Jagdhunde

The film sets off by showing how a father and his teenage son Lars struggle to start a new life in the east German province. In calm paces the film extends. It finds beautiful images in the small world involved, the cinematography is inventive and the repeated takes of the same beautiful spots with the different use of light and weather underline the development of the story. Lars meets Marie, the teenage daughter of the local pub owner. Gently they get to know each other while their parents and Co. struggle with their own screwed lives. Again, the pace is calm, but slowly but surely - accompanied by a funny, grotesque humour with many laughs in the audience - the plot culminates in a Christmas dinner that you will be happy not to have to attend. A wonderful movie which combines all the necessary ingredients. Very good rather understated acting, visual beauty, interesting characters, good storytelling.

A town in the middle of the snowy forests. A recently divorced father and his son live together in a small flat after having recently moved to the town. As Christmas is coming closer the plan of the son is to go to his mother but something happens on the way to the station and he misses the last train. Stuck in town he finds a new friend and from there things start rolling.

Films about families with scars and pockmarks work out the best when their problems are believable and this film works that out very well. With each passing day the bonds between the various people are worked out more clearly and become easier to believe. Once the party is finally there all comes together and the ending can only be the way it is. It's not entirely dark, not entirely light, but entirely true and therefore its good.

8 out of 10 silent nights

I recently saw this at the 2008 Palm Springs International Film Festival where it was awarded the New Voices/New Visions festival prize. This is a promising debut from writer/director Ann-Kristin Reyels. Co-written with Marek Helsner, also a newcomer to feature films, this is a story in winter in the remote northern German region of Uckermark. Henrik (Josef Hader) and his 16 year old son Lars (Constantin von Jascheroff) and their two dogs are unwelcome outsiders from Berlin who have settled into the area where Henrik has bought an old farm and has an unrealistic plan of turning his barn into a wedding hotel where people will come to be married and honeymoon. As Christmas approaches it has been arranged for Lars to spend the holiday with his mother Brigitte (Ulrike Krumbiegel) in Berlin until he meets Marie (Luise Berndt) a deaf girl his age who is the daughter of the local pub owner Volker (Heiko Pinkowski). Henrik and Brigitte are separated and a new set of problems arise with Brigitte's sister Jana Judith Engel) and Brigitte's new friend Robert (Marek Harloff) added to the holiday mix. This is an art film filled with metaphorical images and situations that a general audience may find tedious and boring. This would be a perfect film for a film study group or film conversation to compare viewpoints and observations and it probably is a film you need to see twice to better appreciate it. Beautiful photographed in it's stark and silent winter scape by cinematographer Florian Foest and edited by Halina Daugird, both new to feature films. In this film you will find loneliness, isolation, lack of communication, dysfunction, confusion, anger, comedy and love. I'm sure we will see more from filmmaker Reyels. It's a wonderfully strange little film and I would give this an 8.0 out of 10.