Sunday 29 January 2017



Very weird. Very long. Very German.
Apparently, the last German comedy on general release here was Good Bye, Lenin! which was funny and completely delightful. It's been a long wait since then ...
Toni Erdmann is likely to win the Oscar for best foreign film (which does make me wonder what all the other foreign films were like this year!) Did I say it was weird? I'm not saying there weren't some laugh out moments. (Along with lots of false teeth - yuck - lots of very Germanic nudity - and a scene that I sincerely hope will be the grossest Bad Sex scene I see this year. Or for the rest of my life. It involves petits fours. You don't want to know. And please don't tell Mary Berry.
Reviewers seem unanimously to have loved it. I'm just relieved that the director is so against a Hollywood remake because, believe me, it would be lost in translation. There's a trailer here.

7 comments:

Vronni's Style Meanderings said...

Yep, I'm giving this one a miss! I am intrigued by the petit fours though...

Hope you have a good week, Mary. Isn't January dragging on forever?

Mary said...

Yes, I can't say I'd recommend it - though my friend said she enjoyed it. I have so had enough of January, Veronica. It was so horrible that I didn't even go for a walk along the river after the film. I'm craving colour - the Hockney exhibition next week will hit the spot.

Sue said...

And I had so been looking forward to this film. We can't see it until the end of this week in Cambridge,though. Yes, it does seem slightly odd. Much as I loved Goodbye Lenin, I can never think of it as a comedy and end up in tears every time I watch it.I'm quite fond of German films - Barbara/Lives of Others etc. They definitely have a particular feel to them.

Mary said...

Well, you might like it Sue. It's just - weird! I thought the father and daughter were both bullies which put me off them. But there are definitely LOL moments. (Did I just write LOL?) It's so long since I've seen Good Bye, Lenin - but I loved LIves of Others, one of my favourite films. Don't think I've ever seen Barbara.

Sue said...

The fabulous Nina Hoss is in Barbara. Worth watching for that alone. I'd best prepare myself mentally for Toni Erdmann then.

Mary said...

I've just looked it up, Sue - and I did see it. As soon as I saw her, it all came back to me. You're right, it was wonderful.

Sue said...

I'm not sure what this says about us, but my friend and I saw TE last night and we loved it (admittedly, it was very German and weird).