Der ganz große Traum

Alright so this is the movie I saw when I visited Germany in 2011. I almost didn't go because I was expecting to leave Munich that day, but got delayed so I figured I'd hit up a film.

This movie is super cute and even though I couldn't really understand the dialogue, I knew what was going on. It reminds me a bit of Dead Poets Society with that whole 'Teacher comes in, inspires students, gets in trouble but wins in the end' trope. It still worked though, mostly because Daniel Brühl is just a terrific actor and the supporting cast was great. There was this one little boy who reminded me so much of a little Robert Sheehan; he was adorable!

This is the true story of Konrad Koch, who brought football to Germany. I am not terribly familiar with his story so I'm not sure how much of the film is fact and how much is fiction, but it's still a good story. Having spent some time in England and fallen in love with football, Koch decides to introduce it to the boys at the school he's teaching at. Of course the more conservative adults don't want anything to do with this and do what they can to keep his plan from being successful. Considering how popular football is in Germany, I'm sure you can guess how it ends, but like I said it's very cute and the costumes make for good clothing porn. Plus Daniel Brühl looks like a work of art.

Die kommenden Tage ('The Coming Days')

I wanted very much to see this movie when I was in Germany but I just missed it. It came out Nov 2010 and I was there March 2011 so just barely missed it (that's okay because I got to see Der ganz große Traum instead) which is a shame because it has Daniel Brühl and August Diehl in it and they are two of my favorite German actors (heck Daniel is one of my favorites, period) so it would have been nice to see at the cinema. Ah well.

This is set in 2020 after some sort of massive collapse in Europe where a good portion of Germany is walled off and set up like a police state. Most of the movie is told in flashbacks and follows Laura who falls in love with and marries Hans, who has a degenerative eye disease where he will slowly go blind (he had been working for a rather prestigious company but quit when he realized his condition). At one point he takes her to a little cabin out in the middle of nowhere and warns her about the things that will happen in the future and how this is the safest place for them; they'll be off the grid and hidden. She thinks he's nuts and blows him off but they continue dating.
They get pregnant but she loses the baby on their wedding day when it's found the two of them have something that basically makes it impossible for them to have kids with each other. They separate and she ends up shacking up with Konstantin who is somewhat of a revolutionary. He had already been arrested for protesting and causing trouble so it's not much of a surprise when he kind of helps start this whole collapse.
Laura gets pregnant by Konstantin but leaves him when she sees what a huge problem he actually is. Several years later she leaves the protected sector and makes her way out to Hans' cabin with her young son.
Hans is completely blind in one eye and partially blind in the other. He has a teenage boy, Albert, living with him and he explains to Laura that this Albert protects him so he lets him stay at the cabin. Hans is living off the land, with a collection of birds and goats. He enjoys watching the birds and he uses the goats for milk and food.
Some time later, Konstantin manages to track Laura down at the cabin where, after a rather tense confrontation, he shoots Hans and sets the animal cages on fire. He then drags her into the house and tells her to pack up, then drags her into the car.....until a hand reaches out and slashes his throat. Albert has saved the day! He tells Laura to get the hell out of there and he will stay behind. Laura runs back and grabs Hans, pulls him into the car, and drives him back to the border.  The movie ends rather ambiguously, with her banging on the doors of the city and then telling Hans she'll never leave him again.
I don't know how I feel about the ending, but I definitely enjoyed the movie. It moved a bit slow at first, and then suddenly it zipped by so once you get through the first half hour or so, the movie really picks up steam.

New Blog

Hi all, my friend Missy said I should start a foreign film blog because I love to watch foreign language films like they are going out of style so I've made this one. It's going to be a lot like my main movie blog, very relaxed and unprofessional. Just my train of thought running off the rails. 

I've watched a LOT of foreign language films so I am going to try and just go through as many of them as I can remember and just write little blurbs about them. I'll also try to include a screenshot from the movie because I can.