Tilo Prückner Movies

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

Peter Kern, the director of this offbeat film, was one of the regular actors in Rainer Werner Fassbinder's films, and it seems unlikely that reviewers will ever let him live that down. In this story, a shy, inhibited executive in a computer firm seeks his sexual release through the materials available to him in porn shops. He gets much more personally involved in life when he accidentally hits a crazed woman while driving his car. Basically uninjured, she becomes fixated on him, following him around and singing opera to him - at work, at home, and elsewhere. Otherwise she is mute. Needless to say, her attentions completely upset the orderly schedule of his life. Meanwhile, this otherwise timid man has undertaken to shelter an Asian prostitute from her abusive pimp. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

Herbie Melbourne (Didi Hallervorden) is a poor schlemiel who is inadvertently caught between the Devil and the deep blue sea in this German farce about a cab driver (Hallervorden) assigned to bring a "comrade" back to the East German side of the Berlin wall, a passenger who is dead to the world, permanently, when he arrives. Herbie the cabbie is recruited by the KGB and East German Intelligence to help them discover who murdered the man in his back seat. After arriving on the West German side of the divide, Herbie is then recruited by the CIA and West German Intelligence to become a counterspy, for double what the other side is paying him. As Herbie seems to have no viable way out of this mess, he does what many have done before him, he goes to a therapist (Catherine Alric) for help. Reaching into her bag of tricks, the therapist gives Herbie a small bottle he can sniff when in need of self-confidence, an act guaranteed to put him on top of any situation. Now Herbie is a cabbie, a KGB agent, a CIA agent, and a bottle sniffer -- and he is falling in love with his gorgeous therapist. Although the standard chase routines are a bit lengthy and exaggerated, this spy spoof keeps its sense of humor intact.
~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

Wolfgang Petersen adapted Michael Ende's children's story for this charming fantasy film that spawned several sequels. Bastian (Barret Oliver) is dealing with his mother's recent death. His father (Gerald McRaney) is an imperious sort who continually lambastes Bastian for daydreaming and falling behind in school. On top of his father's badgering, he has to contend with a bunch of school bullies waiting for him in the schoolyard. One day he decides to play hooky and walks into a strange bookstore, where in the attic, he discovers a book called "The Neverending Story". As Bastian reads the book, he's enveloped in the unfolding tale. A sickly child-like empress (Tami Stronach) from a land called Fantasia is concerned about who will take over the land if she dies. She decides it is best for Fantasia if she remains alive, so she dispatches a young warrior named Atreju (Noah Hathaway) to find a cure for the empress's malady. It turns out the land is consumed with a plague called The Nothing, generated by blighted dreams and hopeless fantasies. As Atreju continues onward to search for a cure for The Nothing, he encounters an assortment of strange creatures. Bastian is so consumed with the tale that he finds himself catapulted into the land of Fantasia himself. Atreju realizes that the only way to save the land from its blight is with the help of this strange earth boy, Bastian. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide

Popular West German television comedian Dieter Hallervorden takes up a dual role in this slapstick comedy about switched identities. On the one hand, Hallervorden plays the CEO of a large conglomerate, Hans Immer, and on the other, he is Bruno Koob, a lowly bartender, falling off the opposite end of the economic scale. Because of a suspected kidnapping plot, these two look-alikes are switched and Immer goes off with his female of the moment for an enjoyable, anonymous weekend while Koob wreaks havoc on the corporate world. As events unfold, Koob is better and better at this corporate business, and Immer slides lower and lower. Hallervordern's slapstick Koob is reminiscent of the antics of the American comedian Red Skelton, but the rest of the humor in the film is uneven, relying on well-worn jokes rather than untried originality. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

Hans Castrop (Christoph Eichhorn) goes to visit a cousin in a Swiss tuberculosis sanatorium, intending to stay for about three weeks, but instead ends up staying for seven years observing the fascinating inhabitants at this supposed haven from the society that has slid downhill to the brink of World War I. The characters he observes range from the politically dueling pair of Lucovico Settembrini (Flavio Bucci), a capitalist "liberal" and Leo Nafta (Charles Aznavour), a Jewish leftist, Claudia Chaochat (Marie-France Pisier), an attractive, passionate Russian woman, and others such as a Dutch businessman with suicidal tendencies, Mynheer Peeperkorn (Rod Steiger). The unfolding exchanges between the protagonists are meant to mirror the larger European world in which they live, and stay close to the Nobel Prize-winning novel (1929) of the same name by Thomas Mann, on which this film is based. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

An imaginative, symbolic drama with political overtones, Die Hamburger Krankheit postulates an affliction that is attacking the citizenry in Hamburg and threatening to spread like the bubonic plague. By coincidence, there is a medical conference taking place in the city at the time of the outbreak, and one of the doctors (Helmut Griem) does not agree with the others about how to cure the illness. Then this doctor and several others start heading South, presumably to escape the affliction. Along the way, they encounter many strange events, are stopped by "disinfectant" crews, some are gunned down, and others sell out their ideals. In the end, this undefined affliction could be of the moral variety, or philosophical, or political, or not, adding nuances to the unfolding events. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

Grete Minde, based on the novel by Theodor Fontane, tells the story of a girl trapped in the turbulent religious and social prejudices of 17th-century Sweden. Born of a noble Lutheran father and his second wife, a Spanish Catholic, Grete is barely tolerated by her anti-Catholic older half-brother as long as her father is living; when her father dies, she flees to the home of an uncle with the help of a local boy who has grown accustomed to protecting her. Later, unwed and pregnant, she must flee again. She returns to her home town, but is tragically ill-received. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

At the turn of the century, an idealistic schoolteacher who has just finished his training arrives in the small town which is to be his territory. There, he finds a smug factory-owner, who has cleared out an old barn for a schoolhouse -- for children who have already worked eight hours each day in his factories. Incensed at the whole situation, the schoolteacher allies himself with a local priest to build a proper schoolhouse. He then gets involved with labor protests that bring about a better situation for the children. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

In this prison drama, Franz Blum (Jurgen Prochnow) goes from being a fairly ordinary middle-class man to a hardened convict. Sent to prison for participating in a bank robbery, he learns how to use blackmail and graft in order to survive the harsh life he encounters "inside." The screenplay was written by ex-prisoner Burkhard Driest (who plays a prison bully in the movie), and is based on his own experiences. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

Adapted from the novel Die Döppelgänger by Theodor Storm, this black-and-white drama tells the tragic story of a war veteran who, in 1860, returns to his home in Schleswig Holstein after serving a term for robbery. There he finds nothing but hardship and rejection, save from the town's mayor and a young servant girl, whom he marries. Ridiculed and abused, with practically no work, he turns to drink and one night accidentally kills his wife. The child of their marriage is taken away from him, and at this point he is left with the options of becoming a robber, starving to death, or emigrating. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide