Die beispiellose Verteidigung der Festung Deutschkreuz (The Unprecedented Defence of the Fortress Deutschkreuz)

So, I am not the world's biggest Werner Herzog fan, but he made some awesome films with my favorite actor, Klaus Kinski (not my favorite person, mind you, but my favorite actor). This is not one of them.

This piece with the unnecessarily long title (if you read it slowly enough, it will take you longer than watching it) was filmed in Deutschkreuz, which is in my home country. It is under 15 min long and takes place in a castle, that was once the site of a battle between the Russians and the Germans during WWII.

A group of four young men visit the place and find uniforms and equipment. They dress up and play at defending the place. The only people around, however, are some farmers. The four get ready for the attack that - to their deep disappointment - does not come.

In the end, they storm out of the castle in full gear.

Yeah, it's weird.

5/10

Ekstase (Ecstasy)

One of the most controversial films ever made. It simply was not customary to show full frontal nudity in 1930's cinema. What's more, it depicted two lovers in the trows of, well, ecstasy. Shocking!

Various things about it have been falsely reported: that Hedy Lamarr was the first naked woman on a movie screen (she was not), that it was the first depiction (however vage) of a sexual encounter (it was not).

The story is that of Eva, who - disappointed by her marriage - up and leaves her much older husband to return to her father's house. While out riding one day she decides to take a swim in a lake. She puts her clothes on the horse's back and goes skinny dipping. The horse runs off and gets caught again by Adam, who returns it to the naked, hiding Eva. The two fall for each other and do the nasty.

When Eva's husband comes to take her back she refuses. He returns to the nearby town, offering a ride to a young man, who turns out to be Eva's lover. The husband realizes this when he sees Eva's necklace in the man's hand. A threesome like this can only end in tragedy, of course.

Hedy Lamarr went on to become known as the most beautiful woman in film. On top of that, she was also the co-inventor of the method of "frequency hopping", now widely used in cell phones.

6/10

Amour (Love)

Michael Haneke's films are never easy to watch. Whether they are about of couple of youngsters senselessly murdering an entire family on their summer vacation, violence committed by a group of children in a small pre-WWI German town or about a couple being stalked, this is not entertainment. There is, however, some morbid fascination in watching them.

His latest, Amour, is about old age. Anne and Georges, a couple of former music teachers, enjoy a relatively active and happy retirement, until Anne has a minor stroke, that leaves her in need of constant help. Georges is trying is best to care of his wife, helping her in and out of her wheel chair or the toilet, cutting her food for her and seeing to her well being as best he can.

Anne's health keeps deteriorating and after suffering a second stroke, more assistance is required. Now she needs to be fed and cleaned and can barely speak anymore. She had already mentioned to Georges that she is not happy with this way of living when she was still somewhat independent and now the only way she can express her total unhappiness with this kind of life is by keeping her mouth tightly shut when her husband is trying to feed her or give her water out of a sippy cup. Eventually, Georges cannot watch her suffer anymore.

Emmanuelle Riva is simply magnificent as the ailing Anne.

A brilliant and devastating film.

9/10

Oscar Nominees

You know the feeling when one of your fellow country(wo)men achieves something astonishing and you regard it as an achievement by the entire population (the "we" feeling)? That is sort of what I feel right now about the Oscar nominations.

Coming from a small, ultimately insignificant, country (never mind that we were very much involved in kicking off two world wars) that feeling is normally limited to successes in winter sports. That's what 'we' are good at. (I am a flatlander myself and never cared much for skiing, but I totally cheer our boys and girls [but really, mostly the boys] on from my comfy chair.)

But today's Oscar nominations are - for a film aficionado from tiny Austria - something else entirely. Amour by Austrian director Michael Haneke (who was not actually born in Austria and the film is in French) was nominated for a total of five Academy Awards. Five! Four of them in the heavy weight categories.

Best Picture (!)
Best Director (!)
Best Actress (for Emanuelle Riva)
Best Original Screenplay
Best Foreign Language Film (we expected that one)

And to top it all off, 'our' Christoph Waltz was again nominated for Best Supporting Actor for Django Unchained.

Now starts my yearly task of trying to watch all Best Picture nominees before the award ceremony. The only one of the nine I have already watched is Argo, which is great BTW. Next up for me will be Life of Pi with friends on Sunday. That leaves me with a few weeks to get in the rest of the bunch. *phew*