Bangalô

A summer weekend on the home pool. Sounds great. In this case however, it is nothing more than Paul's small-town shelter from an outside world that seems to have only pointlessness on offer to him. Also, the army sucks which Paul joined after finishing high school apparently for the lack of any better plan. Out of a mood he just left the troops without permission, so that bungalow and pool are also a hiding place while the army keeps on looking for him.

We see a young fellow who excels in being passive aggressive and in annoying his older brother, while their parents are on holiday. He pisses off his own girlfriend and falls in love with his brother's Danish girlfriend, who actually shows some sympathy for him.

As a matter of fact, there is not very much going on in the movie, a fact that also can be seen as a catalyst for Paul's aimlessness. Is any effort still worth the trouble in the light of a complacent, materialistic affluent society!

For that matter Paul is not really uncongenial and parts of me could feel with him when looking in his bored and help seeking eyes. Quite good low-emotion acting there.

Surely, the movie was not primarily made to entertain but I found it good to relate to. In parts it is almost existentialistic. Is life meaningless in the first place and it is up to oneself to give it a meaning?

Not an easy movie but it felt right.

Hiding? In the Army now - well not entirely true is it? Now I understand the sentiment of not wanting to be in the Army, some may have an issue with that. But this is about an individual who has more than one issue. Another one is finding love ... or what he thinks is love.

This is an indpendent movie, that will either work for you (slow pace and all) or not at all. The sentiment feels real, the attraction to a mother but also lover figure even more. And they picked the right actress (European project, her German is really good) for that role too. Not an easy movie in many ways, but rewarding for those who stick with it and like these types of movies anyway

This has to be one of the most tedious, pointless and plot less films of all time. It's only redeeming quality is that the experience of sitting through an hour of it allows an appreciation of every other film one can think of - even the ubiquitous 'Attack of the killer tomatoes'.

In the days of compulsory National Service, a young man deserts the Army and goes home where he finds himself attracted to his brother's girlfriend. That's the plot. The pace can only be described as static. The lead actor is a handsome young man who drops his underpants in at least four scenes. In fact one might be forgiven for thinking that the whole point of this production was the director's urge to get this young unknown actor to be naked on set for as long as possible. There is even a scene where he actually begins to explicitly masturbate on camera. This did not exactly propel him into stardom as he appeared in only 4 more productions. One really has to question the value and the purpose of his displays in this production.

After an hour I had to fast forward the last fifteen minutes to reach the climax. It was that bad. So boring are the characters that any interest in their fate evaporates in the warmth of drowsiness. And when I opened my eyes the plot had advanced to an entirely predictable, utterly unpoetical and completely banal ending. Don't bother watching this.

Bungalow definetely is one of the best German films I've ever seen, maybe even the best. But it is also a love-or-hate movie. I loved it for personal reasons and if you can't identify with one of the characters, you'll probably ask yourself what the director intended to show the audience or you'll simply find 'Bungalow' boring. For me, it wasn't. It felt like a longer version of Marcus Weiler's short 'Always crashing in the same car', a German version of Larry Clark's study of aimlessness and loneliless in 'Ken Park' or even a German version of Richard Kelly's masterpiece 'Donnie Darko' reduced to that feeling of being somehow lost, without a direction to follow that seems right.

The acting is brilliant and the (non-)dialogues are brilliant. If you are German and born in the 80s, maybe you'll love this movie. I was impressed. 10 out of 10.