Chill Out

This run of the mill German TV movie is directed by the charming Andreas Struck, who recently came to visit us down South American Way (along with fellow gay film maker Wieland Speck, the latter honored with his own Retrospective). Andreas came to premiere his TV movie as a feature film at the heavily German-oriented Mix Brazil 200, the 8th Annual Film Festival of Sexual Diversity, which usually travels through four South American cities in November/early December................ The organizers may as well have added the qualifier; "- and showcase of the German gay film and 20th century history" to the Festival's title. Following last November's premiere of Rosa von Praunheim's EINSTEIN OF SEX, and the neo-Nazi skin head OI WARNING!, MOLOCH, and several other rather extreme examples of German film and history, Sao Paulo's film and history buffs were treated to an unprecedented follow up this year............. It was in this context that CHILL OUT was presented. As part of this extraordinary Teutonic feast of sexually charged, educational and homo erotic film making, it was unfortunately put to shame; just way out of its league. Premiering the same day a controversial showing of Leni Riefenstahl's "Olympia II, Festival of Beauty" coincided with the South American premiere of the acclaimed documentary "Paragraph 175," CHILL OUT clearly came off as amateurish and banal. Even without the formidable competition from its counterpart German features shown, the other (French, Japanese, South African, Brazilian, but mainly American) films and shorts, the other 'sexually-diverse' films, already acclaimed at Sundance, Berlin, and throughout the world, were clearly in another league........The directors of this Festival are very Berlin-oriented, and CHILL OUT obviously rode on Berlin's coat tail. It is an average TV movie to be seen on a cold night, at home, and expecting the now standard 'love triangle' of the '90s and '00s, with the equally pervasive themes and locales of re unified Berlin, its reconstruction and transformation.......... As a Germanophile, I found it tolerable. Most of the sold-out audience sat through out as a sign of respect to the director, and expecting the heavily-hyped electronic sound track, which, sadly, was about as unimpressive as the film. Its not-long 91 minutes seemed merciless as the plot thickened with sub plots of chance happenings, accidents, stolen credit cards, and a very contested last will and testament....The director is a really nice guy though. And I think he enjoyed his first trip to Brazil. Outside this festival setting with a captive audience, however, I think the film would be unwatchable.

I saw this film at Image & Nation, the Montreal Gay Film festival. I really liked it. I thought there was some clumsiness with the style at the beginning and the rhythm was a bit off. But the more the film goes, the more it becomes confident. It doesn't underestimate the intelligence of the spectator and has really nice ellipses. Some shots of the city becomes nice metaphor, especially the shot of the empty pool and the shot of the sky, after a sex scene. I really liked it and it deserves way more than the grade it received in this site.

Where the French take a bit of a laissez-faire approach to films of a sexual theme, the Germans can almost always be sure to approach it from the philosophical. That said, if you are going into this very appropriately-titled film expecting lots of skin or your typical American gay film, you will be much disappointed. The center of this slowly evolving drama is a love triangle. There is not a lot of dialogue, but for me, because of the deftness of the acting and direction, the characters do become fully developed and realized people by the stunning and brilliant ending. There are also some brilliantly incorporated views of the city. An interesting watch.