SnoReptilePlenty Memorable, crazy movie

Bea Swanson This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

Marva It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

Scarlet The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Emil Bakkum The film Sonnenallee is a comedy of the absurd humor type, a bit like the Monty Python stories. A sense of humor is always rather personal, and to be fair the fun in Sonnenallee is not my thing. Maladjusted fun feels weird, and this makes the conception of this review a somewhat precarious undertaking. In Sonnenallee everything is chaotic. The characters are ill-contrived and unpredictable. They move in all directions, without pattern. There is a scene, where the main character Micha suddenly strikes down his friend, for the simple reason that he has accepted this narrow-minded job. The events have no understandable coherence, but arbitrary hop on and off your screen. Evidently the fact that I watched the "extended" version did not allay the confusion. Does it reflect the existentialism of Sartre, which is actually hailed in the film itself? Or is it an attempted alliance with the Nouvelle Vague? The story unfolds in a quarter of East-Berlin, in an alley immediately behind the illustrious Wall. Although the Wall is a stage-property that dominates many of the scenes, it remains an object without meaning or significance. If there are witted allusions, they are lost on me. More obvious hints would help. An example of the incomprehensible character studies: Micha has no pangs of conscience to enlist in the people's army. In one of the scenes at the Wall he even threatens to shoot down tourists, that are peeping from the west side. But at the same time, he keeps a diary, in which he taunts the allegedly repressive nature of the Leninist state. There can be no doubt: he is mentally unstable. You can allege that Sonnenallee is about a youth troop, whose members are in the process of trying to discover their own identity. But the adults in Sonnenallee are just as all-out deranged as the kids. The mother of Micha plans to defect to the west, on her own, but reconsiders and allures and seduces her dull husband. Two visitors in Berlin, who at home can not receive the western TV broadcastings, are impressed by their glitter and for hours sit gazing at the test screen. Joke: where is the English Channel? Answer: I don't know, my TV does not pick it up. To be fair, not all is bunk. Yes, tall exaggerations can be fun. For instance, there is this scene, where a young guest from Vietnam makes an allocution before an audience of pupils, in her own exotic language. Naturally she almost disappears behind the reading-desk. At the end the audience reacts elated. And: the teacher is indignant, or should I write shocked, because Micha has peed in the direction of her beloved "anti-fascist protection barrier". Joke 2: did you hear about the cross-eyed teacher? She could not control her pupils. So let us allow for some amusing moments in Sonnenallee. But it could be more. I had all-time expectations, considering the awkward theme of the clash of ideologies. To be fair, Sonnenallee avoids the demagogic and self-conceited atmosphere, that is alloyed in Goodbye Lenin. If you enjoy kids being silly, the film Berlin Ecke Schönhauser of Defa Studios also narrates about a youth troop. In Berlin, yes. Pronounce: Bearleen. This film dives deep into the commonplace temptations of East and West, without becoming too censorious. The translation is not all-in, as usual with Ice Storm. Or see my other reviews.

jomfruphd i laughed the whole way through. the no-name actors gave this film a breath of reality, and after this triumph, i'm sure we'll see much more of them. it would have been easy for this film to bog itself down in the muck of trying to do something really serious with the subject matter and situations, but it remained light and playful and self-mocking. i was actually scared by how much the characters reminded me of my own family! i'm not sure what that says about me, but it makes for some hillarious scenes in the film. everyone should see this comic gem that proves germans have a great sense of humor and can laugh at themselves along with everyone else.

Nuuttipukki The movie is located in a Berlin street of the 70's - the Sonnenallee. The street is divided by the Wall. Micha and his friends live on the other side of the Wall - in the East.This movie shows us that DDR-Kids were not very different from those in the West. They are not interested in politics or communism, but in what is much more important: SEX DRUGS AND ROCK 'N' ROLL!In addition to this interesting insight into everyday life in the DDR the movie is really funny. There are so many comedy elements in it. There is for example a scene in which a East German soldier tries to explain to a West German why the Eastern radio is superior to the Western technology - it has less functions and is therefore easier to handle. And the disastrous party is just great... But - just watch it!

bandit-15 'Sonnenallee' is definitly the funniest german pic this year and furthermore a perfectly developed piece of history, that soon will be forgotten trough to the fall of the berlin wall. The biggest plus on Leander Haussmanns film is the cast of no-names, who give so much realism to the flick that you feel thrown back in time without any doubt. And I laughed troughout the whole 90 minutes. Nevertheless will it be difficult for the movie to get real attention outside germany trough to the specific theme, but a must for everyone inside this country.