3

Writer/director Tom Twyker (Run Lola Run, Perfume, Heaven, The International. Paris, je t'aime) is proving to be one of the most fearless and creative talents in film today. He knows how to create strange stories that take us by surprise, present them with excellent actors, selects and composes musical scores that are as perfect as any being created, introduces just enough philosophy and scientific investigation into timely topics to challenge our brains, and tops it off with inventive photography - superimposing split screens that enhance not only the progress of the story but also allow the presentation of brief glimpses of 'dangerous' ideas that stirs the cauldron to boiling.

3 is a fascinating tale. Simon (Sebastian Schipper) is an artistic architect who works with sculptors to bring their art into being. He is in a longterm relationship with Hanna (Sophie Rois) who is a television journalist cum scientist who is widely popular in their hometown of Berlin. Simon and Hanna are in their forties and deeply in love. Simon is informed that his mother has advanced pancreatic carcinoma and when his mother attempts suicide with an overdose and fails, she is brain dead, supported on machines. Simon stays at her bedside while Hanna continues her line of investigation about new stem cell theories, attending lectures by the handsome Adam (Devid Striesow) - a married man with children who leads a separate life of clandestine but short-lived gay affairs. Simon's mother dies and Simon is diagnosed with testicular carcinoma, undergoes an orchiectomy and begins chemotherapy, losing his hair in the process. All of this he shares with Hanna: the two decide they probably should marry and Hanna wants children while Simon thinks world timing is poor for starting a family (he is also aware of the fact that his operation and chemotherapy may represent the end of his sexuality and fertility).

Though devoted to Simon, Hanna is attracted to Adam and finds ways to be near him. Soon they are in a physical love affair. Simon recovers his disease by swimming in a beautiful Berlin gym where he quite incidentally meets Adam, shares his operation with the stranger in the locker room, and Adam proceeds to demonstrate that Simon is indeed not impotent! Simon has new feelings aroused, and he and Adam begin a love affair. Hanna and Simon get married but still each of them has feelings for Adam. When Hanna discovers she is pregnant the story spins to its conclusion and the triptych of the title is established.

This film is subtle but frank, explores sexuality in an open and honest way exploring themes relevant to our time: the biological and the ethical side of human life, the determinist way of viewing our sexuality and gender, the ways in which we define our selves in a time with shifting mores, the chance of love in a society with few if any boundaries. Love affairs as demonstrated between Hanna and Simon, Hanna and Adam, and Simon and Adam are treated equally and sensitively.

The three primary actors are excellent as is the entire cast. The cinematography and film manipulation by Frank Griebe (with Twyker) and the musical score Reinhold Heil, Johnny Klimek, Gabriel Isaac Mounsey, and Tom Tykwer (with a little help form Debussy and others!) is splendid. This is a first class film and deserves the attention of a very wide audience. It is likely to be one of those films that grows in stature with the passage of time.

Grady Harp

Unusual and, at the same time, uplifting story. Great acting and a well-directed movie. I am not sure if everyone who watched it will be touched in the same way I was, but -if people can overcome their stereotypes and simply enjoy the film- it will leave them with positive feelings and make them reflect on it long after the ending credits have rolled up. The story is not about your typical next door married couple that enters their middle-age era with all its fears, frustrations, joys, sorrows and life-changing truths. It is that same story but with an unexpected twist and a touching end. I am a happy gay man in a stable civil partnership. After a long period of a loving, monogamous and joyful 'marriage' we stepped into the same twilight zone of middle age, which evoked many questions, doubts and ridiculous thoughts. At the same time, and by some strange twist of fate, we met our Adam in real life and both developed feelings for him. Ever since we live in our own ménage à trios, which gives us many happy moments, pleasures and helps us to re-discovered ourselves.

One reviewer described it as painfully slow and full of empty self importance. I would say that Tom Tykwer cleverly combined some scenes without dialogue -but with much deeper meaning- with other elements that are very dynamic, colorful, erotically-charged or simply entertaining. The soundtrack gives it a perfect final touch. Brilliant photography.

If people think that they will miraculously skip their middle age in life, they should avoid this movie. Since that is biologically impossible -- watch the movie and you may learn something about the most fundamental issues that life brings half way down the road. Highly recommended!

This one is a typical movie from Tom Tykwer, but one of his best. Is it constructed? Of course, it is fiction, paired with really good dialogue and performances. I don't know if it will be shown in English, but if you understand the language you should watch it in German. The movie is well crafted like one piece, everything fits perfectly together: the cinematography / the cutting, the music, the plot, the pace and the meaning. It has some scenes with black humour in it, but not too many. And although it deals with fundamental questions of life / death, relationships and sexual orientation, I left the cinema in an uplifted mood. Recommended for people who like Tom-Tykwer- or menage-à-trois-movies (e.g. "Threesome", "Jules and Jim").

Hanna with Simon, Simon with Adam, Adam with Hanna. A movie about polyamourous relationships made by one of the best German directors.

Tom Tykwer (Lola Rennt) made a movie, which at first started like the typical pretentious artsy festival prize contestants. It felt like a mixture of "Goodbye Lenin" and "Das merkwürdige Verhalten geschlechtsreifer Paare...". But then at some point the plot got intense and had some smoking intimate scenes not suitable for the faint hearted. In the end it's about adults exploring their borders in face of illness, death and birth.

Berlin shines as cultural background, although I am not that big a fan of such cultural happenings. The actors are great and do their job with great dignity, which is not that easy given the difficult to approach topic.

Tom Tykwer has come of age as a director with this film, and has dropped his sparkling visual flair in favor of straightforward yet sophisticated storytelling. His camera and editing are spot-on yet smart, as he carefully weaves a layered tale of two lost adults who rediscover and remake themselves through their relationship with another man.

His nuanced trio of characters deliberately play against gender types: Simon, the husband, is passive, quiet, artistic, and metaphorically female; Hanna, the wife, is assertive, successful, opinionated, and symbolically male; Adam, their paramour, a fertilization specialist who "brings life" to their dull routine, has both male and female sides.

The way their lives intertwine is both surprising and entertaining, and Tykwer not only explores their raw cores of emotional and physical need, but deftly and expertly exposes the humor in Hanna and Simon's awkward fumbling for new purpose.

What Woody Allen does for New York, Tykwer does for Berlin, showcasing the city as a vibrant center of art, culture, and yes, sexuality, filled with creative inhabitants who have gone there to remake themselves.

His intermittent visual collages of the character's lives inject new vitality to the stale montages we've all seen a million times; it's not that the screen has never been subdivided this way before, but that Tykwer's method of visual construction is meticulous and succinct -- like every frame of this film.

The result is an engaging, truthful, and non-traditional romance that leaves you feeling hopeful that love can tear down our seemingly permanent walls; yet another reason to set it in Berlin!

Highly recommended.