Utz

Utz was a starring vehicle for German actor Armin Mueller-Stahl who plays a collector of fine Meissen porcelain.

Mueller-Stahl became familiar to people outside of European cinema in films such as Music Box and Avalon.

Here he plays Czech Baron Kaspar Utz who has spent his life acquiring valuable pieces of porcelain that will become the property of the state after his passing.

Utz does not want the government having his collection and plans to sell it to an American gallery owner played by Peter Riegert, who hurries to Prague but by the time he arrives Utz has died and the collection gone.

Reigert is left to unravel the mystery of Utz if he has any hope of recovering his collection.

He is aided by Utz's friend played by Paul Scofield. Brenda Fricker who plays Utz devoted maid was the last to see the collection.

The film directed by the Dutch George Sluizer has flashbacks and flashforwards. It is a slight tale set in Communist Czechoslovakia, critical of the various communist regimes but a tale enlivened by the actors and especially that of Mueller-Stahl.

The film is what might be called a Euro-Pudding with a coalition of producers, actors and production staff of various nationalities. BBC films were one of the producers but they have hardly shown this film since its initial showing.

Meet Baron Kaspar Joachim von Utz (Armin Mueller-Stahl), a wealthy, eccentric old man, who has spent his whole life collecting the finest, rarest, beautiful porcelain figurines. He has put them on display in a large room in his apartment, while he had made his life-long partner, Marta (Brenda Fricker), his house-maid instead of marrying her.

One day, Baron von Utz meets the American art-dealer Marius Fisher (Peter Riegert), and they immediately become friends, because of their common shared interest in rare pieces of collectibles. But Utz refuses to sell any part of his collection, as he is very fond of each and every piece. But one day, Utz becomes mortally ill, and hordes of ex-lovers tries to get a piece of his wealth, along with a few art-collectors and even the national museum of Prague wants his rare porcelain-pieces...but they are nowhere to be found.

Now the mystery is, what exactly has happened to all the figurines... did he give them all to Marta, his best friend Doctor Vaclav Orlik (Paul Scofield), maybe one of his former lovers, or did something completely different happen? The morale of the story is probably, that you should treasure the gift of life, instead of wasting your time (and money) on useless collections, that you can't take with you when you die anyway. Spend life doing things that make you happy, and make other people happy, and don't treasure material objects more than love and life itself. Or something like that.

It is made by George Sluizer, the same director who also made "Spoorlos" and its remake "The Vanishing", as well as River Phoenix' last movie, "Dark Blood", so you can tell he knows a thing or two about telling a good story. Furthermore, this movie is allegedly one of his own personal favorites, as he brought it with him, to the Copenhagen Film Festival, where he proudly presented it (along with the two aforementioned movies).

Overall, a very good film, recommended especially for people with huge collections of stuff, around their mid-life crisis, looking for some inspiration for the rest of their lives, and some advice on what to do with their collections, when they've grown too big for their own good.

Wonderful performance of Muller Stalh no wonder he won the Berlin film festival bear. All the characters are very well selected , specially Martha the maid . Scofield is always an excellent supporting actor . film full of surprises.A must see film