television film

film by Houchang Allahyari

The mis-adventures of three Polish-Jews on the road to Gdansk is the basis for this German comedy that was filmed in New York, Germany, and Poland. Genovefa and Moshe have been married and living in New York for 30 years. Physically the couple resembles Mr. and Mrs. Jack Sprat. The two have decided to return to Poland for a visit. They intend to have Moshe's best friend Isaac, an unlucky, depressive German, take care of their house while they are gone. Unfortunately, Isaac loses his job before they go and ends up accompanying them on a Polish freighter. When the ship dies in a German port, the threesome must go overland to Gdansk. They encounter many mishaps along the way.

This film combines two very different styles: an atmospheric psycho thriller about the ice-cold hired gun (masterfully played by Frank Gorschin), and the bizarre satire of the Austrian TV serial "Kottan ermittelt".

The story and fate of three families: A Jewish family destroyed by the massacres of the Nazis in Lithuania; the family of the culprit, who flew to America and keeps grotesque family cohesion; the family of Ratz, a social democratic family, dissolving itself miserably in today's Vienna. The condemnation of the last century bundled in these three families showing clearly that one could never escape from its own past. Written by themoth-1

Shameless slimeball Eduard "Edik" Letov - clad in an everpresent Hawaiian shirt - puts the sting on alien travelers hoping to connect with their roots, by having local phonies pose as the visitors' long-lost relatives. Complications abound when Letov attempts to pass off an entire village under the guise of a community wiped out during the Second World War. The arrival of a group of trouble-causing misfits, among them mobster Barukh - who wishes to bury his mother's remains, only to discover that someone keeps exhuming them - and the lech Simon - a Canadian with an insatiable fetish for his sexy translator - turn Letov's latest scheme into a veritable cat's cradle.

This is a film I picked up in the library. I hadn't heard about it at all, so I was wondering whether it was intended for TV or for the big screen. So, anyway, what got me watching this flick is mainly the cast: Mario Adorf, Günther Lamprecht and Bruno Ganz are, in my view, some of the finest actors Germany has (and Germany doesn't have a lot of them). The plot is something which rang a bell to me, I am quite sure that the main idea of this film borders on plagiarism: a former KZ-inmate is convinced of having discovered one of his torturers in a church posing as a man of God (Lamprecht). It reminded me of Dürrenmatt. Although the plot is definitely not something unheard of or never done before, I thought that the acting was good. The flashbacks to the youth of the three protagonists was somewhat too corny, but the confrontation scene in the church was well done and not a little melodramatic. This scene was worth watching, because Adorf, Lamprecht and Ganz display this kind of down to earth acting that far from the overly dramatic way of acting in Hollywood when it comes to the Holocaust. So, although this isn't the best movie I've ever seen on the Shoah, it's definitely not the worst, and that's why I give it 6 points.

The enigmatic but vivid imagery of this loosely plotted film is based on a similarly evocative novel by the Italian author Antonio Tabucchi, Noturno Indiano. An old friend of the hero's has been living in Bombay with a prostitute. His friend Peter Schlemihl (Otto Tausig) is a concentration camp survivor, who went to India after being captivated by a photograph he saw there. When the prostitute writes to him in Europe asking that he rescue his friend from a mysterious malaise, he flies into India to try and help. When he gets to Bombay, he discovers that his friend has disappeared. Following the clues left behind by the friend, and based on his acquaintance with him, he journeys to Madras to speak to a Theosophist dignitary there, and then journeys on to Portugues Goa. With each step of his journey, the hero (Jean-Hugues Anglade) becomes more identified with his friend, and re-enacts in his own person the transformations he must have experienced.

Based on the short stories “Alone,” “The Briefcase” and “Old Love” by the Yiddish writer and Nobel Prize-winner Isaac Bashevis Singer, Love Comes Lately is the utterly enchanting story of a charming old Jewish writer living in a state of “permanent confusion.” Cursed with an imagination so potent it gives him nightmares, the man’s fictions manifest all the deep desires and dark fears he manages to keep under the surface of his day-to-day routine. Showing his dexterity in drawing true-to-life, memorable characters, it is director Jan Schütte’s most accomplished film to date, sustaining all the charm and innuendoes of Singer’s unparalleled tales. An Austrian émigré, Max Kohn (Otto Tausig) is an accomplished short-story author very much of the old world – he still uses a typewriter – living in New York City. A wry and whimsical confirmed bachelor with a supposed “harem” of girlfriends, he spends most of his free time with the jealous worrywart Reisele (Rhea Perlman). On a train trip to a lecture in nearby Hanover, Max edits his latest creation, imagining himself as its protagonist: a Miami Beach retiree named Simon. Simon encounters all sorts of misadventures – including two steamy romances and a murder – and when we rejoin Max, his wildest fantasies seem to have been unleashed to take shape in the real world. At the reception after his talk, he reunites with Rosalie (Barbara Hershey), a beautiful but world-weary former student with whom he shares a great attraction. He then heads to another speaking event in Springfield, where he endures all manner of mix-ups. Having lost his prepared speech, Max decides to read a brand new story, with shades of his recent experiences, instead. He then becomes yet another thinly veiled variation of himself named Harry…. With his weathered, sympathetic face, Max is a pure mensch – wise and spirited. Yet he is also stubborn, forgetful and beginning to dodder. Above all, however, his mind and manner are genuinely magnetic. In addition to Tausig’s fine, full-bodied performance and the legendary Singer’s source material, Love Comes Lately has a lightness of touch and a thoroughly romantic tone that only strengthen its emotional pull. Shütte’s direction brings these characters to life as lovable, irresistable beings, and places a permanent smile on viewers’ lips.

1998 French film by Nicole Garcia