richard_sleboe

The cast is impressive, but the movie feels lifeless. What I enjoyed the most were the passages from the book the script is based on. Marlen Haushofer speaks in a unique, otherworldly voice that doesn't travel well from page to screen: "Of course I could think of the future, but I never do. The future will come regardless, and it will turn us into the people we never wanted to be." There is one great scene though. Stella, dressed in a silver ball gown, walks down a narrow flight of stairs. The walls on either side of the stairs are covered in dark red fabric. You can decode it as a birth canal or as the road to hell. After a few seconds, Stella disappears into the darkness at the bottom of the stairs. The scene has a dream-like quality and captures the spirit of the story in a few seconds. In contrast, almost all the other scenes felt stilted and anemic. Perhaps this is the way the director wanted it, but it didn't work for me.

This is easily one of the best German movies you will see this season. It's so tightly plotted that I'm wondering how to praise it without giving away too much. What is the housesitter up to? Who is the mysterious upstairs neighbor? Is Nick cheating on Anna? Or is Anna losing her mind? Greg Zglinski leaves you guessing for a long time. Half-way through the movie, several characters, including a talking cat, start dropping hints that were too blunt for my taste, but that's a minor kink in a very sleek script (based on an unfinished draft by Joerg Kalt). Philip Hochmair and Birgit Minichmayr are fabulous as Nick and Anna. They are both seasoned character actors with years of stage experience, and it shows. The camerawork is superb. The movie's trademark visual is the frame - a window, a doorway, a peephole, an actual picture frame. I took this as the director's way of saying that everything we see is someone's version of what's going on, rather than an objective account. If you liked Existenz, Mulholland Drive, Identity, Shutter Island, or Upstream Color, my guess is you will enjoy Animals as well.

This movie is so boring I fell asleep twice while watching it. It's only a little over an hour long, but it feels like three hours. I liked some of the shots and most of the actors, but the characters they play are so bloodless I couldn't get myself to care about what happens to them. The story is a hodgepodge of mystery, conspiracy, family drama, and random romance. I recommend this movie if you have trouble sleeping, high blood pressure, or a short temper. It will calm you down no end. Put it on mute to spare yourself the ludicrous dialogue. Sample line: Some people are afraid of the void.