Suis-je belle ?

A disappointment from Germany's Doris Dorrie. In this Altman like cast movie, with dozens of Germany's and Spain's actors "du jour", these stars' talents are wasted on boring and anything but innovative sub plots (there is no single discernible plot) and very little to link all the characters.Not even the excellent Framka Potente (Run Lola Run) nor Maria Schrader (Nobody Loves Me, and Aimee and Jaguar)nor Joachim Krol (Maybe, Maybe Not) can sustain one's interest in this Euro yawner.

I think this is quite a nice movie. In a scene that is somewhere halfway (actually I bet it's precisely halfway) you get the clue you need: there's no beginning and no end in this movie, so don't bother yourself looking for it. Once this is taken for granted, you see some quite excellent scenes, in which you are in the thick of things of the life of some (more of less) loose connected people. There is humour, affection, love, lust and sadness, and most of the players are very convincing. The only character that could be missed in my opinion was Linda, played by Franka Potente: she is playing exactly the same character as she was in 'Lola rennt' (without the running). Just an irritatingly weird girl, with no real or convincing acts and emotions, except her singing her own flamenco song. If Franka Potente can't play a character unlike Lola, I'm sorry to say I've seen enough of her by now.

Now that is a film that tries to show the modern world of relationships and how many people just do not get what they want, due to mean folks around, lack of communication and trust or just unfitting circumstances. Depressing autumn movie, but with a glimpse of hope and great music of mostly Spanish origin.

"Life according to Doris" might be an adequate alternative title to this film. Instead of telling a linear story with a showdown, Dörrie spotlights moments in people's life that tell everything about their past, their present and the world that surrounds them. The way she does it puts her in one line with Jim Jarmusch. As in most of her other films, it is what the characters say and do more than how it is filmed what makes the film. "Bin ich schön?" is the closest any of Dörries's films comes to her remarkable short stories.

This movie knits a web of stories that revolve around the loveless wedding of a girl, concerning her mother and father, her sisters, her former boyfriend, the wedding party caterer, a girl accidentally met in a rainy evening, and the people these people meet: a Spanish man who brings the ashes of his dead German wife to Germany, to bring her to the rain and green grass she missed; an extravagant girl who seeks the attention of strangers by pretending she is handicapped or ill; the father's mistress who slashes her wrists in a clandestine visit to her lover's house; an abandoned old woman found by the younger sister in the airport.

The stories, located half in Germany and half in Spain, can be intensely poetic, or intensely brutal, or funny, or poignant, and make up an absorbing whole. All of them have to do with love, love being found, lost or hankered after. By the end of the movie the stories have not been brought to any closure; like in life, there are no neat endings.