Il lupo della steppa

I feel like a minority of one by saying I liked Haines' adaptation of Steppenwolf. I first ran across it in 1989 when I found it mis-filed under horror in the video store I was living above my senior year in college. I was already a fan of Hesse, I especially liked the Glass Bead Game, Steppenwolf, Demian and Siddhartha.

I loved Max von Sydow's performance as Harry Haller. I found Dominique Sandia to be a captivating Hermine.

It is definitely a weird film but that adds to its charm. This film captured the spirit of the book quite well -- better than David Lynch's adaptation of Dune. I'm speaking as a fan of David Lynch and of Dune. Some of the animated exposition looked a little awkward but I'm inclined to overlook that because some of it was funny and the live action parts worked really well.

This movie communicates only bits and pieces of what the book itself does. It doesn't show well the actual character of Haller at all and, not understanding his personality well, the rest of the film doesn't pass on the original message very well except through occasional one line sum-ups of an idea by a character. This movie includes tons of lines taken directly from the book but I found that the movie uses some of the weaker lines at times while leaving out most of the best. I found the first half of this movie to be utterly boring however the second half was moderately well done. I like the feel to the second half although I barely made it through the first. That said I give this 5 stars because of the nice surrealism (really psychedelic more than just surreal) and I found the film to be overall very poor considering the material its based. I don't particularly like some of the acting selections either. Overall if you just read this book or ever have for that matter I would say don't watch this film because it leaves me with much less feeling than the book did and really calmed down some of the feelings racing in me for days after reading the book. If you've never read the book I would say watch the film but know that the book is a masterpiece and this film is not. But like I said if your into psychedelic feels to films this has plenty to offer there. All that said I believe my review is biased because of comparing it to the book and had I never read the book some of the ideas presented in the film would have really hit home. But that's not hard to do when your script is pretty much taken directly from the book. I think being disappointed is what I feel. I also particularly dislike the scene with the war against machines where in the book the attorney or whatever he was was (I forget) wasn't treated the same as in the film. I think the last few sentences of Gustav and his conversation in the book really hit at what was being said in that section and that the film didn't.

I always thought this wildly psychological Hesse book was unfilmable until I saw this movie . Even thought it contains just a portion of the ideas in the dense original, it was an amazing attempt, especially considering the technical limitations of the period. Using video techniques to pull off the kind of stuff that is done easily with cgi, Haines brings us into the surreal internal reality of Harry haller's psyche. I wish someone would clean this flick up and release it on DVD. Worth getting and watching. I think the rating it received here was really off the mark. A cult film that deserves wider recognition, Max von Sydow does a great job, as does Dominique Sanda and Pierre Clementi

I have long been a fan of Hermann Hess and have read Steppenwolf innumerable times and will most likely reread it many more times. With this kind of familiarity of a book it would normally be quite unlikely that a movie adaptation would be found to be satisfying. This movie is the very rare exception. Max von Sydow is the perfect Harry Haller! The Magic Theatre was done very well! I highly recommend this movie to all who Herman Hesse fans.

This adaptation of the novel is a really interesting movie - in ways, I feel like it's so unique that it makes it difficult to judge how "good" the film really is. There are a lot of colorful, unusual and even rather creepy special effects, including animation of several kinds.

The quality of the acting is also difficult to gauge because the interactions between characters are already supposed to be so far removed from the kinds of things that people in your life most likely say and do. Max von Sydow's performance was very different from how the character of Harry Haller existed in my head before seeing the movie: I had read the book first and couldn't quite see Harry as being so silly-looking or laughable throughout the whole story. Dominique Sanda did convey an appropriate mystique as Hermine, and has a really interesting speaking voice. A very nationally and sexually ambiguous guy named Pierre Clementi seemed to have a lot of fun with his crazy take on Pablo. Hilarious! The music and the whole sound concept of the movie were also.. can anyone think of another word for "unique"? But in this case, I also thought they were excellently conceived.

Part of me found that the movie's endearing irregularities were a great way to reflect the absurdity and awkwardness that are felt by the main character, but another part was not entirely convinced. So, I give the movie a 7/10 after some deliberation, partly out of the respect I have for works of true originality, of which this is certainly one.