Un ami à moi

Usually I tend to avoid German movies for reasons that are rather dubious, but yesterday I let my friend drag me into "Ein Freund von mir" - and I'm glad that he did.

"Ein Freund von mir" is a slow-paced film that tells the story of young urban professional Karl (Daniel Brühl) who by chance gets to know casual labourer Hans (Jürgen Vogel). The movie is almost entirely devoted to showing the development of their friendship and the numerous tests it has to pass. I think the director keeps an excellent balance between dialog and visuals throughout the whole movie - it is neither dialog-heavy nor does it shy away from showing very authentic conversations when they are necessary. Authenticity for me is probably the most important quality of the film. Not once did I have the feeling that a scene couldn't have easily happened "in real life". While this does not necessarily make a good movie (after all, real life can be pretty boring), it adds immensely to this one because much of its appeal consists of identifying oneself with various situations in the movie. In that sense, many many scenes really worked for me.

"Ein Freund von mir" is a thoughtful, moving but still quite funny movie that never has to try hard to get its story across, for me the best film I've seen since Linklater's "Before Sunrise".

The movie business in general tries to stick to the formulas that are known to work, and German films are no exception. Sometime in the mid-90s, Till Schweiger started to mass-produce comedy-drama hybrid movies and it seems that this is the way to go nowadays. "A Friend Of Mine" is full of great cinematography, moody and melancholic songs, a very slow pace and a lot of pseudo-philosophical garbage. But taking a few typical, well worn-out formulas doesn't always make for a great film. You can have a slow, subtle and gentle movie and it's brilliant ("Before Sunrise") and you can do the same and fail miserably ("A Friend Of Mine"). The story line is extremely uneventful and the characters unconvincing. Many parts of the script don't relate to the evolution of the story at all and are just puzzling at best. One thing proved: It takes a Jim Jarmusch to turn a story going nowhere into something very watchable.

Namely, the German teeth belonging to Jürgen Vogel are one of the most unpalatable aspects of this unpalatable film. I never could quite understand the US criticism of the state of British teeth when there are people like Herr Vogel showing off their horrible nashers on the widescreen. German dentistry leaves a lot to be desired on this evidence.

I had the misfortune of watching this piece of pretentious tripe with German subtitles. I didn't get it at all. Hans is repulsive so why was the pseudoVicar so smitten? X-filme deserve to go down the toilet for this rubbish. How l-o-n-g since the triumph of Lola Rennt? (Run Lola Run?) Too long! What a load of carp!!

When you watch movies like this, sometimes you want to do the jobs in these movies. You want to drive car from some place to another place. You don't think about the hard parts of the job. You have to get up early, sometimes you drive old cars, maybe you have a road accident. But they are not important. It's a good thing if some movie makes you think like that. I don't even know exactly what their job is. But it's not that important if you don't think or realize this question when you watch the movie. Of course it is an illusion. But cinema is illusion. We can say this movie is successful from this point of view.

A FRIEND OF MINE is a wonderful little German film that feels both familiar and different at the same time. As an American viewer, it gave me the chance to see some regular German characters living their life. I don't speak German, but I can read the English subtitles. And in doing so I got a closer look at these Germans than I normally would have.

I got to see just how alike we all are. They deal with the same things we deal with. Apart from that, the acting and directing are wonderful. There are some really great moments in this film. Recommend.