Thorsten_B

It's night. A girl and her boyfriend can't sleep. After a day of unsuccessful attempts to find a proper job, they don't want to suffer life "as it is" without having at least tried to change something. But before you can change, you have to reflect, and that's what they do during the course of this small-scale, but yet enchanting art-house picture. First in their bedroom, and then wandering around the streets, the two of them exchange their perspectives on life in the big city, as part of a crowd, as a small wheel in the capitalistic machine, and ultimately as seekers for happiness and relieve. The dialogue is sort of a voice-over-soundtrack to more or less blurred images of anonymous metropolitan images, which are from time to time interrupted by a return of the camera eye to the couples' bedroom where the exchange continues – or still takes place, since it is unclear where they are positioned precisely. While the girl outlines her problems with having an identity in a world where identities don't mean a lot any more, the boy takes the position of an almost Socratian questioner, leading her to refine her views. While in one way sharing the idea that something can be done to alter society – a society more dead than living, more mechanical than solidary –, they also share the notion that exploitation (to some people, by some people) is inevitably an (albeit ugly) part of the way people use to live nowadays. Buy isn't the real tragedy the fact that while noting that and trying to escape to a better way of life, you doing nothing more than reassuring the system? Questions are tough in this one, a film where an average couple takes on a sort of "amateur sociological perspective" to question the world they live in. Not easy, but appealing nonetheless.

If only this was made in the 70s! In some of the scenes I felt I was traced back to French films of the 70s, which to me is a good thing. In others, "Death knows your Name" (misleading title) looked more like the usual splatter-feast nowadays produced in the US for the direct-to-DVD market. So this Argentian production seems to have two very different "parents". Speaking of strange mixtures, there's no doubt the story also had it's compelling parts, while other aspects were quite foreseeable. I like it when horror movies take place in the daylight, but I dislike an overload of (unexpained) symbolism (seen here, for instance, in the relevance of mirrors). The lead acting wasn't so convincing either. But overall, "Death" did have it's moments. I guess there are people out there that would really enjoy it. (I think I would like it better if the title was "Death doesn't know your name", just for the subtle fun of it.)

This little oddity is has more to offer than is visible at first sight. Admitably, the title "Horny Henry" does not help to distinguish it from the dozens of cheap German sex comedies than came out in the 70s. And in the very end, this one joins the club by turning into a Benny Hill-like screwballistic exaggeration. Still, it starts off as a quite funny tale of a couple (he's a dentist, she – inevitably for the time – housewife and mom). Upon the rise of the '68-movement, the intellectual husband tries to persuade his rather conservative wife to try out group sex: that's what modern and unprejudiced people do nowadays! The whole plot is reflected by her voice over reflection on his demands. Finally she agrees; but the two couples that are invited make the whole evening a mess. Expectations are (too) high, capabilities are too low, and there's the inevitable collision of a decent upper-middle-class lifestyle with the idea – but only the idea – of wild, crazy, outgoing sexuality. If flawed as a comedy, "Heinrich" today says quiet a lot of the time of it's creation. For that it's worth a look.