Momo

Quite strange but after all a really great film. For families to enjoy a sweet moment of time (in every sense). I liked the fact that contains three different languages, the acting wasn't great at the very beginning, but the effects and the story was fluent and easy to follow. No strange metaphors but a good connection between past and future. I won't spoil anything but there weren't any bad scenes, even if it had people who smoked. It didn't have any character that I hated a lot, such a bad feeling when it happens, because even the antagonists were well made as evil and didn't make any useless move.

Beautiful images of an Italian village, a heart-warming story and great acting by Adorf, Mueller-Stahl, charming little Radost Bokel and the less known actors make this the ideal family movie. The Men in Grey, Master Hora and turtle Cassiopeia add depth to the plot, so you are free to read it as a warning of the neo-liberal episode we're in, with multinational trusts sucking the living soul out of everyone who falls for their false promises. You might even get an advice on how to overcome it -- if you want to.

Had Fassbinder lived long enough and had he not been as kaputt, he might have made this movie. Had Wenders understood a thing, he might have done it. Thanks to little-known director Johannes Schaaf at least one of Michael Ende's novels, Momo, has been adequately transformed into a great movie.

The first hour of Momo is an adorable orphan and her adorable turtle are beloved by a small German town. Maybe a little more than an hour, actually.

The last act is high fantasy beyond Terry Gilliam, Kafka, and Dr Seuss. It's just stunningly beautiful with a speculative fiction (as opposed to sci-fi) plot that is wholly original. And so dang cool in every way.

1998's Dark City (which failed badly despite being quite nifty) is very much based on Momo. It's from the author of The Neverending Story, if that means anything to you. It's kinda boring for a while and then it's briefly, at it's end, one of the best things.

(There's a YouTube video titled "momo Ave Maria" if you want to skip the film and just see the tasty candy from it.)

The most positive thing I can say about this movie is that it adheres to the book very faithfully and it is not an unapologetic butchery like The Neverending Story. Apparently Michael Ende oversaw the film himself (he plays a cameo role at the beginning) and made sure it was not tinkered with. However, whether because of his lack of film experience or despite his watchful eye, this film is extremely uncreative. At its best, which is extremely rare, it's how you imagined it. At its worst, if you've already read the book, it is frankly boring to watch and may disrupt the fancies of your imagination: I never imagined Momo with an afro, myself. The special effects don't go that far beyond stage play level and certainly don't live up to Ende's mind-sparking descriptions. This movie has not been released with proper English subtitles, and it's not worth the trouble obtaining illicit versions. Read the book, think for yourself, and enjoy some other movie on the same theme.

I've seen "Momo" when I was a child and it really fascinated me. The movie inspired me to read Michael Ende's novel. This story about time or better about people who steal other people's lifetime was so fascinating for me as a child. I haven't seen the movie for about 10 years, but I still can remember a lot of images, e.g. Cassiopoeia, the turtle who's leading Momo to Master Hora.