Eden

A delightful film well shot and paced. It maintained my attention throughout and the tension was subtle reminding me of the feel of The Page Turner. Anyone with a tiny bit of love for food will enjoy and understand the power of well cooked, prepared and thought about meals. All performances were convincing and added to the drama. At all times it's the love of food that keeps the story going and indeed makes the film so worthwhile and unique. It's a shame this film has gone under the radar and really deserved more credit but without a known name was always destined to remain unknown though I would hope had an impact in the home of gourmet food. The two leads had an amazing chemistry-I'm guessing helped by the amount of food they get to eat! Must watch.

Eden is a story of friendship and love that blooms between a lonely world-class chef and a waitress whose family life is less than ideal. The two meet as the Gregor (the chef) begins to frequent the café in which Eden (the waitress) works. After a few encounters Gregor learns that Eden's daughter Leonie is having a birthday. Gregor makes Leonie a cake and it's a small taste of this gift that lures Eden further into Gregor's life. Eden begins to visit Gregor weekly at his restaurant where their friendship blossoms. At first the relationship benefits both as Gregor's recipes influence Eden's home life and Eden's presence inspires Gregor's cooking. I don't think to call their friendship a love affair is a stretch. Charlotte Roche and Josef Ostendorf put in strong performances in the main roles. Ostendorf especially puts forth an emotional performance and as wonderful as Roche is, it is Ostendorf who carries the movie. I didn't know much about the film going in but I am glad to have spent the time to watch it.

On of Germany's bravest filmmakers did it once again. "Eden" is a film with a cast, with a camera, with a sound like never before. Wee see a very fat genius of a cook and a quite lonesome mother. She falls in love with the cook's... art. A tricky relationship, intensely captured with a lot of close ups, painful, funny, it celebrates the beauty of life in a way you won't expect. And you won't expect the brilliant former Music-TV-Legend Charlotte Roche to give a perfect performance in her first leading role. In fact it's a pain to see her, pretending to be a waitress in the first minutes of the film. You don't believe a word. You feel high stakes and great pressure but if you're patient she'll convince you the more she gets quiet, the more she's herself (or the way we know her way of talking from TV-shows and fabulous interviews). You'll be irritated, maybe disappointed at first, but she gives you precious looks which you have never seen before on screen. She's of course not the "cracked actor" David Bowie sung about, in fact, she's not an actress (yet?) BUT it's a hard part, just to BE in front of a camera, it's a rare beauty to see people thinking and feeling on a screen. And you can see her thinking, feeling in "Eden". She's the "Cracked Actor" in Leonard Cohen's sense who once wrote "There's a crack in everything, that's how the light gets in". Charlotte Roche is the crack in "Eden". After "Sophieee!", Hofmann's radical film about panic, this is an intense work about different shades of happiness and joy. Thanks so much for having the courage to fail, this movie didn't fail at all.