Stille Reserven

Seen at the Viennale 2016: It is always creepy to watch a SciFi or something similar made in Middle Europe. These countries are based on a conservative history and culture. And I guess, if filmmakers in these countries try SciFi, they do very often have no progressive clue about a possible future and quickly loose their interests to develop characters acting along plots that dig deeper into human longings and their hopes and fears apart from the usual (love, money, power, morality mixed together into endless cascades of possibilities to stay in the movie business). Movies projecting our world of today into one of our possible futures need ideas that go beyond the fantasy of a bored mind of a saturated script writer. In Stille Reserven only one fragment of our contemporary live is projected into the unknown future (to be allowed to die). Everything else remains as it is today. And to look at so few content (not) supported by low key acting for one-and-a-half hours is quite boring. Not a single interesting thought and it was quite annoying to have to sit this one trough. Nobody will feel anything regarding the fate of the characters in this movie. Maybe it's only bad luck, but there are so many US SciFi-movies out there that are dealing these topics so much deeper and better.

Wonderful premise, wonderful set design, yet it's a truly mediocre film. I hate to write this, because there are not a lot of sci-fi films coming out of Germany, Austria or Switzerland. The funding institutions are kinda conservative here, and sci-fi is usually a red flag. And every now and then they dare giving money to a sci-fi project, and it really fails. Whyyyy?????? WHYYY???????? I give this one 6 stars, just because I can't make myself give it 5.