Lulu und Jimi

This was one of the first movies we saw at Sundance, 2009, and one of the most disappointing. It follows the story of a young black man in Germany in the 50s (or possibly the 60s), and a rich white girl. They fall madly in love, and that should have been enough for a good story. But the girl's mother is a loony Nazi sympathizer who brings in a "Dr. Mengele" type to drug the girl. Just seemed weird weird, weird. The actor who played the lead did a good job with what he was given, but his English accent was awkward (he is British, we found out afterward, which would explain that).. Some people from Germany sat behind us and said that the movie was much funnier in German, so either, something needs to be done about the subtitles, or a reworking of them might help.

There were several things that were anachronisms, most notably the movie took place (supposedly) in 1959 and yet the girl was driving a Mercedes 230SL which wasn't manufactured until 1963. He sang the Temptations song "My Girl" which wasn't written and performed until 1965. The subtitled version I saw had the translation close to what was said in German. I don't know if the Sundance version the other reviewer saw had the same subtitling or not. On the whole I felt the film had a director, but no direction. If it was trying to make a point it was lost on me. It also seemed that the writer wanted to embrace too many genres: Romance, comedy, fantasy, mystery, social consciousness, and a smattering of crime drama and adventure. At best it held my attention by always posing the question "what next?" I'll be kind and say it was interesting - and not bad.

...when Jimi points out that the War (WWII) was fought to make everybody free from racism/xenophobia and made a guy apologize for a racist comment he made to Lulu.

The acting was good, and both protagonists were attractive and fairly believable in their roles. I liked the controlling mother, though showing the father's self-castration was a bit over-the-top.

In general, I agree with the first poster that this movie was weird, and I was actually nauseous from the gunfire, blood, fight scenes, and views of hypodermic needles by the end of the movie.

Also, as an American, I was hoping to see a German movie, and there was all this English dialogue, American music, and American cars in the movie, which spoiled the experience for me.