Hell

To start my review: "Hell" means "Bright" in English.

It is a rare thing, even nowadays, a German film studio realizes a serious, dark film which has nothing to do with World War 2 or family drama.

Hell plays, without giving away any spoilers, in an post-apocalyptic scenario in which the sun burned everything down. People try to survive. You know this kind of scenario from movies like "Mad Max" or "The Book Of Eli". However, the sun aspect gives it an unused touch.

The actors do a great job in making us believe they are in big trouble. In the bright parts as in the dark parts of the movie. The antagonists are also believable in the movie's logic.

This is the first feature film directed by Tim Fehlbaum. On the one hand, you can argue he is copying big Hollywood films, which I would not disagree. On the other hand I find it kind of brave to show the German audience that a post apocalyptic movie can also be made in Germanym, with near Hollywood quality and with a small budget of about 5 million Euros. The style is amazing, the scenario believable.

Plus, the film does not show any CGI effects beside the extreme sun bloom, which is done digitally and very good. Everything else is based on the characters and their "path" to survive and find better places to live. The story itself is not very innovative but decent to watch, thrilling and without major flaws.

As a conclusion: This movie is underrated in my opinion. It is brave to make such a movie in Germany, if you compare most of the other German movies from the past 5 years, excluding "Die Welle (The Wave)". "Hell" is well-paced, has good actors and a good director who knows what he is doing. If you like films like this, you will not get bored.

Sure, "Hell" never reaches Hollywood-big-budget blockbuster quality and the sets are pretty limited. However, as a genre film, which are SO rare in Germany, it works and it is sad this film did not have success at the box office. It deserved better. Especially when looking at the future of German filmmaking, which I do not want to be Til Schweiger-only.

8 / 10

Hell (German for bright) is a nice little German contribution to the post-apocalyptic genre. The story evolves around a small group of survivors in post-apocalyptic Germany: solar flares have destroyed the earth's atmosphere and global temperatures have risen. In the day the sunlight is so strong and hot that travelling outside during daylight hours is dangerous. As in many movies of that genre the law is simple: Homo homini lupus...

A good production and decent acting make this little flick one that plays in the major league of the genre. Good.

Probably the best thing about Hell is that it shows how The Road would turn out without the media frenzy: almost unnoticed and scoring averagely on IMDb. This might not be the best way to start the review, yet as the movie progresses one starts wondering whether Hell's authors could have chosen a different path. Either way, the result is a straightforward post-apocalyptic thriller.

The advantage of not having a major studio in the background is the absence of pretentiousness. If you're into such movies, you'll like it. If not, you won't go to see it in the first place. In my opinion, this only adds to Hell's artistic merit.

I can't tell whether the title (meaning bright in German) is a wordplay on purpose or a slip of a tongue, but this is a pleasant surprise for a German-Swiss production.

According to the director himself (who was at the Fantasy Filmfest screenings this movie had all over Germany in 2011), he wasn't aware of the fact, that his title could lead to misunderstanding. He always meant it to be the German word "Hell" (which translated into English means "Bright"). It's a nice thing he was earnest and the fellow seems like a very nice guy.

Which can't be said about a lot of the characters in this movie. Unfortunately after a very strong beginning though, he movie falls back into clichés. And not good ones. Add to that some weak acting (there is an older German TV soap star on board who is particularly bad. The director told us he got her into the movie, but that she didn't seem to grasp the ideas they were trying to portray ... which seems to be sort of an explanation concerning her "acting") and a so-so script and the movie does get weaker towards the end.

Which again is a shame, because I like the idea and I think it's a good thing they dare to make a genre movie in Germany. Of course the director being in every city made the movie win an audience award. People even told me they gave the movie a better review because he was so likable. That's nice for him, but shouldn't affect the voting process in general. But there you go: Not great but not a really bad movie either

Tim Fehlbaum, Screenwriter and Director of "Hell", has sure taken a difficult and unrewarding challenge upon himself: to make an original post-apocalyptic film, and a good one. And despite what those who enjoy complaining would say - he has done a pretty good job!

Unlike most films, "Hell" keeps things disturbingly realistic, portraying a world in the near by future where global warming has made temperatures dangerously high. All the too-familiar motives of such films are there - scavenging for food/gas, water as the highest currency, some people turned to savages by the harsh reality, distrust and bonding, all of it. And even so, after The Road, I Legend, Book of Eli etc etc, Hell still proved to be very enjoyable. It even has some vampire-films motives, especially "Stake-Land".

Acting, screenplay, cinematography, all weren't innovative, but still good. All in all I've always enjoyed the more realistic post-apocalyptic films, and Hell is definitely one worthy of watching!