Wordiezett So much average

Listonixio Fresh and Exciting

Lollivan It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

Tobias Burrows It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

Horst in Translation (filmreviews@web.de) "Elementarteilchen" is a German film from almost 10 years ago and it runs for almost two hours. I will not mention all the cast members here, but this is really impressive. So many big name actors from Germany in here. I cannot think of another film in recent years that had equally many. Oskar Roehler, one of Germany's more known filmmakers these days, directed this film and also adapted Michel Houellebecq's novel for it. Probably his most famous film. Moritz Bleibtreu and Christian Ulmen play the main characters here, two brothers with very damaged relationships to woman and the reason may be their childhood and upbringing. This film touches some taboos, such as sexual relationships between teachers and students or even with your parents, but both is not elaborated too much into detail, so you can watch this without really having to puke. Bleibtreu did a fine job and deserved the awards attention he got for this. I am not really a great fan of his, so my perception of his strong performances is even more telling. It may be his finest character work. Ulmen, on the other hand I am not too big on here. It seems to me that he usually playing very similar characters and he found his niche. I would love to see him in a more daring portrayal, but he usually goes with nerdy intelligent guys with a touch of awkwardness. Still, it's a good contrast to Bleibtreu's character. Both brothers are on a journey to finding real love and a lasting relationship. Both manage in the end, but they have to pay a huge price as both their significant others turn out physically damaged and emotionally they probably are as well. "Elementarteilchen" is probably among the best German films from 2006 and I recommend it.

kurciasbezdalas I wasn't expecting much of this film, even knowing what's it about. I was surprised how cleverly it was made. The main themes of this film are sex and love. Though there was a lot of profanity, everything fit perfectly. It's not one of those films where is a lot of unnecessary profanity just to shock audience. Another good thing about this film is, that it's characters always talk openly with each other, so you get to know them in a very short time and even start to like them. Actually this is a sad story, but I found this movie being optimistic sometimes. It's well filmed and there are many good German actors in this film. There were many unexpected twist, even the ending was not like I expected. It's interesting, funny, shocking and really worth your time.

Balazs Csaszar Elementary particles starts out as a quest for existence and what this word really means. Two brothers (half-brothers to be precise) realize their lives are not what kids dream about however much they seem to fit in the „mechanism". One is having doubts about his devotion to chase his scientific pioneering while the other does not seem to find comfort in teaching literature any more while being constantly turned down by publishers and neglected by his wife. They both have to reach back to their roots to be able to find out where to go from here, though Bruno (Moritz Bleibtrau) does so amidst rather compulsive circumstances, in a clinic he ends up in. They have not been given much of a head-start in life with their capricious, self-indulgent, impulsive and utterly careless hippie mother who left them both with their troubled and lonesome adolescence. Life has taken no mercy either – that is not the nature of things. Michael (Christian Ulmen) however, finds some inspiration to carry on in the shape of an old, more-than-friend girl pal, while Bruno has to rethink and reestablish his everyday needs and desires. He is living his second childhood – a time without constraints but full of uncertainty and odd, unbalanced characters – trying to escape his feeling of being redundant. Oscar Roehler's stark and thick drama seems a little exaggerating, a bit too much, nevertheless depicts life as it is: after stripped from all the fake Christmas wrappers, often desperate, pitiful at most times and forgiving only every once in a while.

DaSchaust I enjoyed this adaptation way more than the book, which -- despite all the pseudo-intellectual hype that was raised about it -- was mainly about pornography, perversion, and a "philosophy" that can be formulated in short as: unless you are perfect, beautiful and brilliant, better kill yourself. And even if you are, there is ample reason to get depressed.By the way, it is not true that the director didn't try to talk to Houellebecq. But when he did the latter was seriously under drugs and hard to communicate with.In contrast, this film surely picked out some of the more digestible parts of the book and luckily didn't portray the characters as if they were only some of God's worst jokes. What came out was a beautiful and intelligent story about life, human relationships, and the choices that we face between keeping up love even under difficult conditions or, instead, going the seemingly easy way and losing everything.If that doesn't sound depressing enough for you, better go and buy the book...