Y mañana el mundo entero

Very often people forget that movies could and should be two separate things. Some are entertainment, pure and simple, and some are art, trying to tell a story or make a statement about the world around us. It usually isn't that difficult to figure out what kind of a movie we want to watch. Even so, too often viewers who despair to be entertained at any cost complain about art movies. They are slow, boring, blah, blah, blah... That is always unfair and we and only we have a final decision what to watch. So, this is an art movie, raw and unraveling like the relentless passion of youth. Jerky camera moves, gray streets of an industrial city, innocent idealism that turns dark and dangerous. Fighting evil is a filthy business, nobody comes out of it unscathed. Perhaps that's the reason why there are so many onlookers and collaborators. Fear and cowardice, the twins of failure and missed opportunities.

Artistic results usually remain without risk when the state interferes. German films are often funded by federal agencies, so I don't expect any revolutionary ideas, but rather a kind of soft rinse format. This film has exactly that, no really convincing story, on the contrary, everything is actually lost in a dichotomy of good and evil, which doesn't really work either. Of course, you can't just imply leftist groups are the good guys, but if I already have the group of neo-fascists, who you really can't leave a good hair on, then I need more knowledge about the motives of leftist cells that take action against them. Spoiled female law students, whose middle-class parents go hunting, and who want to move out of this cocoon of security, remain just a mere cliché, if I don't add anything personal. And the director has not succeeded in doing that with any of her characters. Actually, the theme is thus missed and the characters all remain indifferent.

The leftists are routinely portrayed as idealistics and somewhat naives. The director, despite her own experience, does not avoid this portrait, although it focuses on the well-known friction between fighting with the same weapons as the enemy, about turning into a wolf to face the wolf. "If it had been done in 1930, Nazism would not have existed." That is a good justification. But showing left-wing extremists as immature and naive makes the debate too simplistic.

The movie captured some media interest in Germany when it was screened in Venice film festival but was also critisised by leftists focussing on the childish and psychotic behaviour of the antifascist group. So I was at least curious. Well, the movie doesn't live up to expectations. The story is a bit dull and I had a hard time to follow it. Shooting and edit is not bad but the visual side also failed to hold up my interest. On the positive side I think the acting is at least authentic and the movie lacks the usual dose of policial indoctrination.

Was intrigued through the start but then it just went on and on and nothing really happened. I could not get what emotions they wanted the leftists portray with most shots showing them on the wrong side with childish and immature acts. It made it seem like the right wing is non-violent and the leftists are violent lot. Ignore this borefest. Watch something else.