Michael Gwisdek Movies

This German drama is centered upon the conversation between a grieving widower and a former Stasi (East German secret police) agent. It is set in former East Berlin. Heiner was a scientist. Now he is retired and spends his lonely days mourning his late wife Agnes. One night there is a knock upon the door. Heiner opens it to discover Stefan, a young man who claims to be an ex-Stasi agent who has an extensive file on Heiner. He comes in and begin sharing intimate details of the scientist's life. These details are only ones that Agnes would have known. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

This propaganda film from East Germany about a corrupt society in West Germany goes to such extremes that it may offend many viewers -- especially doctors. Essentially, the film, by director Horst Seemann who also wrote the script, focuses on the evils lurking in West German hospitals. When a (female) surgeon has a patient die during an operation, she nonchalantly dismisses the death as yet another step in advancing scientific knowledge. Drugs are bandied about for profit only, whether tainted or not, whether they kill the patients or not -- they only exist to bring money into the hands of the doctors and the manufacturers. Not only are these elite hospital staff corrupt in handling patients and drugs, they also lead dissolute lives of no moral standards whatsoever. Viewers may wonder if some West German director will soon be filming a "reply" in a kind of cinematic showdown. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

It seems like a good thing when Philip (Mathias Freihof), a high-school teacher, bumps into Tanja (Dagmar Manzel), starts a relationship with her, and eventually moves in with her. But Philip has a secret he hasn't even told himself. He attended a transvestite ball and met a man named Matthias (Dirk Kummer) there, with whom he also has been having an affair. He can't bring himself to tell either one about the other one. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

The litany of the horrors of the Naza era in Germany is extended in this drama, based on a true story. Sixteen-year old Walerjan is removed from his close-knit Polish family in 1941 by the German occupation. He is assigned to labor for a German war widow on her farm. He speaks no German and longs to return home. He doesn't mind the hard work -- he's used to that. When he inadvertently causes some small damage to her barn, he innocently imagines that the worst that can happen is that he will be returned home as an unsatisfactory laborer. Instead, he is convicted on mysterious charges of "treason" and is shipped to a concentration camp. He survives that experience and hopes that now that he has been released from that sentence, he may be free at last to return home. However, he is tried again and is sentenced to death, under the paradoxical rules of the Nazi justice system. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

This docudrama by director Hark Bohm is about a famous murder case in West Germany during the early 1980s (the Marie Bachmeier case). Marie Sellbach (the fictional Bachmeier played by Marie Colbin) is a mother struggling to raise her seven-year-old daughter while working at a bar in Hamburg and carrying on two relationships -- one with the father of her daughter, and one with another worker at the bar. When Marie's daughter disappears, the mother fears the worst and her fears are well-founded -- her daughter was sexually attacked and murdered. The murderer was caught and brought to trial, and in broad daylight, in the middle of the courtroom, Marie raises a handgun and kills him. Her action was immediately picked up by all the papers and set off a storm of response throughout the country. For viewers who would like more information on the case, this film leans toward the sensational rather than the factual. At the same time, director Bohm was racing against the clock to get this film completed while the Bachmeier case was still in the news and before Burkhard Dreist could come out with his version of the story, Anna's Mutter. Both films on the Bachmeier case were released within a few days of each other. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

This interesting German psychological thriller is set during the fall of the Berlin Wall. Just before the fence comes down, 30-year veteran border guard Hermann takes three days off from his station to attend his wife's funeral. Unknowing of the massive changes that occurred in his absence, he goes back to work and finds he has no work to do. Unlike some of his colleagues, Hermann has trouble finding a new niche in his newly unified country and so continues showing up at his post, filing the usual reports and keeping vandals at bay. Things take a darker turn when he begins interviewing imaginary travelers heading across the non-existent border. Eventually, his obsession drives him over the edge and he captures two hostages and chains them to his post. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

This drama appears to have been oriented to citizens of the former East Germany and other former Iron Curtain countries. In the story, set in the 1970s, a girl has been learning the ropes at a newspaper job. However, under the communist regime, this was considered to be a particularly politically sensitive job and she is seeing a young man who is considered to be "unsuitable." After receiving a warning against seeing him, she complies with the wishes of the authorities for a time. However, she is unable to stay away and receives further threats. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

In this remake of Marriage in the Shadows, one of the first and most successful postwar East German films, the life of a Jewish actress is destroyed by rising fascist sentiment. After leading a successful life as a popular actress, who does slightly conceal her background, she falls in love with a German man and is married. As the historical situation worsens, the actress finds the theatres begin to turn her away and public sentiment forces her and her husband to divorce. Their tragic story begins spinning out of control when the husband realizes he is powerless to protect her from the Nazis and, unable to emigrate, the two contemplate suicide. At the film's bleak end, they look into each other's eyes and drift off. ~ Brian Whitener, All Movie Guide

Oskar Roehler directs this bleak look at a down-and-out writer's alcohol-drenched final days. Though the central character is named Hanna Flander, the film basically tells the real-life story of noted author Gisela Elsner, who threw herself out of a fourth story window in 1992. Elsner is also the filmmaker's mother. Given the film's highly personal subject matter, Roehler lends the film a remarkable emotional remoteness along with a breathtaking visual style, shot in stark black and white. It opens with unrepentant Leninist Hanna (Hannelore Elsner, no relation) drunken, depressed, and chain-smoking as she watches the Berlin Wall collapse while in her Munich abode. She sells most of her belongings and moves to Berlin, hooking up with old flame Jaochim Rau (Michael Gwisdek) in the process. She suffers one setback after another, ultimately ending up in a scuzzy tenement in East Berlin, which she gives to a kind Eastern German woman (Claudia Geisler). A long admirer of Communism and East Germany, she has difficult time believing the realities of that repressive police state. This film was screened at the 2000 Cannes Film Festival. ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide

Two lonely people find each other without meeting face to face in this romantic drama. Gregor (Ben Becker) is a disc jockey at a radio station who has never quite gotten over his breakup with his former girlfriend; they played together in a rock band, and she's since gone on to stardom, while he's stuck in an on-and-off relationship with co-worker Lily (Catrin Strieback), though they both know there's no future in it. Somewhere else in town, Mai (Isabella Parkinson) is in love with Nick (Nicolas von Wacherbarth), but Nick only has eyes for Mai's roommate Anne (Nele Muller-Stofen), leaving Mai depressed and at odds about what to do. One night, while Gregor is playing a song that has always reminded him of his ex, Mai is listening as she narrowly avoids an auto accident that could have easily taken her life. Mai finds that the song is stuck in her memory, and she sends an e-mail to him asking for details about the tune, claiming she knew the former girlfriend that he mentioned. Soon the two are sending each other messages on a regular basis, and they find themselves wondering if you can fall in love with a person you've never actually met. Frau2 Sucht Happyend is a remake of the South Korean hit Cheob-sok. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

A dedicated young German boy pulls off an elaborate scheme to keep his mother in good health in this comedy drama from director Wolfgang Becker. Suffering a heart attack and falling into a coma after seeing her son arrested during a protest, Alex's (Daniel Brühl) socialist mother, Christiane (Katrin Sass), remains comatose through the fall of the Berlin wall and the German Democratic Republic. Knowing that the slightest shock could prove fatal upon his mother's awakening, Alex strives to keep the fall of the GDR a secret for as long as possible. Keeping their apartment firmly rooted in the past, Alex's scheme works for a while, but it's not long before his mother is feeling better and ready to get up and around again. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

One of the key political events of the late 20th century fails to distract a man who is having a row with his parents in this comedy from Germany. The film takes place in the fall of 1989 in SO36, a neighborhood in West Berlin adjacent to the Berlin Wall, shunted into a corner and largely ignored. It is home to an oddball community of Bohemians and outsiders who pay little mind to the world around them. Frank Lehmann (Christian Ulmen) is a bartender who serves beer at nights to the motley citizens of SO36 and is oblivious to most everything except his lackadaisical pal Karl (Detlev Buck) and his ill-tempered girlfriend Katrin (Katja Danowski). A visit from Frank's parents throws his simple life into disarray, especially since his letters home led them to expect a far grander life than he's leading, and with this sudden chaos in his life, Frank barely notices that big things are happening on the other side of the wall. Herr Lehmann, also titled Berlin Blues, was screened as part of the "German Cinema" series at the 2004 Berlin Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide