La tela del ragno

If it is only for subject a film by Bernhard Wicki is always interesting viewing, but it also takes a lot of perseverance. This very long (would it ever end?), badly paced and boring film is no exception. Maybe the long production period (almost three years) took its toll, the film is very unsatisfactory with a couple of good scenes but on the whole it is a muddled up endeavour that sometimes simply rambles on from the one scene to the next without any overall power and structure. I could not care a bit about any of the characters.

Wicki is not shy of using some strong graphic imagery to really make his point only to achieve complete distance: ah yes another ripped off head. Furthermore he seems to have been afraid not to get the atmosphere of the period across and endlessly we have to watch how good he was trying to achieve this by maybe a 1000 props we all have to see and a rather folklore interpretation of the Jewish Berlin neighbourhood: Wicki should have concentrated on good story telling in stead. The film is not helped much by poor acting.