Malina

Isabelle Huppert as an actress give the brilliant performance in this movie. And she's the only reason to see this totally nonsense movie. Sorry, but don't waist your time.

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,

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

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.

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.