Malina

Absolutely required viewing for serious fans of Isabelle Huppert! Here, she doesn't just set the screen on fire, she sets the set on fire, and herself, too. The incomparable Huppert is the only actor alive who could have performed this role, her most schizophrenic, over-the-top performance ever. A script so schizo, I can't imagine trying to comprehend it in only one viewing, so schizophrenic that the scriptwriter,

Malina, the key character of this psychological enigma, is the strong rational part of a fragile personality, which splits also in a passionate female character, played by Isabelle Huppert, both actually symbolic figures of a single personality. The story describes, in a thrilling performance of the dual actors, a disastrous love affair, where love substitutes the reason of being and in spacial reflections of her childhood and parents, unfolds the puzzle of authenticitation in a passionate relationship. Symbolic behavioral patterns are the driving elements of this movie by a german director, but in perfect line with classic French movies, e.g. by Claude Chabrol.

Silly selfindulgent ... why dont they just use their vouchers for the looney bin,

My answer to the ridiculously low status of this complete masterpiece.

Malina presents us so many innovations that we are getting toward in the 2000's (Charlie Kaufman) or the 2010's (Terrence Malick) and where we will eventually get (perhaps never); mostly it is the introspection of a writer expressed through extravagant visual means (sometimes in the spirit of the abstract early films of Schroeter like in another masterpiece, Der Tod Der Maria Malibran where the opera is not so much present as a popular show than as a series of enigmatic transitions in a abstract order). In Malina, all the qualities of the few available films in the international from Schroeter (mostly unknown outside Germany through decades), come together to give us a strangely universal film that was obviously not designed for the trendy narrative tricks of Cannes, but for more adventurous festivals (like Locarno in the 2000s'). It features the best performance I have ever seen from Isabelle Huppert, the whole range of her acting, making Haneke films the equivalent of 2D blue prints for TV pop psychology program, in comparison at least. This is not cinema for most audience, but the ones who are open minded enough to love artists for real might have a life change experience, discovering how a story can be told with such extreme means while never setting for the often far more predictable than expected 'experimental film' format. The strength comes from the balance between experimentation (mastered before it was done right for this film) and narrative skills with the help of a classic novel I was never able to understand or enjoy like this amazing film.

German director Werner Shroeter unfortunately never became as well known as other directors of his generation and origin (Fassbinder, Wenders, Herzog). I had the chance to discover him years ago and was truly impressed. It's hard for one to describe him. His films are strange, surreal, they are just too much! It's this kind my most favorite, that one I always seek It's as if John Waters, David Lynch or maybe Louis Bunuel dropped something from their uniqueness into Shroeter's mind and then he evolved it into something more special and personal! To all this, add the obsession of the director with opera and then we maybe can have a picture of his work. Anyway, about this film. This flick, "Malina", is a work of art. Isabelle Huppert is a great actress anyway. But, in this particular one, she overcomes herself. If the Oscar is the ultimate award to an actor then we are talking about an award winning performance. Unfortunately though - and this is a huge issue to be analyzed within a few sentences- there are plenty of times when these awards go to actors who don't deserve it. I think it would be fair to acknowledge productions outside and beyond the USA. Of course American independent cinema is amazingly worthy but sadly 80% of it is ignored by the Academy. I am going to rate this film with a nine though it doesn't need my rate. It's so extraordinary that it's above judgment.