303

This is inevitably going to be compared to Before Sunrise, the 1995 Linklater film about a girl and boy who meet on the road and spend the film walking and talking about the inane, self-absorbed, philosophical things that young strangers in their 20s talk about. I loved Before Sunrise, but watching it again after decades I was struck by how heavy-handed and affected, albeit charming, it felt, how much the actors felt like movie stars rather than average people.

"303" feels utterly natural, unaffected. The leads are attractive (of course) but their portrayal of the frailties and warmth of two random strangers who find themselves unexpected travelling companions is believable and sympathetic. This is a film about two people in their 20s talking. The conversations are in turns inane, thoughtful, philosophical, naive, imbued with a sense of self-uniqueness and import that is the nature of being in your 20s. There is drama as well on this journey, but it is low key and ultimately isn't the point. The journey is the point.

Where "303" loses a star or two is that it never really pushes boundaries. It is what it seems to be, no more and no less. That's still pretty great.

303 is so beautiful and knows how to take its time, edit it all together nicely, use music effectively, and the subtlety of the direction works as well. The actors also are very good and give a sense of honesty to their characters. I wasn't sure if it could actually pull off a runtime of over two hours, but it could and it never got dull or uninteresting. Think Before trilogy, but German and with its own feeling to it.

By the way, I think it's pretty funny the director actually had a role in Before Sunrise as a cafe patron.

On a sidenote, 2018 seems to me like a unusually good year for German cinema from what I have seen so far.

Please give this film a chance if you are a fan of talky movies. I really love this one a lot.

The local cinematheque was host last night to the Austrian director Hans Weingartner, the author of the lovely film '303', who after the projection entertained a dialog with the film critic Yael Shuv. '303' is a movie of a kind that is not much made today - a romantic 'feel good' movie that also tells many smart things about the world around us, a movie about and with young people who are neither drugged, neither extremists, nor fallen into misery or crime, a combination between a 'road movie' in the style that Wim Wenders was making 40 years ago and romantic films like Arthur Hiller's 'Love Story' based upon Erich Segal's novel that delighted the generations that were young at about the same time.

At first it seems that we are dealing with the usual 'boy meets girl' recipe. The film's heroes are two young Germans who meet by chance and decide to go together on a trip from Germany to Portugal in a 30-year-old caravan. It's one of the 'retro' elements of the movie, there are a few more, but the truly 'retro' stuff is the relationship that emerges between them. The boy belongs to the category of those who are not able to maintain a relationship for more than a few months. The girl is in the middle of the complete disintegration of her previous relationship and on top of this, she is also pregnant and undecided whether or not to keep the baby. Both of them are students, intellectuals in making, and they talk a lot, enormously, theorizing everything from politics and ecology to their attitudes toward love and the hormonal analysis of caressing and kissing. Verbosity slows down their getting close, and as tension accumulates between them and in the minds of the audience, dialogues play the role of prelude (Yael Shuv used the term foreplay) to the love affair between the two. Intelligently, director Hans Weingartner focuses most of the time on the two heroes and the caravan that carries them from the north to the south of Europe. The surrounding landscapes almost do not exist, when filmed they are practically deserted, only the two characters, the boy and the girl count. It's a 'road movie' where the important road is the way the two of them progress in their relation.

I liked the two characters, and the way the interaction between them is described on screen. The director and the actors Mala Emde and Anton Spieker manage to create empathy between heroes and spectators. Hans Weingartner told the audience at the discussion after the screening that the actors were let very little freedom to improvise, being asked to strictly follow the written text for most of the time. That also means that the script is well built, and the actors have achieved remarkable performances, giving autenticity to a text that is not at all trivial or easy. The film is optimistic without being sweet. As long as there are young people who are discussing with the same seriousness and passion about the planet's problems and about kisses, and as long as there are directors who know how to make movies where a love story can create thrill just like an action movie, there is still hope. I mentioned 'Love Story' that I saw almost half a century ago. I do not remember many details, I have not seen the movie since then, but I remember my personal identification with the heroes. I had a similar sensation yesterday watching '303', although I'm now at a very different age than the characters.

Hans Weingartner worked as production assistent on Richad Linklaters classic Before Sunrise. 303 is his variation on the theme. It is a subtle, slowpaced heartwarming film with two great actors. Especially Mala Emde gives a breakout performance. Two different characters slowly developing emotions while on a roadtrip through Europe. I really enjoyed the movie. My only critique is the running time of almost two an a half hours. Linklater does it shorter and that would have benefitted this gem also. Anyways, I would love to see part two nine years,later.

This movie surprised me in the best way. You go on this beautiful trip with Jule and Jan, two people that are looking for answers. Wonderful landscapes, interesting conversations plus the incredible tension between the main characters. It felt as if I was there with them third wheeling the whole time. Chemistry, love, family, death, faith, friendships, heartbreak, all these topics are talked about by these two lost people that found in each other the comfort they both needed.

This is the type of movie you just want to watch again because it has everything you need to feel good.