mingus_x

Dan Drasin is a talented cameraman and director in one person. It is unbelievable that he was just 18 years old when he shot that movie. The framing under live circumstances is great as is the editing.

This movie let's you feel the energy and emotions of that moment. It is really intense and makes one wonder how he got out at the end without being harmed. An important historic document.

It is the first Social Protest Documentary Film of the 60s Movement. Dan Drasin told us at the end that he got his equipment and film stock from his collaborating friends D.A. Pennebaker and the Maysles Brothers. So this really was a time where people were able to go out and do something within a short time (with a little help from their friends).

At the Vienna International Film Festival it was shown together with his short film "X" from 1962 [a gem, which makes it even more a shame that it isn't even listed on IMDB's database](and Robert Frank's "Pull my daisy"), that shows his talent of telling a story with a "message" in an effective and amusing way.

Hopefully somebody like the Criterion Collection is able to collect them together with some other short films of that period and releases them on DVD.

This is a must see movie. Werner Peters and all the other cast members deliver superb performances. It has got an ensemble of top german character actors playing together on the same high level as we are used to get from the best of Preston Sturges' movies.

The photography of Robert Baberske is a sheer delight, both lighting and framing are masterly done.

If you have enjoyed Fritz Lang's "M" than you certainly will enjoy this one. The appeal of the story and characters may a bit more specific german, but the moral and "message" is timeless and is true to all western societies.

Comedic film jewels like this are not made anymore - this makes it even less understandable that there is no DVD version around yet. (I know for certain that a top notch flawless negative for a digital transfer exists !!!)

This movie has the best cinematography i have seen in years. It is as dense, perfect staged and lit as the opening sequence of Orson Welles' "Othello" during the whole movie. The actors are superb casted and the story resonates. -

Furthermore it has got an astonishing soundtrack: a combination of western harmony (classical music) mixed with sounds heard in the japanese No-Theater; it perfectly sets accents and structures the time and space(themes).

I was mesmerized the whole time through and am very thankful to Ronald Domenig, the initiator of the "Art Theatre Guild" retrospective at the Austrian Filmmuseum for showing and personally translating(subtitling) it.

This has been a movie experience that will stick with me.