Zeit der Kannibalen

I was intrigued by the trailer for this film and decided to go see it based on the rating on IMDb. What a mistake! It starts out well enough, and for the first half hour or so actually seems like it might go somewhere. Then, the plot reels out of control into a completely implausible, ethnocentric (borderline racist), fantasy of what German business consultants get up to when traveling in 'third-world' countries. The main problem is that whoever wrote the screenplay evidently has little or no experience of actual business people or the countries portrayed. The characters are puerile and two-dimensional. Their actions and reactions amount to little more than bad caricature. I felt sorry for the actors, who struggle to make the characters believable and sometimes even succeed. The trouble is the screenplay, as well as some pretty poor decisions regarding production design (particularly the use of abstract backdrops to represent the cityscape outside hotel windows). This only reinforces the impression that you're watching a theatre play that has been poorly adapted into a film.

This has really good writing and acting as well as a very strong idea at its center. In a way it's like a stage play but in the best sense for the screen, as it's not bound by a physical place and the camera moves, but it has the intensity that theater offers in the use of language and character over plot. The plot is very simple and the story too, but it is explored with persistence and that rewards the viewer.

It's a piece for our times: globalization, the professional business consultant as a sort of immoral priesthood which is the necessary agent for business to be conducted, all the while clipping a percentage of the gross. The characters are more than clever and perhaps have a sense of their own dilemmas, but the next consulting deal, and life between hotels and airports, makes it bearable.

Language is used very well. The script is mostly in German but it frequently pivots into business English, spoken excellently of course by the consultants, but this turn into English as the lingua franc has no roots within the speakers, whether Indian or German or African: English is for commerce, a transaction, to make money.

Worth the time and the ideas it might spur afterward.

Do you know German movies? They all belong to one of two genres: goofy, forgettable commedy coated in a thick layer of feel-good sugar, or grim drama, depleted of color and prospect. These archetypes draw from a very small pool of themes, which get explored by the ever same characters that are tightly locked to the charged actors. Variation, creativity and the development of new ideas seem to be very unpopular in German cinema, and if you're looking for any of these in movies you might just be out of luck here.

If it just wasn't for this piece: it completely disregards the popular formulae, picks a central idea - or rather question - and relentlessly explores it with no respect to the viewer's expectations.

At the core there are only three characters, who get sent on a journey through post reason capitalism. As the high profile business consultants they are they need to always be on top of everything while their slowly exposed human elements have them stumble into catastrophy with little to no control. The characters' clash and demise is entertaining to watch by itself, not at last due to the clearly involved actors. Yet there is a lot of double flooring that provides good nourishment for thought during and after the movie without pointing fingers or putting forth easy answers.

The open-minded and off-grid approach to telling this story might be taken as overly artsy by some and others will be pushed away by the remaining rough edges that are unavoidable when something is made entirely from scratch. However the boldly presented and and carefully crafted structure of the final product will most likely impress everyone else and maybe even provoke some thought.

In short: a fine movie by itself, but a revelation for German cinema.

The movie is categorized as drama here, but actually it is a grotesque. It is not meant to be a realistic depiction of business consulting, but exaggerating the characters and the plot. Production value is low, but the movie still works, because it fits to the message. These people are afraid to walk out of the 5 star hotel rooms in the under-developed countries they exploit for their "company" so the outside is just papier-mâché cubicles in the distance "what country is this?" - it doesn't matter. That works well, because the actors are doing an excellent job. I can only judge the German original which has some great lines especially when they speak their bad businesses English translating idioms word by word. Not sure if that can be properly localized. It is still somehow believable although the characters are clearly a caricature. Essentially it is a studio theater adapted for film with some additional effects. You don't need to see everything. Hearing screams and gunshots is enough. The scary image is created in your head. Good entertainment for the thinking man. Probably not for everyone though.

Most of the German movies are unbearably bad. Thats because the German cinema is without any vision or braveness. We (i am German) do have good cameramen and good lighting, perhaps even good stories. But the execution is mostly suffocated by the horrible public media (oeffentlich-rechtlich) ideological dictate. Most of the good german movies come from Austria, also. So they're technically not even german. But there are a few, like a handful of good directors in Germany, like Detlev Buck, who seems to have lost his teeth a while ago, and Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck or Michael Haneke. Vicco von Bülow was our pendant to Woody Allen, but lacked depth and output. Helge Schneider made a very nice movie together with true genius Christoph Schlingensief. Peter Thorwarth made one brilliant movie. But most of the German movies, let me repeat this, are just poor and weak in so many aspects. So i congratulate Johannes Naber - you made it! A very nice Zeitgeist movie with a slow but nasty suspense. Acting and Language that has the right view on Germans - not wishful thinking. Very well chosen sound. For me it made the 7+1. Actually the movie "No Escape" seems to pick up something from this one - if i got the release dates right. I will not hesitate to recommend this to my friends and will surely add it to my "special" top 50. Thanks for capturing my full attention!