Movie Review: The Golden Glove

The Golden Glove ** ½ / *****

Directed by: Fatih Akin.

Written by: Fatih Akin based on the novel by Heinz Strunk.

Starring: Jonas Dassler (Fritz Honka), Philipp Baltus (Zuhälter), Margarete Tiesel (Gerda Voss), Adam Bousdoukos (Lefteris), Katja Studt (Helga Denningsen), Tristan Göbel (Willi), Martina Eitner-Acheampong (Frida), Marc Hosemann (Siggi Honka), Greta Sophie Schmidt (Petra Schulz), Hark Bohm (Dornkaat-Max), Laurens Walter (Polizist), Victoria Trauttmansdorff (Gisela), Heinz Strunk (Kriegsveteran), Tom Hoßbach (Fritz Honka (jung), Jessica Kosmalla (Ruth), Dirk Böhling (Soldaten-Nobert), Uwe Rohde (Herbert Nürnberg), Jens Weisser (Passant), Simon Goerts (Anus), Barbara Krabbe (Anna), Peter Badstübner (Tampon-Günther), Tilla Krachtovil (Inge), Lars Nagel (Nasen-Ernie), Klaus Bobach Rios (Halbstarker).

 

I think I can see the logic behind Faith Akin’s thoroughly repugnant serial killer film The Golden Glove. We often elevate serial killer into either genius types like the fictional Hannibal Lector, or the charming psychopaths like the real Ted Bundy. But the reality of them is usually much sadder and smaller. The Golden Glove is about the real serial killer Fritz Honka, who between 1970 and 1975 killed at least four women – all older prostitutes in Hamburg’s Red Light District. He would bring them home, and when he got angry to go along with him already being drunk, he’d strangle them – and then cut up their corpses, keeping most of the body parts in a crawl space in his apartment. People complained about the smell, but no one did anything. His victims were the type of people most wouldn’t miss – two of them hadn’t even been reported missing when he was eventually arrested. Honka and his victims led strange, sad existences – and he was a pathetic, violent monster. He didn’t get away with it for years because he was a genius or charming – he got away with it because no one gave a shit what he or his victims were doing.

 

Akin’s film is probably the most repellent of 2019. It is for people who thought Lars von Trier’s The House That Jack Built was too much of a feel good movie. That film gave its fictional serial killer a lot of time to pontificate about what he does and why he does it – elevating what he does to an art. The Golden Glove gives Honka no such time, because even if it did, he wouldn’t know what to do with it. He likely couldn’t articulate why he did anything he did – he would just get angry and murder people. He is a blunt instrument.

 

There are many things you could praise about The Golden Glove – which I think is precisely the film that Akin wanted to make. The talented Turkish/German filmmaker behind such films as The Edge of Heaven and In the Fade has not lost any of his filmmaking chops to be sure – every shot here is planned for maximum impact. He wants to make a grimy, disgusting film – and he has succeeded in doing that. You can practically smell Honka’s disgusting apartment – which hasn’t been cleaned, ever and has girly pictures on the wall – and that’s even before you know the bodies are there. The bar which gives the film its name isn’t all the much nicer, and the streets of Hamburg make the Gotham the Joker inhabited last year look cheery by comparison. Jonas Dassler, an attractive man in his 20s, is buried under a lot of makeup to make him look like the much older, much uglier Honka – and it succeeds. The performance is as good as it could possibly be under the circumstances, as Dassler fully inhabits Honka in every repellent aspect. I doubt any actor could have done better. Akin is clearly going for a kind of modern day Rainer Werner Fassbinder film – whereas Fassbinder often looked back at the post war German era from the vantage point of the 1970s, and saw nothing but corruption and greed – a society that had learned nothing from the war, Akin is looking back at the period Fassbinder made films in, and seeing the same thing. A caring society doesn’t discard people like this – Holocaust survivors are among the victims here, and they’ve been tossed away again.

 

And yet, none of this means you should actually watch The Golden Glove. It’s one of those films that may be interesting to discuss and dissect, but is a chore to sit through – not only because the film is repugnant, but also because it’s repetitive, and after a while boring. You probably don’t want to spend much time in Honka’s anger and booze filled, and otherwise empty, head. The female characters in the movie – brave performances all – are empty, because they are viewed in the same way Honka viewed them – as sex objects for him to use, abuse and discard if he sees fit.

 

Again, I think all of this is precisely what Akin is going for here. He has made exactly the film he wanted to. He just didn’t think about why anyone would want to watch it.

Movie Review: In the Fade

In the Fade **** / *****

Directed by: Fatih Akin.

Written by: Fatih Akin and Hark Bohm.

Starring: Diane Kruger (Katja Sekerci), Denis Moschitto (Danilo Fava), Numan Acar (Nuri Sekerci), Samia Muriel Chancrin (Birgit), Johannes Krisch (Haberbeck), Ulrich Tukur (Jürgen Möller), Ulrich Brandhoff (André Möller), Hanna Hilsdorf (Edda Möller).

 

Fatih Akin’s In the Fade is neatly (perhaps too neatly) divided into three sections exploring the aftermath of a bombing that leaves a Turkish immigrant in Germany and his young son dead, and his German wife, Katja (Diane Kruger) in a deep state of grieving. All three sections fit neatly into one genre or another, which is perhaps why some have suggested that In the Fade is an overly simplistic film. I don’t think it is – I think Akin is using the genre conventions at each stage as a way to keep the audience engaged, and uses it as a jumping off point to dive deeper into some more disturbing elements.

 

It doesn’t take long for the bomb to explode in the film. After a brief opening scene – shot on a cellphone – capturing the prison wedding between Katja and Nuri (he went there for dealing drugs), the film jumps ahead in time to show Nuri made good – he’s now an accountant (as an accountant, yes, I am bored by the fact that every time a movie needs to show someone is boring, they make them an accountant, but whatever). She drops off their son Rocco with him, and heads to the spa with her pregnant friend. When she returns, the building is a smoking ruin of rubble – her husband son dead.

 

From then on it’s one indignity after another that Katja has to endure during the investigation. The police want to look into his past as a drug dealer – and whether it really was in the past – or perhaps his religion had something to do with, yes? Her mother has the same sort of misguided, misplaced bias against her Muslim husband as well. His parents aren’t any better either – saying perhaps the cruelest thing imaginable at the funeral. She sinks into despair, and ultimately drug use, and entertains thoughts of suicide. Then – partly because of an ID she herself made of a strange woman she saw before the bombing – a couple is arrested and charged with the crime. They are a married couple of Neo-Nazis, targeting immigrants. The second act is all about the trial – and the farther indignities that Katja has to endure, hearing about the injuries her son suffered, having the defense attorney (who is perhaps the most evil character in the film) question everything, in the bluntest, cruelest way imaginable. The third act (spoiler warning, I guess), is in the aftermath of the crime – when with nothing left, Katja has to decide whether to take things into her own hands.

 

Diane Kruger anchors the film – she’s in nearly every scene, even the courtroom scenes when she isn’t saying anything, but has to suffer through anyway. This is the German-born Kruger’s first film that she made in her native country (she speaks German in Tarantino’s Inglorious Basterds) – and it is the best work of her career so far (she won the Best Actress prize at Cannes last year, and it was a deserving win). She does an excellent job at tracking Katja’s deteriorating mental state – her decent into depression, and the brief interludes in which she may come out of it, only to be slammed back again. She is great in the film, and she keeps the whole things grounded, even as the plot threatens at times to go over-the-top or get ridiculous. This is, in some ways, a revenge story – a Death Wish for modern Germany, that also has relevance elsewhere, as the we have seen the rise of Neo-Nazi violence in many places.

 

Kruger’s performance is key in another way as well. As the white, blonde woman she is the personification of the type of person that Western audiences are easily able to identify with. But her story makes you wonder – at least a little bit, especially in the end – if our reaction would be the same if she wasn’t a blonde, white woman from Germany. Akin is a Turkish immigrant to Germany himself – and his film, at their best, has done an excellent job of showing the tension of being an outsider in Europe, and feeling like that. This time he made a film centered on a German woman herself – but it makes you wonder – and one we fully sympathize with, right up until the end of the film. But what if the story was about Nuri, doing the same thing to avenge his son and wife?

Movie Review: Soul Kitchen

Soul Kitchen ***
Directed By: Faith Akin.
Written By: Fatih Akin & Adam Bousdoukos.
Starring: Adam Bousdoukos, Moritz Bleibtreu, Birol Ünel, Anna Bederke, Lucas Gregorowicz, Udo Kier

Director Faith Akin is mainly known for his gritty, realistic social dramas like Head-On and The Edge of Heaven. His films are dark examinations of immigrant cultures in Germany that take an unflinching look at the problems in modern Europe – particularly that of Turkish immigrants living in Germany. It must be exhausting making such dark movies all the time, which is why I think Akin made Soul Kitchen – an exuberant, fun comedy about two Greek brothers in Hamburg running a restaurant. While this film may not be as wonderful as Akin’s more serious work, it sure is a lot of fun to watch.

Zinos (Adam Bousdoukos) runs Soul Kitchen, a dive of a restaurant that serves frozen food that he deep fries to a lowly clientele, who seems happy with the result. His restaurant always seems to have customers, but is never very busy. His girlfriend has decided to take a job in Shanghai, and although she wants him to go with her, he refuses. At her farewell dinner, in a fancy restaurant, Zinos meets the chef, who is dissatisfied with his job, and ends up being fired. This gives Zinos an idea – he’ll hire this chef to class up his restaurant. At first, the result is disaster, as his loyal customers do not like the change. But gradually, Soul Kitchen starts to come around. He allows a local band to start playing there, after the government takes his stereo, and with the band comes new clients – who love the food. Soon, the restaurant is thriving.

But things do are not as rosy as they seem. His brother is released from jail, and resumes his irresponsible ways. The health department is unimpressed with the state of the kitchen, and an old school friend wants to buy the restaurant as part as of his redevelopment plan for Hamburg. These elements, plus the fact that he thrown his back out and is in extreme pain all the time makes for a comedy that keeps getting stranger.

Soul Kitchen has nothing on its mind other than being a lightweight entertainment and in that it succeeds wonderfully. Akin is too good of a director to take the make too much of a lark of the movie. Even if this movie is lightweight, the movie still has a wonderful visual look, and it is paced terrifically for its first two acts. The movie does go on at least 20 minutes too long, as the plot twists at least one of two times too many. But that’s a minor complaint. Soul Kitchen is a fun movie pretty much from beginning to end. A real treat of a movie.

Movie Review: New York, I Love You

New York, I Love You ***
Directed by: Yvan Attal, Allen Hughes, Shunji Iwai, Wen Jiang, Scarlett Johansson, Joshua Marston, Natalie Portman, Brett Ratner, Andrei Zvyagintsev, Fatih Akin, Randall Balsmeyer, Shekhar Kapur, Mira Nair.
Written By: Emmanuel Benbihy, Hall Powell, Fatih Akin, Yvan Attal, Alexandra Cassavetes, Hu Hong, Shunji Iwai, Olivier Lécot, Joshua Marston, Suketu Mehta, Yao Meng, Anthony Minghella, Jeff Nathanson, Natalie Portman, Stephen Winter, Andrei Zvyagintsev.
Starring: Carlos Acosta (Dante), Eva Amurri (Sarah), Kevin Bacon (Tom), Justin Bartha (New Yorker), Rachel Bilson (Molly), Orlando Bloom (David), James Caan (Mr. Riccoli), Richard Chang (Mr. Su), Hayden Christensen (Johnny), Julie Christie (Isabelle), Bradley Cooper (Gus), Chris Cooper (Alex), Cesar De León (Dominican), Drea de Matteo (Lydia), Andy Garcia (Professor), Taylor Geare (Teya), Carla Gugino (Woman on the bench), Ethan Hawke (Smoking Man), Juri Henley-Cohn (Ali), John Hurt (Waiter), Andy Karl (Evan), Irfan Khan (Mansuhkhbai), Shia LaBeouf (Jacob), Cloris Leachman (Mitzie), Blake Lively (Girlfriend), Emilie Ohana (Zoe), Natalie Portman (Rifka), Christina Ricci (Camille), Robert d Scott (Du-Rag), Qi Shu (Chinese woman), Maggie Q, (Smoking Woman), Gurdeep Singh (Badal), Olivia Thirlby (Wheelchair Girl), Goran Visnjic (Man on the bench), Eli Wallach (Abe), Saul Williams (Rap artist), Robin Wright Penn (Anna), Anton Yelchin (Guy at Prom), Burt Young (Landlord), Ugur Yücel (Painter).

The so called “omnibus” movies have always seemed better on paper then they end up being in practice. The idea of getting together a group of great directors and stars and making a series of short films about some loosely connected subject matter always seems like a can’t miss proposition. But the reality is that most of these movies are rather forgettable.

In 2007, Paris Je T’Aime proved to one of the rare exceptions to the rule. Set in Paris, the film was a series of shorts by directors such as the Coen Brothers, Alfonso Cuaron, Gus Van Sant, Alexander Payne and Wes Craven among others. Bolstered by their success, the producers behind the film decided to do the same thing for New York. The results, while not quite as strong as Paris Je T’Aime (no doubt because the directors involved are not quite as good), overall, it is an enjoyable movie.

As it almost mandatory in reviews of these movies, it becomes necessary to tell the reader which films work and which ones do not. The single best segment in the movie belongs to Yvan Attal, in which Ethan Hawke tries hard to seduce Maggie Q. on the sidewalk. The film is a quirky, funny little gem that has more laughs than many feature length films. I also quite admired Scarlet Johansson’s segment, shot in gorgeous black and white, about a lonely man (Kevin Bacon) who takes the subway out to Staten Island. The segments by Brent Ratner, with Anton Yelchin taking a wheelchair bound Olivia Thirlby to the prom, Wen Jiang with Hayden Christenson as a pickpocket trying to pick up Rachel Bilson away from Andy Garcia, Joshua Marton with Eli Wallach and Cloris Leachman as a bickering old couple, Shunji Iwai about Orlando Bloom as a film composer becoming inspired by the voice of Christina Ricci on the phone and Randall Ballsmeyer with Chris Cooper and Robin Wright Penn as two people who meet on the street are all enjoyable, but not groundbreaking.

I was less impress by the segments by Allen Hughes with Drea De Matteo and Bradley Cooper mindlessly talking in voiceover about a potential meeting, Faith Akin, about a painter who gets inspired by a beautiful girl in a Chinese grocery store, and Mira Nair, but mainly because in her segment she has the great Irfan Khan and Natalie Portman, and doesn’t give them anything interesting to say to each other or do.

Like Johansson, Portman also contributes a segment as director, but unlike Johansson she shows no real aptitude towards filmmaking, making a pretentious, muddled mess of a film about a young father with his child. But it’s nothing compared by Andrei Zvyagintsev’s segment, which is even more pretentious, and takes place almost entirely through the lens of a camcorder of a teenager spying on a crying couple that he cannot hear. But sadly, Shekhar Kapur’s segment, which he took over from the late Anthony Minghella’s, is by far the worst, with Julie Christie as an aged singing star staying at a hotel where a limping Shia LaBeouf is the porter, and a possible Jesus figure. It just doesn’t make any sense whatsoever.

Overall, I enjoyed the film quite a bit. It doesn’t really mean anything, and doesn’t reach a level of true greatness, but overall, it is fun way to spend a couple of hours. The good thing about these movies is that when you don’t like one segment, it doesn’t last more than 10 minutes.

Note: This review was written based on a screening at the 2008 Toronto Film Festival. The theatrical version has eliminated two of the segments – those directed by Scarlett Johansson and Andrei Zvyagintsev. I notice that they eliminated the two segments with the least amount of dialogue in them. As you can see from my review, I really disliked the Zvygintsev segment, so I think the movie will actually be improved without that one, but it’s a real shame that Johansson is eliminated because it was one of my favorites – with gorgeous black and white cinematography, a real command of cinema language, and a touching, wordless performance by Kevin Bacon. Apparently, these will show up on the DVD version.