ThiefHott Too much of everything

Beanbioca As Good As It Gets

ChicRawIdol A brilliant film that helped define a genre

Ella-May O'Brien Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

jillf64 Although the way this film will end is probably there from the beginning anyone who complains about that is missing the point. The big pluses are the location, the atmosphere and the wonderful leading lady who was totally convincing as a bullied wife. Even viewed from the back she maintained her somewhat cowed attitude. I liked the hint at an unknown dimension of the spirit as she gained her freedom from her horrible husband. I also liked that the world Yella found herself in was strange and alienating but she adapted quickly because she was used to being pushed around. It's another film that demonstrates how much wiser and more satisfying European films are.

raimund-berger The story can be considered as simple as it gets I guess. The main character, Yella, tries to break away from her husband who is in a desperate state also due to a failed business. While he keeps stalking her, in an attempt to get a job and life of her own she teams up with a venture capital negotiator, who unfortunately does some not exactly legal side business on his own. As he's about to be exposed, the story comes to a crisis when she tries to support him with a blackmailing scheme.So while the core story is pretty straight forward, it's really the execution which sets this film apart. More specifically, this film succeeds in creating a real atmosphere through minimalistic dialog and camera work dominated by long still and slow panning shots, beautiful lighting and colors contrasting toned down reds and blues, and meticulous sound work which puts you right into the middle of things.The world created here is one of profound dissociation, where at each moment people seem to be able to relate to each other but can't quite, as everybody is just pursuing his own goals not freely but rather desperately driven and brutally exploitative in consequence.To support that atmosphere, the film also sports a couple of "magical" stunts which look like an attempt to give it a metaphysical touch. And especially the ending seems to put all past events into a context which wouldn't live up to the tension immediately preceding it. In fact, I found it a bit disappointing on first viewing myself, but it made sense on the second one when I realized that the film doesn't seek a closure which it couldn't satisfyingly present anyway.Altogether, I'd consider this truly great cinema. It likely won't appeal that much to a viewer who's still fine with run of the mill Hollywood cinema and TV shows, which basically reassemble the same material over and over again thanks to professional writing combined with lack of inspiration and present them in always the same ways, over edited, over color processed, over acted, over scored, over everything. Audiences on the other hand who can e.g. appreciate Russian or Japanese classics will find here a truly original addition to class contemporary cinema I'd say.

herjoch Films of the so-called "Berlin School" (Petzold,Arslan,Schanelec)in the last years frequently represented the German cinema at international festivals,and not with small success.Reactions were often similar:Accolades from the critics,especially those from France,while the non-professional spectators mostly were at a loss with the film because of the slow and fragmented storytelling,the long scenes without cutting,the concentration on close-ups and the staging of space.All that applies also to the new film "Yella" by Chr. Petzold,which for many was the favorite for the "Golden Bear" at the Berlinale 2007,but ended up only with a absolutely deserved "Silver Bear" for the fantastic Nina Hoss. "Yella" is some kind of finale to Petzold's "Geister-Trilogie",to which also belong "Die innere Sicherheit" and "Gespenster"; films,which are situated in a clearly outlined reality,but whose protagonists glide through their life like phantoms,unseizable and themselves unable to build a relation to the surrounding world.The story itself is quite simple and more or less superficial: Yella, living in East Germany and married to a man,whose business is near to bankruptcy, has applied for a job in West Germany and plans to leave her past life behind her.Her husband offers to drive her to the station and after having tried in vain to talk her into staying with him and starting their relationship new , he purposely drives the car through the railing of a bridge into the water.They both manage to get to the bank.Yella then disappears and takes the trip to the west.She doesn't get the promised job,but because of her knowledge of dealing with accounts and her appearance she gets the job of assistant to a specialist for venture capital.The film gives brilliant insights into the world of globalized capitalism dominated by greed, betrayal and blackmailing.Yella comes to enjoy the power and the success.It seems that she made it:A profitable job and a new man in her life.But she ruins it all by her own abnormal ambition fed by love.Well, then their is the end,which displeased so many spectators and was called pretentious, illogical or simply stuck on.But if one watches the film carefully and pays attention to all the visual and acoustic guiding themes the end is logic and convincing.A formally stern,deliberately cool and strangely mesmerizing lyrical film.By the way: It tells you more about today's German state of mind than a dozen statistical surveys.

kravcic We can forgive wooden dialog, flat characters, and all manner of implausibilities, just so long as the story's a good one. But this film looks like a draft from a bad and very boring TV show: a bunch of scarcely-related, independently developed thematic elements are sliced, diced, and shuffled together into a melange of ideas precariously balanced on the teetering bones of a half-baked story. Pacing and sequencing is clumsy and amateurish. I made it through about one hour and I only got that far because I thought it HAD to get better - it just couldn't be this lousy and boring. It did not get better at all. I kept thinking, "How much longer can this pseudo-artistic film go on?"