Otto Sander Movies

The costume drama Die Marquise von O is French director Eric Rohmer's first feature-length theatrical release after a four-year break from filmmaking. Based on a short story by Henrich von Kleist, the dialogue is spoken in the original German language and the story is set in Italy during the Franco-Prussian War. Edith Clever plays the widowed Marquise, who is sexually assaulted by Russian soldiers and rescued by a Count (Bruno Ganz). Some time later, she has to explain to her parents (Peter Lühr and Edda Seippel) and brother (Otto Sander) why she's pregnant. Die Marquise von O won the Grand Jury Prize in the 1976 Cannes Film Festival. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, All Movie Guide

In a provincial town in West Germany, the director of the local art society is preparing to put on an exhibit of paintings. The patrons of the society are all upstanding local businessmen and members of the middle class, of not very refined tastes, but they are all a-dither about the painting in the "Capitalist Realism" exhibit which is clearly insulting to a local banker. Nonetheless, in this comedy they all exert themselves to be polite to the painter and his boyfriend. The film is adapted from the play by Botho Strauss. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

An impoverished young man from Sicily travels to Wolfsburg, West Germany to find work. He takes a job in the Volkswagen factory after he travels through Northern Italy by train. The young man is arrested after he kills two Germans with his knife when they question his honor. The third part of the film follows his subsequent trial and deals with justice denied and the attitude of many Germans who resent the influx of foreign labor. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide

The humor in this film centers around a man in his pajamas and bathrobe who goes out to buy some cigarettes on the corner and encounters a series of events that have him chased by some inept policemen, an angry husband, a taxi driver, and so forth. Things continue to deteriorate from there, and for some viewers, their funny bones will be picked dry after the first few scenes. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, 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

Bertholt Brecht (1898-1956) was a groundbreaking German playwright, movie-maker, and poet. Among his well-known works are the musical drama The Threepenny Opera (which originated the famous song Mack the Knife in collaboration with composer Kurt Weill), and the harrowing drama Mother Courage and Her Children, which have become part of the world's standard theatrical repertory. Due to his leftist political sympathies, despite his eminent stature in Germany, he decided to live the life of an exile in the United States between 1941 and 1947. This documentary explores that period in his life. While in the U.S., he supported himself by writing screenplays such as the one he wrote with Charles Laughton for Galileo Galilei). His leftist sentiments and intense idealism brought him into conflict with the increasingly hysterical anti-communist activities of branches of the U.S. government. When he was brought before the House Un-American Activities Committee (H.U.A.C.) to testify, along with other culturally influential men such as Ring Lardner, Jr., he was unable to adequately defend himself. The day after his testimony, he returned to (East) Germany, to resume his career there. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

In the Turkish village he lives in, Orhan, who is a shepherd boy, watches his father killed by a hit-and-run driver whose car has Austrian plates. He hides away in a truck bound for those parts and tracks down the killer. He has somehow gotten hold of a gun, and manages to frighten his father's killer with it. Meanwhile, he has made friends with an Austrian boy, and made a hangout of the kitchen of the night club which his father's killer frequents. After he exacts his nonlethal revenge, he finds another truck headed back to Turkey, and returns to his flocks. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

Wim Wenders revisits his masterpiece Der Himmel Uber Berlin in this film which picks up several years after the original left off. Cassiel (Otto Sander) is an angel who watches over the lives of the people of recently reunified Berlin with Raphaella (Nastassja Kinski). Damiel (Bruno Ganz), Cassiel's former partner who opted to return to the land of the living in the first film, now lives happily as a pizza chef with the woman he loved and married, circus performer Marion (Solveig Dommartin). While angels are forbidden to directly intervene in the lives of humans, Cassiel impulsively breaks this rule when a little girl falls from the balcony of an apartment block, and he swoops down to catch her. Suddenly made flesh and blood, Cassiel has earned the enmity of Emit Flesti (Willem Dafoe), a sort of overseer of the angels on the physical plane. Emit makes it his business to make things difficult for Cassiel now that he's living among the humans, and after a period of alcoholism and imprisonment, Cassiel finds himself working for gangster Tony Baker (Horst Buchholz), who distributes weapons and pornography on the black market. However, Cassiel has a change of heart and decides to destroy Tony's stockpile in a bid to make the world a better place. Peter Falk, who played himself in Der Himmel Uber Berlin, makes a return appearance when a gallery shows the sketches that he was making in the first film; rock singer Lou Reed and former Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev also appear as themselves. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

In this resonant drama, decades after the fact, Paul fondly recalls his grandfather's monomaniacal obsession with his craft of "telling" the stories of silent movies with his violin, occasionally supplementing the violin with his storytelling voice. When talkies newly appear on the scene, his grandfather (Armin Mueller-Stahl) heatedly disdains their evident lack of moviemaking craft, discussing these matters with the proprietor of the little Apollo theater, who is nervous about costs and the possibility of going out of business altogether. Meanwhile, social storms of all sorts rage in Germany around them, from hyperinflation to the political ferment which first saw Hitler appointed to government office. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

In this film, director Sergei Solovyov provides a unique presentation of Chekhov's famous play. Rather than presenting the whole work, he opts to present only highlights from each scene. The photography, set designs, and sound-track of the film are notable. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide