Reviews

More of this post-war revenges on nazi-perpertrators. A German has fled Europe after WW2 and built a new life with wife and kids when an ex-victim gypsy woman in his neighbourhood discovers him to kidnap and torture for days and nights to make him confess. When he finally succumbs she kills him anyhow with her husband's assistance and gets away with it. However guilty nothing excuses this sort of primitive and private revenge and the flick leaves you with a bad taste in your mouth. That it is a thrilling and well acted fiction does not make up for its flaws. It takes place and time in the 50-s but is produced much later, for what reason? It would be more appropriate for American film producers to reveal the dirty secrets of for example the genocide on native Americans or the war crimes committed by Americans in all the international conflicts that the USA has been involved in.

The film covers both German art and politics from the 1930s to the 80s. You get glimpse of the early avant garde, over the socialistic realism up to the post-modern art of Joseph Beuys and Gerhard Richter. Packed in a gripping family story disturbed by nazi and communist opportunism. Over the program of euthanasia of the disabled, the devastating allied bombing of Dresden to the adaptation of Soviet post-war moral. The commercial dogma of western art market and young people with art ambitions trying to find meaning in their interpretation of truth and value. An amazing film, so non dogmatic and utterly humanist. Also excellent acting of all, both the main characters down to the extras. A must for all interested in contemporary 20th century art and politics. Warmly recommended.

If you never have experienced a totalitarian society you are hereby welcome to live in the DDR 1974 for a month. The series in 6 (!) episodes cover the everyday lives of two Berlin families on both sides of The Iron Curtain. During this Summer Nixon was forced to resign after The Watergate, Der Rote Armé Fraction attracted young naive teenagers in the West and the youngs in the East were filled with false propaganda about socialist superiority and their athletes stuffed with chemicals to achieve the expected successes. The DDR shocked the world by beating the world champions to be, the BRD, in the opening rounds. This is a time document of great value, slow paced, with excellent acting, though used to our Western always happy ends this one affords no such. And it is a disappointment, though closer to reality.

I was totally absorbed by this fantastic historical love story between a young Henry VIII and the Spanish princess Katarina of Aragon. So accurately told according to the actual events and with marvellous acting, down to the minor characters. In the turning point in European history when the early modern states were founded by rulers like Henry of England, François of France, Gustav Vasa of Sweden and the catholic emperors Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain who finally expelled the Morish Muslim invader that had occupied the Iberic peninsula since the eighth century and destroyed what he Christian kingdoms had built there before to create the Caliphate of Cordoba with its scholars and architects who have created such World heritage as the Alhambra Palace and the great mosque of Sevilla. Then gradually pushed back into The Mediterrean, almost from the start, with El Cid's glorious victories in the 11th and finally the expulsion of the Mores at the end of the 15th. The series also dwell on the human cost, the remaining convertites of Jewish and Muslim origin that were to be persecuted by the Catholic Inquisition. It was a time when Spain for some centuries was to become the leading power In Europe and the world, and for a while tried ally itself with the emerging seapower of England, by then a rather poor outskirt of Europe. It is romanticised, yes, both the leading characters seem so sympathetic, though their marriage was built on Katarinas lies and the cruelty and infidelity of Henry are quickly passed by. Yet one of the best TV-series with historical content I have ever seen.

An extraordinarily annoying serie with a bunch of unsympathetic characters, especially the lead ones, one by one disappearing from the cast after exceeding their authority. Unlikely twists in the stories just to astonish the audience. Criminals let free due to sloppy police work while others go to jail of similar reasons. The announcement 'these are their stories' are from the beginning contradicted by that all is fictious. A few of the chapters are really watchable like the one with the rich runaway ending up in a slum-harem and that with the regretful though murdered by a mentor with the same urge. It is astonishing that Dick Wolf, father of such lovely series as Chicago PD, Fire, Med can have fathered this disgusting serie. Still: starting to watch one episode it is hard to quit.