Barfuss

What happens if a loser, who can't keep a job, doesn't remember the name of the girl he last slept with and has some trouble with his family meets a 25-year-old who had been kept inside by her mother for 19 years and tries to kill herself? Nick, the loser, takes Leila on a trip to his parents and accidentally he falls in love. Well, I won't tell more, and I won't spoil this because you really can't tell whether it's going to be a happy ending or not. Of course this movie made me cry but it's great that in the next scenes you can laugh again...laughing in tears, one of the greatest feelings. Til Schweiger did a great job directing it (the movie being dedicated to his kids) and playing Nick. I think it's the greatest German movie within year, and maybe the best without Nazis and WWII.

Til's movie is definitely sweet, entertaining and down-right funny. It is as German as I've seem a movie, and it's humour is much more subtle and slowly delivered than most of what Holiwood has to offer. The amber colour of the cinematography gives it both a timelessness and a romantic touch. We see Germany as it is, and a most unlikely love story taking place before our eyes.

A movie about how absurd can a moment in life be, how sometimes we all need to have a bit of craziness and foolishness in order to make it through the madness of normal life.

Not a classic, but a good enjoyable evening.

Having seen "Barfuß" today with a friend of mine, I have to say that in many ways it is better than I expected it to be.

Til Schweiger gives a remarkably good performance and obviously his ability in directing has improved since his last major effort "Der Eisbär". Johanna Wokalek is THE reason to see the film, though, and fortunately Schweiger knows this pulls himself back and gives her the ability to shine. Her performance of Leila is sweet and touching and she manages to provide the movie with a light touch as well as a necessary seriousness.

From the get-go it is clear that this movie is not supposed to be a real drama but rather a tender and poetic fairy-tale. It was important to stage it that way, because if the film had focused too much of the realistic aspect (Leila's handicap and Nick's downfall from his family background) it would easily have failed. This way, it walks a very fine line between comedy and drama quite well.

However, I have some major quibbles with the finished product. First, I think the movie cannot really make up its mind, which genre it wants to belong to, usually I like genre-bastards but this movie pretends to be a road movie for so long, that once it gets done with the road movie one wonders when the movie will finally be over.

Also, there is one moment in the story, when the movie steps over the above mentioned fine line between comedy and drama too much. I won't mention details but when the protagonists finally reach the wedding of Nick's brother, which is supposedly the end of their trip together, they both humiliate themselves at the party very much. I admit that I get uncomfortable easily when characters I like humiliate themselves, but to me this part was pretty hard to take, as I just wished for Leila and Nick to get out of there as quickly as possible, knowing they would not be able to leave just like that. (on the plus side, I guess it shows, that Scheiger is capable of making us feel for the characters, though).

Schweiger has mentioned often, that this movie has been really dear to his heart from the beginning and watching the film one can see this clearly. I believe he also wanted this to be a film that he made with a lot of friends and people he admired. Thus many German movie and TV stars such as Jürgen Vogel, Michael Gwisdek, Armin Rohde, Markus Maria Profitlich, et al. appear in cameos. While I usually enjoy a little game of "spot the celebrity", in this particular rather sweet and touching story it seemed out of place and became quite annoying to me after a while to see all kinds of stars (what was Axel Stein doing there, by the way?) having one funny moment to share.

Oh, and one last criticism: After "Die fetten Jahre sind vorbei" ("The Edukators") this is the second German movie in a short while to use Leonard Cohen's "Halleluyah" in its soundtrack. While I really love the song, to me in movie history it will always be connected with "Shrek". So PLEASE you German filmmakers everywhere: come up with something new or original if you want to illustrate a bittersweet moment. It really tears the viewer out of the context and seems like a cheap rip-off.

These points aside, "Barfuß" is a very fine movie, beautiful to look at, moving and with wonderful actors in it.

I didn't have so much fun watching a love comedy for a long time (maybe after "When Harry met Sally") as this film has it all: very interesting plot, excellent and funny dialogs and scenes, top-notch acting and... this "something", this thing that makes it a film you want to watch several times and you're never bored with.

Til Schweiger is at his best (OK, I am a Til Schweiger fan, but in this one he's just awesome), Johanna Wokalek is sooo charming that it's just a pleasure to watch her.

I'm normally not writing just positives about a movie... but this one has simply bought me - I've enjoyed it so much that I can't find anything that distracted me from one of the best movie experiences ever.

If you live outside of Germany (like I do), either on your visit to this country get yourself a ticket in a movie theater (like I did), or just wait for it on DVD. This one's worth it.

You may try to dislike this dramedy. Unless you're really determined you probably won't make it. While some people may be turned off by something or other, most will have to admit that this is actually quite a nice effort from first-time-on-his-own-director and with-some-assistance-producer/writer/editor/star Schweiger. But the worst thing I can say about the movie is that the reduced color scheme didn't appeal to me all that much. Not because it was reduced, but because it made everything look as if the sun was continually setting.

Mostly it is a terribly nice little story with Wokalek's timid performance wonderfully contrasting Schweiger's character's arrogance that turns into love during the course of the movie. The character development actually works and seems pretty believable... Add some very good supporting performances from Michael Mendl, Imogen Kogge, and Steffen Wink and you get a very nice, sweetly romantic and incredibly funny picture. I wish Schweiger had managed to pull off the same trick again with "Keinohrhasen", which was nowhere near as good.

Watch it with the person you love.