to inform on a student who's the source of a practical joke; though he beats himself up for being a Judas, he soon realizes that to rise in the ranks he must overcome his peasant background and hide his homosexuality by ingratiating himself with his superiors. In time, he becomes Chief of Military Intelligence for the Austro-Hungarian empire.
Though he professes to hate politics and politicians, Redl also can't avoid them. When the leader for whom Redl is supposedly spying among the officer corps, draws up a list of who can't be exposed for traitorous activities (including Austrian nobles, Hungarians, Czechs, Serbs, Croatians, and even the usual scapegoats, Jews -- the aftershocks of the Dreyfuss affair are still rumbling), he tells Redl that he must find a double of himself, a Ukrainian. Now certain that he will be exposed, Redl surrenders to fate, quoting to his wife from Montaigne: "It's no sin to be involved. It's a sin to remain involved." Brandauer is a wonder as the self-loathing Redl, and Szabo's camera picks up every nuance on his expressive face. The film eschews music except for several party scenes, and the absence of a score is most effective in the final shots of Redl's fellow officers awaiting his fate. ~ Tom Wiener, All Movie Guide

Unlike other feature-length versions of European TV miniseries, Heimat loses nothing in its translation to the big screen. It was 15 1/2 hours on TV, and remained 15 1/2 hours in theatres! Produced for German television over a 5-year period, Heimat details the turbulent years between 1919 and 1982 through the eyes of the citizens of a small, fictional German village. The central character is Marita Breuer, who matures from a fresh-faced teen to a wrinkled, grim-visaged survivor of the best and the worst life has to offer. The final sequences, far removed from such traumatic collective experiences as the inflation of 1923 and the war of the 1940s, tend to be more sentimental than the earlier passages, but are no less masterfully handled by director Edgar Reitz. Also worth noting is cinematographer Gernot Roll's creative use of color, often switching between hues and monochrome within a scene for dramatic impact. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Gudrun Landgrebe plays a housewife who abruptly leaves her husband for a life of prostitution. At first, she retains her staid, middle-class values, but before long she is one of the most sexually adventurous women walking the streets. Soon she has more business than she can manage, forcing her to learn highly advanced bookkeeping skills to keep her business in order. While Gundrun indulges customers with fetishist inclinations, her AC-DC business partner Mathieu Carriere services both male and female clients. Becoming romantically involved themselves, Gundrun and Mathieu find that they can't manage a private and professional life at the same time. As the title suggests, one of the partners takes very drastic measures to express her discomfort with the conditions that prevail. Woman in Flames was an enormous moneymaker in Germany, where it was released as Die Flambierte Frau (which translates to the curiously gastronomic title A Woman Flambee). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Set in Western Germany's industrial zone of steel mills and coal mines where the Ruhr and Rhine rivers meet, this is a witty, insightful and action-packed tale about Theo (Marius Muller-Westernhagen), a never-say-die petty con man. Theo has a weakness for taking big chances with the last of his money, a penchant that often gets him into trouble. He desperately needs a new truck and has to raise some quick cash. His first idea is to try the horse races -- no luck there. He cons more money from his Italian buddy Enno (Guido Gagliardi) and tries cards, with the same sorry results as the horses. By the time Theo has agreed to a smuggling run for some Mafiosos, he is in way over his head, rapidly making enemies on all sides, and soon the chase is on. The first in a trilogy of films starring the same character, Aufforderung zum Tanz was originally written for television but did so well it was later released theatrically. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide