Tattoo

"Tattoo" is a first class macabre psychological horror movie / thriller from director Robert Schwentke. From the start, its cold colour palette and distanced camera-work create a dark and sinister atmosphere. Nightclub life in the world of "Tattoo" appears depressing and emotionless. This is a world where there is little laughter, only pain.

Schwentke manages to create an on-screen world where the fantastic events of this tale seem believable. Inspired by the German expressionist movement, it's a fantastic achievement and although comparisons will always be made with Fincher's "Se7en", I think "Tattoo" is the superior film.

The cast are excellent. August Diehl plays the young cop who is blackmailed into joining Christian Redl on the grittier side of police work. Diehl's first case is the murder of a young woman who was into self-mutilation and who died shortly after biting off a man's finger...and swallowing it. The beautiful Nadeshda Brennicke plays Maya Kroner whose secrets take the story in an exciting and unpredictable direction.

While the subject of people being murdered for their tattoos is not new (Roald Dahl's short-story "Skin" covers the same ground), the film's plot is gripping and effectively told.

After viewing this film shortly after "Antikörper" and "Kontroll," it would appear that some of the best psychological horror films of the noughties are coming out of Europe. Rich on atmosphere and slightly other-worldly, these films are a delight to watch.

9 out of 10.

If David Fincher's SE7EN was a mystery shot through the prism of 70s American crime films, then Robert Schwentke's TATTOO is a mystery shot through the prism of 70's European art films. The comparisons are inescapable, it shares SE7EN's dark look, dual detectives, mid-point chase and "something in a box" as well as its meticulous, exacting direction, but it is a very different film with very different thematic agendas. This German film about a secret market in skin and its thematic concerns of guilt, conformity, identity, violence and heritage suggest obvious connections to the Third Reich and the current crisis of east/west reintegration of culture. This rich thematic tapestry is held together by one of the most precise, stylish and icily dreamlike directorial debuts to be seen in decades. Shades of Antonioni and Cronenberg, as well as Tourneur and Hitchcock inform a style which is never imitative and truly hypnotic. Strong, understated performances ground the film, which stumbles only in a pre-climax exposition scene that feels shoe-horned in, for until that point, every piece of information is earned and visually realized. Schwentke is a director to watch; provocative, thoughtful and clearly in love with the art of cinema.

I've seen Tattoo in a sneak preview and i think its pretty bad. The story has too many flaws and the dialogue is awful. If you like seeing dead bodies and other disturbing pictures without a good story behind, then go into this movie. But please dont compare this one to David Finchers Seven.

Though this movie does have more than passing similarities to David Fincher's SE7EN, I feel that comparing the two is unfair and, in my opinion, downright unwise. It is true that TATTOO unfolds in an ever rainy cityscape; follows the lives of two police detectives (with a vast generation and experience gap) while they chase a killer. And yes, it plays its drama out amidst a seedy German underworld

However, what transpires amidst this spectacularly visualized tapestry full of rave parties, torture chambers, skin rooms, and body modification cliques willing to sell the tattoos off their body for quick cash, is vastly different in tone and theme from Fincher's 'who done it, and why' police procedural. Here the characters are not shown as black and white, but rather in shades of gray. Their lives, their dilemmas, are the real story. Even the reasons for the killings are presented in such a way that makes you understand, if not empathize, with those that a standard Hollywood picture would casually demonize. This element of moral ambiguity, under the remarkably controlled direction of Schwentke, creates a dark, cold, and subtly stylized world, that surprisingly plays as very very real.

It is encouraging to see a European film with the refined sensibility of European cinema combined so adeptly with a genre so intrinsically American. It is also hard to believe that this is Schwentke's directorial debut. (I for one will keep my eye on him.)

It's a remarkable film, and I certainly hope it blows the doors open for other genre films shot in Germany, and in Europe as a whole. Not since viewing Spoorloos (The Vanishing) have I been so impressed. If you have a chance, don't hesitate to catch it on the big screen. It's gorgeous, it's ballsy, and it's worth it.

I had the pleasure of seeing the directorial debut of Robert Schwentke, TATTOO, over the weekend at the American Film Market in Santa Monica. And what a pleasure it was. Imagine the most gruesome horror film you can, conceived and shot with the eye and soul of an artist, and you begin to get the picture of this twisted tale of two cops investigating the trade in tattoo-adorned human skins. While the script occasionally slips into standard genre territory (it is, after all, essentially a "two cops after a killer movie"), the film itself is so riveting, shocking, and massively entertaining that any small flaws can be easily overlooked. I understand it comes out in Europe this spring - let's hope a North American release isn't far behind, because Schwentke is a director to watch, and if his debut is any indication, he is well on his way to becoming a world-class filmmaker.