Schule

First of all, if you're a foreign student planning on visiting a German school for a year, you absolutely need to see this movie.

In a funny, yet absolutely credible manner you'll get an inside into the hearts and minds of German students on their last days of school. You will encounter all kinds of characters from the pedantic nerd having is first bong (/girl) to the nonchalant, funny fat guy struggling to get his high-school-degree at all.

Throughout the entire movie, I was remembered on the "good old times" where there was nothing to worry about but everything to dream of. It represents the social aspects of school and friendship so accurate that there is hardly anything I could criticize here.

The story is kind of simple, as it portrays a short period of time and a special feeling, where logic and accuracy aren't necessarily the most important aspects. If I want to mentally travel back in time where I sat on the grass with my buddies just drinking beer, having fun, smoking pot, talking about love and our future - I only need to watch "Schule" to get my dose.

However I cannot help but recognize that there are many parallels to Richard Linklater's movie "Dazed & Confused" which is basically the same story set in the United States 1970's. If you watch both movies, you will see that "Schule" was most likely inspired by this masterpiece, which it simply cannot beat.

Nevertheless, "Schule" is definitely worth watching if you understand German properly or if you're simply interested in how high school life actually looks like in a country which many believe consists of goose step marching robots. Far from it.

The movie "Schule" (School) shows a part of the life of a small group of students, enjoying the last days before graduation.

It happens that I visited the movie with some friends of mine from school and we had to agree that the movie did in fact catch the feeling we had at the time of graduation. To every character in the movie, whether it be the A-student or the "loverboy", we could remember the exact counterpart in our own class.

But also the contrast between feeling free and the uncertainity what will happen after graduation and where all the friends will go was shown in the film.

I think the movie is a realistic portrait of this time, on the one hand making one laugh and on the other hand saddening us.

In fact they made this movie at exactly the school i went to, when i still was a pupil. So i might not really be neutral =). when they shoot it, i wasn't really interested, but later when i saw it, it was just great fun! Not just because i knew nearly every extra boys and girls you can see in the film (the second fat guy who does the fart in class was actually a good friend of mine), but i could in fact identify myself with the film. All these characters appearing in "schule" we had in our classes. Even Stone, the guy who left school years ago and still hangs around. Partying (and at least for some of us the pot-smoking) the hole day and doing as few as possible for school to still pass the exams - that's the way school was! For me this movie is more than just another funny movie. It's a kind beauty memory...

To be honest, this movie just gets the vibe of Germany's upper schools around the millenium. I know, cause I was there.

This is really a good movie! I, myself passed Abitur just three years ago and saw it two or three months before the final exams took place - and well: It struck like lightning! The basic message of the movie, that there's just a small amount of time left for you to be with your friends and to live a life without the problems of the adult world, hit exactly the point. This movie helped me, to make the best out of these last days in school!

Some comments complain about the stereotyped characters, but hey! it's still comedy and stereotypes are part of it. (if you don't agree, read about it in Aristoteles'"Poetik".)

Also the characters are really nice and you can quite identify yourself (not with the stereotypes,but) with some behavior that is depicted.

After all I have to say that SCHULE is a really good movie with excellent actors, camera and soundtrack and an fantastic tension (the scene on the schools' roof at dawn!!!)

Watch and let it have a place in your heart! - It deserves it!!!