Otto Sander Movies
- 1983
Based on a non-fiction bestseller of the same name by Rolf Hochhuth, Eine Liebe In Deutschland is about a tragic and forbidden love affair between Stanislaw, a Polish POW (Piotr Lysak) and Paulina (Hanna Schygulla) a fruit-and-vegetable vendor in a small town in Germany along the border with Switzerland. Their affair would have gone undetected except for the busybody women of the village, and when Stanislaw is picked up by a German stormtrooper (Armin Müller-Stahl) and brought in for a mock trial, he is given a chance to prove his racial purity and so perhaps escape execution. As for Paulina, she is ostracized by the villagers and imprisoned for consorting with someone who was not of the same high Aryan caste as herself. Depressing, yet politically relevant to Poland of the early 1980s, this film by acclaimed director Andrzej Wajda) is an effective and emotional statement on the nature of oppression. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Hanna Schygulla, Marie-Christine Barrault, (more)
Das Boot is one of the most gripping and authentic war movies ever made. Based on an autobiographical novel by German World War II photographer Lothar-Guenther Buchheim, the film follows the lives of a fearless U-Boat captain (Jurgen Prochnow) and his inexperienced crew as they patrol the Atlantic and Mediterranean in search of Allied vessels, taking turns as hunter and prey. There's very little plot, so the movie's power comes from both its riveting, epic battle scenes and its details of the boring hours spent waiting for orders or signs of the enemy. With the exception of one staunch Hitler Youth lieutenant, none of the crew is particularly loyal to the Nazis, and some are openly hostile toward their Fuhrer; this allows viewer sympathy with the men as they perform their laborious, monotonous duties in cramped, filthy quarters, or await death as depth charges explode all around the sub. Prochnow is excellent as the nerves-of-steel commander, and many of the supporting actors -- all German -- are solid as well, although the characterizations border on war movie clichés (the young crewman who has left behind his pregnant girlfriend, the Chief Engineer whose wife is seriously ill). The real star, however, is cinematographer Jost Vacano, who makes the sub's grimy, claustrophobic interior come to vivid life, as his camera follows the crew through hatches, up ladders, into bunks, and under pipes, creating a palpable sense of claustrophobia while injecting it with movement. Originally edited by writer/director Wolfgang Petersen as both a two-and-a-half hour theatrical release and a six-hour German miniseries, Das Boot was re-released in a restored version in 1997 with nearly one hour of added footage which made it even more suspenseful than before. ~ Don Kaye, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jürgen Prochnow, Herbert Gronemeyer, (more)
- 1981
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
- Starring:
- Otto Sander, Peter Fitz, (more)
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
In Volker Schlöndorff's award-winning adaptation of Nobel Prize winner Günter Grass' allegorical novel, David Bennent plays Oskar, the young son of a German rural family, circa 1925. On his third birthday, Oskar receives a shiny new tin drum. At this point, rather than mature into one of the miserable specimens of grown-up humanity that he sees around him, he vows never to get any older or any bigger. Whenever the world around him becomes too much to bear, the boy begins to hammer on his drum; should anyone try to take the toy away from him, he emits an ear-piercing scream that literally shatters glass. As Germany goes to hell during the 1930s and '40s, the never-aging Oskar continues savagely beating his drum, serving as the angry conscience of a world gone mad. The intense and visceral Tin Drum was one of the most financially successful German films of the 1970s and won the 1979 Oscar for Best Foreign Film and the 1979 Golden Palm (which it shared with Apocalypse Now). In the late '90s, the film became the center of a censorship controversy when some U.S. videotapes were confiscated because of the film's supposed violation of a child pornography statute. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Mario Adorf, Angela Winkler, (more)
- 1978
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
- Starring:
- Libgart Schwartz
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
- Starring:
- Edith Clever, Bruno Ganz, (more)
- 1976
Based on the play by Maxim Gorky, this film re-creates the goings-on at a dacha in the Russian countryside during a turn-of-the-century summer. The eleven wealthy guests manage their intrigues and affairs in the presence of their hosts Jakov Schalimov (Otto Sander) and Julia (Elke Petri), a close but feuding couple. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Edith Clever
