Schnee in der Neujahrsnacht

There are two things which are always killing a german movie: The dialogues or the storyline. This movie makes an exeption because it masters both. The story combines lovestory, thriller, comedy & drama perfectly and gives you a real impression, how the millennium night would be like in the streets of Berlin from the viewpoint of several characters, including a bear which escaped from the zoo!! In my point of view a must see like "Bang Boom Bang" or the more popular "Lola rennt (runs)". Even if you only get the chance to see it in 2000 it will still carry the magic of this certain night.

More charming than most, this is the possibly perfect movie to pass the hollow hours around new year's. But I felt cheated anyway: My sources promised me Lisa Martinek, and regular readers know how much I love her. Yet where is she? It must be a very small part (what injustice!), or I slept through her appearance (sacrilege!), or perhaps she was falsely credited after all (intolerable cruelty!). But what do you care? For the less obsessed, Lisa's absence is amply compensated for by Jürgen Tarrach as a prison-inmate-turned-bus-driver and Tamara Simunovic as his favorite passenger, an expecting Ukrainian prostitute. But it doesn't stop there. Picture a half-crazy Irish drunk in a self-made dirigible out to hunt down his one true love Carola (Barbara Rudnik). He looks like a bloated demon begot by Van Morrison and Meat Loaf, but it's Eric Burdon! Yes, *that* Eric Burdon, of The Animals. Plus Hannes Jaenicke as late night talk radio host Captain Zippo, perhaps the part of his lifetime. Fine performance by Dieter Landuris as a small time crook. His character Frank was in it for the money, but a shattering car crash makes him see the light.

It's the 31st December 1999 in Berlin and the different characters have different expectations for and dreams of the coming millennium. What happens when those characters come together, is told in three different episodes held together by the radio moderator of the smallest radio station in Europe. That ends up in a good comedy on the one hand, but also in a romantic drama bringing you the magic of that special night.

If you won't be able to see the movie in 1999: It is not necessary at all to be surrounded by any kind of millenium-hype to have fun with this movie. It's just set at that time because of the symbolic change (in time and for the movie characters).