Winterschläfer

This movie pictures the life of five characters connect by a car accident in a snowing road, provoked by the projectionist Rene (Ulrich Matthes) and the broken farmer Theo (Josef Bierbichler). Rene is a kind of melancholic intellectual, who has amnesia problem and takes picture of the most important events of his life to recall them. One night he drinks too much and steals the car of the ski trainer Marco (Heino Ferch) just for fun. Due to a lack of attention of Theo on the road, there is a dreadful accident, when his young daughter is seriously hurt in the head. She is sent to a hospital without the necessary resources for such a case, but she is unable to be transferred to another suitable place due to the bad weather and her conditions. The nurse in charge of the young girl is Laura (Marie-Lou Sellen), an anorexic woman full of problems and inferiority complex due to her body, who lives in a house inherited from her grandmother with her friend Rebecca (the delicious and sexy Floriane Daniel). Rebecca works in translation, usually wears red colored clothes and has a kind of engagement (indeed their relationship is limited to sex) with Marco. He is a typical unfaithful male man, sexually chasing the women trained by him and being an empty person. The story is a kind of metaphor with the cycle of life, through the lives of five persons with different attitudes and behavior, who are linked by an incident, having death and birth but with life going on. The direction and the performance of the cast are excellent and the photography is wonderful. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): `Winter Sleepers – Inverno Quente' (`Winter Sleepers – Hot Winter')

Winter Sleepers, a film Tom Tykwer made before his brilliant Run Lola Run, shows some of his development. A few of the more dramatic shots were things he tried here first. From a technical point of view, the work is excellent: editing, photography, lighting, music, sets and locations were all beautifully delivered. At times, that's enough, but this is both an unrelentingly down story and it's probably about 25 minutes too long...a rough combination. I'm glad to have seen it; I enjoy Tykwer's vision and technical crispness; he knows how to grab your attention powerfully without resorting to cloying tricks like Spielberg. On the other hand, there aren't many people I would recommend Winter Sleepers to. Great work, so-so outcome.

I had seen "Lola Rennt" before and I remember that I liked a lot (I even bought it on DVD). So when I got the chance to see another movie from Tom Tykwer I didn't think twice and watched it. Although it is very hard to compare both movies, I must say that I liked this movie even a bit more.

In this movie we meet five people who, at first sight, don't seem to have much in common, but faith and love brings them all together. You'll see Rebecca. She's a translator who lives with her boyfriend, a ski instructor and a real womanizer, in a villa owned by her friend Laura, a nurse. Marco's car is stolen by Rene, a local cinema projectionist, who suffers from amnesia. He still knows everything that happened in the past but can't remember recent facts. While he's driving Marco's car, he causes an awful accident with a local farmer called Theo. Theo's daughter ends up in a coma and is rushed to the hospital where Laura works, where she dies later on. In the mean time Laura has fallen in love with Rene, who doesn't know what has happened. And Theo, who can't accept his daughter's death, tries everything to find the man who caused the accident and killed his daughter, so he can punish him...

What makes this movie so good is the combination of some very fine acting, a great choice of music, very beautiful images and a touching story. If you like movies like "21 Grams" than you definitely have to see this one as well. This is the kind of movie that will never be a great success in the multiplexes, but that will be loved by all who like to see a movie with some depth. You know what I mean, it doesn't have to be art-cinema, but not the 36th sequel of a movie based on a comic book either.

This is honest and sincere cinema from a country that isn't exactly very well known for it. Although I know several German movies that are more than just worth a watch ("Der Untergang" and "Lola Rennt" are two others), German movies aren't as well known or famous as the ones from Spain and Sweden and to a lesser extent France. Nevertheless Tom Tykwer proves with this one what a good director he is and that's why I can recommend it to everybody who likes to see some good, European cinema. I give it an 8.5/10.

Naturally, everybody saw "Run Lola Run" and liked it, just as I did.

And movieplexes, eager to cash in, probably scrambled for other T.Tykwer films, which is how and way the Century Landmark Theatre in Chicago was quick to put on "Winter Sleepers"

And it only lasted 2 weeks.

Which makes me very lucky to have seen it! It was a momentous surprise- just as much "Run Lola..." was dynamic and restless, this was dreamy and magical...

Scene after scene of quiet country life- often of desperation and lost chances and graet sorrow- and often wildly sexy. I usually take love scenes in movies as a simple plot device and hardly they are more than transparent tricks to keep one's attention on ( besides wall to wall soundtrack and car chases). Having said that, I have to admit that I hardly get so wound up after a movie love scene, as I did in this one, but here they were so intense and unforgettable ..

I also loved the fact that the film did not have a major plot line, following the standard Aristotellian curve- it just was and it ended without major fireworks, because this is how life is- it happens, it flows, it is felt, it is sometimes understood, it runs forward or slowly passes by, but it is almost never simplified to a beginning and a middle and an end. Very few films ever grasp this concept or very few filmmakers can relate it, but that is why film is such an elusive art.

I have to disagree with the other rather lengthy comment made by a viewer in Germany. This film is hypnotic, powerful and satisfying. One has to be in the right mood for this film. It takes it's time. It is surrounded by snow and muted colors (except one character, Rebecca, is always in red - even her car is red). In a dreamlike state, this film will take you into four different people's lives and see how they intersect through the tragedy of a car accident. I think Twyker is extremely gifted with how he tells a story visually and I was a big fan of his Run Lola Run. He obviously has an attraction to stories about destiny and fate and how life is full of little decisions and moments that mold us or damage us in a blink of the eye. Very well acted film also.