Tuesday

There was a strange audience in the cinema to see The Good German. I'm not sure how to explain or understand that, but it perturbed me greatly. Who goes to see this film? It doesn't fit into many categories clearly. Anyway, I advise those with sensitive dispositions to look away now. I won't reveal any important details, but I think just talking about this movie might ruin it for you. So don't read any more of this post if you intend to see it, at any point.

Ok, so Steven Soderbergh decided to make a film in a 40s/50s style. I won't try to understand why, but I was intrigued enough to go see it. Overall, it's very disappointing. Two points annoyed me: he didn't commit fully enough to the style, but he was caught up so much in style he forgot character and plot. Apart from a few admittedly very good moments (when she pulls a gun on him, the boy with the boat, the revelations etc) I was utterly bored by the storyline. The characters weren't at all interesting and, apart from Cate Blanchet, they were terribly cast and acted. Then, on the other hand, I wasn't convinced by the look. The film was too clear and too crisp, the shades between black and white too clearly defined. It was very obviously a modern movie. The music was good, but the sound design was bad. The whole thing was amateurish: the mish-mash of old stock footage with new, the in-car dialogues. He should've fully committed to the era - instead we had strangely out of place scenes: swear words, and mildly-explicit sex. The setting was very promising - Berlin just after the war - but it wasn't fully taken advantage of. As I said, this is disappointing. It had certain scenes that were excellent (the murder in the crowd), but there were too many moments when I was bored or confused. Perhaps the audience's first reaction to the out-of-date titles, although harsh, was the most revealing: they laughed.