Paulus Manker Movies

A privileged young prankster with a cruel streak sends an alcoholic poet on a redemptive quest to find his way back home in director Michael Glawogger's semi-existential road drama. Sebastian (August Diehl) is a well-to-do slacker who has crafted his skill for slumming into something of an art form. Along with his flatmate Alex (Michael Ostrowski), Sebastian frequently arranges meetings with various women in dive bars throughout Vienna, only to photograph them surreptitiously under the table and use the resulting pictures as an endless source of amusement. As his already mean tricks begin to turn outright malicious, Sebastian finds the once-willing Alex growing increasingly uncomfortable with their "harmless" pastime. Kallman (Paulus Manker) is a troubled alcoholic who sells his poems on the street in order to stay inebriated. When Sebastian and Alex discover an unconscious Kallman sleeping off his latest round of drinks on a train station bench, they quickly spirit the clueless drunk into their car and across the Czech border where he is casually dumped without identification in a remote village. Subsequently enamored by restless local teacher Pia (Pia Hierzegger), Sebastian inadvertently revolts the kindly educator by jovially revealing the details of his latest practical joke. As a determined Pia sets out to locate the ailing alcoholic and safely bring him back home, Kallman attempts to recount just how he ended up so far away from Vienna as he navigates a strange and unfamiliar landscape. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

A family man slowly becomes dangerously obsessive and paranoid in this grim Austrian drama that contains a graphically violent ending. As the story begins, George, an engineer who works at a science facility, has a normal happy life with his wife and kids. They are in the process of building a new house when George learns that a nearby chemical plant has been leaking dangerous gas into the air. This causes George to begin suffering from terrifying hallucinations. His paranoia increases every time he hears another report of violence, crime, war, or any other social problems on the news. After learning that his company may be overtaken by a larger corporation, George decides to send his family on an Italian vacation while he stays home and turns their apartment into a strange refuge from the terrible world he knows is coming. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

Obsessed with and disgusted by his Jewish heritage, and equally obsessed with his homosexuality, the minor German philosopher Otto Weininger (Paulus Manker) managed to commit suicide at age 23 in the bedroom of Beethoven's last home on October 3, 1903. It seems that this twisted little man's great masterwork, which "scientifically" denigrated Jews and women, was viewed as a mere copy of their own work by the two men who had the power to recommend that it be published: Sigmund Freud and Paul Julius Moebius. At a time when many Jews were doing their best to hide their backgrounds through converting to Catholicism, Weininger, in a typically contrary fashion, attempted the same thing by converting to Protestantism. The story of this unappealing man's life is effectively told in flashbacks as he reviews the events and ideas of his life during his fateful final evening. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi

Despite initial appearances, this melodrama is not a horror film. Hanna is overjoyed to be giving birth to a baby, but when it is born, neither she nor her husband are allowed to see the child, which is apparently some sort of monster. Hanna rushes out of the hospital, robs a grocery store, and takes off across Europe, meditating about the relationships in her life. She concludes that for most men, she has only been a prized possession, and vows never to become one again. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi

Set in Vienna, Austria before World War I, an industrialist grows weary of his cold-hearted wife. He seeks vengeance in a dual with the young officer who desires her affections. ~ Dan Pavlides, Rovi

In this intellectual perspective of what emotion is and does, director Alexander Kluge has divided the topic into 12 parts with titles such as "The Change," "Act Five" or "The Shot" and then proceeded to formulate a film treatise that does not exclude political figures or activities in West Germany in the early 1980s. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi