Free Rainer

I saw this movie yesterday in the San Sebastian Film Festival. I liked the message a lot.A German TV executive has a wake-up call and changes his life ,supporting a culture-driven society.

In these days , TV programs are usually rubbish, and a lot people think in that way, it's difficult to find programs with real interest. So Reclaim your Brain for me is a very good title. We,Citizens, are very tired of this rubbish we are sold day over day. we can change the world!.

But this change is not in the movies, but In our everyday's life.

thank you to all the crew of this movie for doing this picture.

The film has a very simple basic premise. Television has been reduced to the lowest common denominator and people swallow it because they have gotten used to it. As such, they are reduced to an antisocial drone-like resistance that no longer resembles life as our fathers remember. Improve what's on the TV and you'll improve society.

For someone who's himself quite sick of all those reality soaps and the garbage that comes out from the Hollywood assembly line, I found this film refreshing and inspirational. Although I wasn't quite fond of the obvious ultra-left ideology you can find in between the lines, the message of this film goes beyond ideology and is a call to all of us.

"Democratic" capitalist society has become a tyrannical system run by corporations who enslave us for profit, while we, the average consumer, are barely aware of the golden cage in which we live. We've all become paranoid little f***'s who waste our time on shallow small talk and brainless entertainment rather than having real conversations on real topics and devouring real culture. This film tries to open your eyes to that reality and reach the inner child in all of us.... the inner child that makes us human.

Obviously this film doesn't have the budget of a Hollywood blockbuster and the story is most definitely naive, but the very optimism of this film and its lonely dissident cry make it far more interesting to me than anything Hollywood has produced since "V For Vendetta".

That's all I have to say......

There is something when it comes to film and German, during their film history they have give us several of the best films ever made, but the latest decay film in German has only been about Tom Tykwer. Perheaps Hans Weingartner is the man to change that, his earlier film Die Fetten Jahre sind vorbei was a great comedy/drama. In this film he is using basically the same theory, but it is much better done. It is not about young people protesting against society, it is about a man that wakes up and discover that everything he stands for is "shit", and then gathering some folks to start a revolution against the entertainment industry and television companies. The film entertains until the end.

A nice stab at what we get on our TVs. Apart from the commercials (and the fact that they cut movies in Germany to show them) it's the main reason I don't watch any TV anymore. "Reality" TV shows and other stuff have taken over. So the movie is still and will be relevant. Shouldn't it have impacted a lot more though and make people think about what they watch?

I don't think so and I don't really agree with where the movie goes towards the end. It takes the edge of a bit for me. Of course this only being a movie and only wanting to entertain is one thing. But I would have liked if it stayed as cynical as it started off. There are some phrases thrown in, that could spark discussions though (what was there first: bad programming or the viewers?). But again I don't agree with the answers the movie provides.

Someone said that if you want to know them you're funny, don't tell them you're funny, tell them a joke. In this case, the last laugh is on the audience. Hans Weingartner's movie is all telling and zero demonstration. Irrespective of temperament and motivation, his characters preach to the camera on the corruptive influence of mainstream television, the liberating powers of learning and movies as a moral institution. At no point in the story do we have any idea why the characters behave the way they do. Laughable. Three reasons to see "Free Rainer" anyway: Rainer's initial display of road rage that leaves even a group of short-tempered skinheads green with fear, an amusing portrayal of a nameless millionaire's wife, and the very lovely Elsa Gambard. It's obvious she can't act, but with face and grace like that, she should have no trouble at all finding work as a model. - Guest appearance by Sarah Kuttner. God knows what's gotten into her.