Le particelle elementari

I watched this movie at a preview here in Stockholm a week or so ago. The theater was filled with people and i must admit i never thought this kind of movie would have that kind of attraction on people.

I can start by saying that i really liked this movie. I'm not sure i was entertained by it, and many times it was not a pleasant experience, but still the overwhelming feeling is that i really liked it. This is not a movie for everyone though. A lot of people will probably have a hard time with the strange mix between comedy and tragedy, others will be put off simply because of the themes and the presentation. There is a lot of nudity here, a lot of explicit language and scenes that are disturbing in more ways than one. A lot of people will probably find it gratuitous, although i feel it's more a part of an uncompromising attitude towards the movie and the story.

The story revolves around two brothers, Bruno and Michael. Bruno is the brother that really stuck with me. Moritz Bleibtreu is excellent and the character really displays how the complexity of a human being can cause you to both hate and pity him. The other actors are also very good, which is probably necessary considering the subject of the movie.

I have to stress one last time that this is not a movie for everyone. And by that i don't mean that it's demanding in the sense that you have to be a film-student to appreciate it. Rather i mean that the themes and the presentation are probably too much for many people. This movie is rough around the edges, very blunt and raw. These are the characteristics i appreciate it for, but i realize other people won't feel the same way. My guess is that either you really like it or you hate it. But you'll never know until you watch it, and therefore i feel it's still a strong recommendation. 7/10.

Other reviews suggested this film was based on a French novel. If so, I have not read it and have no intention to. I watched this film strictly as a stand-alone entity, not knowing much about its background and its director, Oskar Roehler. I watched it out of a liking for international cinema, hoping I would land a good one. And I did.

One can argue this is a serious film, on a popular subject: love and its impact on life. Apart from some minor 'imperfections', e.g. the physical resemblance of the brothers played by different actors portraying them in youth and adulthood, with one done right and the other out of whack, I find the film was very well done and it commanded my attention throughout all its 112 minutes.

Perhaps it strikes a chord with intellectuals - one brother is a renowned physicist and the other an academic. It is a film that engages you and makes you think and try to get inside the minds of the protagonists, played as two half-brothers with entirely opposite life styles. One more likable than the other.

I enjoyed this film greatly, and regarded it one of the few, memorable German films I have seen in recent years.

I wasn't expecting much of this film, even knowing what's it about. I was surprised how cleverly it was made. The main themes of this film are sex and love. Though there was a lot of profanity, everything fit perfectly. It's not one of those films where is a lot of unnecessary profanity just to shock audience. Another good thing about this film is, that it's characters always talk openly with each other, so you get to know them in a very short time and even start to like them. Actually this is a sad story, but I found this movie being optimistic sometimes. It's well filmed and there are many good German actors in this film. There were many unexpected twist, even the ending was not like I expected. It's interesting, funny, shocking and really worth your time.

In Berlin, the scientist Michael Djerzinski (Christian Ulmen) decides to return to Ireland to proceed his research about genetics that he left behind three years ago. Meanwhile, his racist, bigoted, sexually disturbed and addicted in masturbation half-brother Bruno Klement (Moritz Bleibtreu) has just divorced from his wife and is interned in a psychiatric clinic for therapy. Michael and Bruno were left by their hippie mother that moved to Poona when they were child and their dysfunctional childhood reflects in their personality and sexual behavior. When Michael is informed that the remains of his grandmother should be replaced since a new road will pass by the cemetery, he visits his childhood sweetheart Annabelle (Franka Potente) and finds that she is an experienced woman that has had a crush on him since she was five years old. Further, she had had many deceptions in her love affairs, while Michael is still virgin. Meanwhile Bruno meets the liberal Christiane (Martina Gedeck) in a nudist camp and he believes she is the woman of his life, until a tragedy happens.

"Elementarteilchen" is a tragically weird, sometimes very unpleasant, low budget movie. Bruno is hateful character, with his sick and selfish behavior and prejudice. His essay about black people and his comments about Brazil are despicable. However, the performance of Moritz Bleibtreu is top-notch. I also liked very much the performance of Martina Gedeck. Christian Ulmen and Franka Potente complete the good cast of this strange and dramatic romance. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "Partículas Elementares" ("Elementary Particles")

Elementary particles starts out as a quest for existence and what this word really means. Two brothers (half-brothers to be precise) realize their lives are not what kids dream about however much they seem to fit in the „mechanism". One is having doubts about his devotion to chase his scientific pioneering while the other does not seem to find comfort in teaching literature any more while being constantly turned down by publishers and neglected by his wife. They both have to reach back to their roots to be able to find out where to go from here, though Bruno (Moritz Bleibtrau) does so amidst rather compulsive circumstances, in a clinic he ends up in. They have not been given much of a head-start in life with their capricious, self-indulgent, impulsive and utterly careless hippie mother who left them both with their troubled and lonesome adolescence. Life has taken no mercy either – that is not the nature of things. Michael (Christian Ulmen) however, finds some inspiration to carry on in the shape of an old, more-than-friend girl pal, while Bruno has to rethink and reestablish his everyday needs and desires. He is living his second childhood – a time without constraints but full of uncertainty and odd, unbalanced characters – trying to escape his feeling of being redundant. Oscar Roehler's stark and thick drama seems a little exaggerating, a bit too much, nevertheless depicts life as it is: after stripped from all the fake Christmas wrappers, often desperate, pitiful at most times and forgiving only every once in a while.