Die Jungfrauenmaschine

1st watched 8/18/2003 - 4 out of 10(Dir-Monika Treut): Interesting first half, but boring second half in this German drama that is initially about the search for romantic love but ends up being about a `physical' lesbian relationship that, in my opinion, doesn't answer any questions that the character poses in the first half. The movie starts with a reporter who is writing an article on romantic love that is very detailed about sexual reproduction and the intent of all of us(men & women) to return to the womb. This part of the movie was compelling as we listened to this reporters' profound thought-processes on the subject but as soon as she takes a trip to California to look for her mother her research becomes a lot more personal and leans towards an obsession with a stripper and the research pretty-much gets trashed. I guess the thing that bothered me the most was how one-sided the film was. The men portrayed in the movie were overweight, brainless sex-addicts and the women were smart social beings who were attractive because of these qualities. This is one filmmakers perspective of life, but she doesn't answer her initial questions and instead concludes that `fun' is the answer. This, in my opinion, is no different than what a man's conclusion would be as well.

This movie was very fragmented and disjointed. Dorothee had very little appeal to me, as I was unable to connect to her character. Much of the script did not match with the video, and there were too many jumps in the story. I was extremely thrown off when, unexpectedly, one of the characters began speaking in Spanish, switching suddenly back to German. I was unable to attach myself to the movie, and when the plot finally began to take off (once Dorothee was in the United States), the movie ended with very little explanation. Agreeing with the previous person posting a review, perhaps I would have enjoyed the film more if I understood German. It was obvious that much of the script was not translated into the subtitles.