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For the first half this plays like a german/turkish/kurdish version of The Constant Gardener. A turkish cafe owners kurdish wife is murdered and through the investigation he and we seem to discover her secret double life as a PKK fundraiser. Later on this is shown as a fallacy based on prejudices of the german police investigators, who are not really interested in finding the murderer. If you follow the news, you will know that sort of behavior is rather common in german law enforcement.

What could have been a timely and emotionally powerful story is sadly let down by the film's weak script and especially by the terrible dialog script. I first thought it was the actors, but no it was the wooden things they had to say... unfortunately that destroys much of what the film tries to archive.

Wim Wender does a documentary on famous german artist Anselm Kiefer and like his Pina Bausch documentary in 3D. Unlike "Pina" which really benefited from the 3D, because dance is an art form where space is important, you don't need to watch "Anselm" in 3D.

The first 70 minutes are very impressive shots of Kiefers vast former studio complex at Barjac and of Kiefer artworks. Intercut with contemporary media reports and recreated scene from his childhood (played by Wenders son) and the beginning of his career (played by Kiefers son). All of this is very good, Wenders let's the images convey the connections between work and life and other inspirations. Everything is filmed and staged nicely. But in the last 20 minutes the actor playing childhood Kiefer climbs into Kiefers big 2022 Venice exhibition where the real Kiefer is also present. And what follows is 20 minutes of a visual metaphor so flat and obvious every first semester art film student would be too embarrassed to put that into his film. Do yourself a favor: once St Mark's Square in Venice shows up flee the cinema.

Ps. Last years documenta scandal looks even weirder once you get reminded that Anselm Kiefer started his career with a photo series of him traveling the world and doing Hitler salutes in his father's Wehrmacht uniform. While last year germany's biggest art exhibition was branded as a whole antisemitic because of a single motive within one huge "Where is Wally"-like work.

I grew up a Star Wars fan, but lost any interest when prequel movies came out. I did watch the sequel ones and like those even less, since they basically badly copy the story from the original trilogy. Then came the tv shows and I had little interest in those, I rather to watch a spaghetti western or The Wire then watch their Star Wars copies and the less said about the Book of Bob Fett the better.

But Dave Filoni does seem to understand what makes the original Star Wars formula tick, fantasy. Space. Adventure. And leave some things ambiguous. It is not for nothing that the biggest inspiration for Ahsoka besides Samurai movies is the Lord of the Rings. This show brings Star Wars back to being a fantasy story in space. Sometimes badly written and with some plot holes, but the original trilogy had that as well, even if nobody wants to admit that nowadays.

I have read some reviews that complain about the shows slow start, but I felt like I needed that to settle into the Rebel characters, being only familiar with Ahsoka and Thrawn (and you have to wait quite a while for him to show up) previous. But even by the end these Rebel characters, especially Sabine and Ezra, still felt a bit out of place in story. They kind of feel like kids show characters in a show for much older kids. This becomes even more apparent since they are contrasted by some of the best bad guys & gals we had in Star Wars for a long time Baylan and his apprentice Shin, which chew up every scene they are in. And also of course Thrawn, which I only know from the books and who is very well transplanted onto screen.

This is in no way a perfect show, there is some annoying stuff like people surviving severe light sabre wounds, but it has kept me intrigued and entertained for the entire run. Which is more than I can said about most of the other Star Wars stuff. To my own surprise: Yes, I actually enjoyed a Star Wars show.