WINTER SLEEPERS (Winterschlafer)
Reviewed by Harvey Karten WinStar Cinema Director: Tom Tykwer Writer: Ton Tykwer, Anne-Francoise Pyszora Cast: Ulrich Matthes, Marie-Lou Sellem, Floriane Daniel, Heino Ferch, Josepf Bierbichler, Laura Maori Tonke
In his British web site "Inside Out Film," the critic who calls himself The Wolf says of "Winter Sleepers" that "the characters become servants of the plot and the plot contorts itself into implausible shapes to accommodate them." He means this as a negative appraisal of the film but in doing so he misses the point. The most assured aspect of the story is that Tom Tykwer and Francoise Pyszora--in adapting Anne- Francoise Pyszora's novel "Expense of Spirit" to the screen-- mean quite deliberately to point out that what we do may have little bearing on what happens to us. Fate, not individual will, dictates much of our lives, and the oddest, most improbable coincidences have a way of getting in the way of our intentions. Or, as Robert Burns put stated lyrically, "The best laid schemes of mice and men aft gang a- gley."
The setting could scarcely be better for working out the strands of fate. Imprison your characters in a closed area, a cocoon if you will, so that there is a multiplicity of possibilities that could either enhance or endanger their lives. Tykwer locates his people in a the German ski village of Berchtesgaden (Hitler's favorite vacation spot, by the way), in the dead of winter. The snow, wonderful to look at and, if you're a sportsman, to ski in, can be disastrous as well under particular circumstances. Cinematographer Frank Greibe has his work cut out as he photographs the bleak and beautiful landscape of the village and also hones in on the games people play inside their lodgings.
When movie projectionist Rene (Ulrich Matthes) inadvertently finds himself outside a ski lodged owner by Laura (Marie-Lou Sellem) which she shares with her best friend Rebecca (Floriane Daniel), he discovers Rebecca in flagrante with her boy friend du jour, the handsome, impulsive and often childish Marco (Heino Ferch). Capturing this titillating scene in his camera, he steals Marco's car on a whim, involving him in a terrible accident with a local farmer, Theo (Josepf Bierbichler). Unfortunately Theo's daughter has stowed away in her dad's trailer and becomes comatose: yet Rene walks away from the accident casually as though overturned vehicles were to him a common and ordinary sight on the German mountainside.
The injured Theo, who has spotted a snake-like scar on Rene's neck, becomes obsessed with finding this hit-and-run perpetrator, while Rene, spookily unconcerned with Theo's fixation, goes about his life casually, becoming romantically involved with the woman who coincidentally is the nurse of Theo's stricken child. More happenstance is to occur that will intertwine strangers' lives in a deepening tragedy.
Tom Tykwer's direction this time around is not as creative as it was in his best-known and most sensational work, "Run, Lola, Run," the most visually exciting foreign language movie released last year in the States. In that movie, which bore the German title "Lola, Rennt," Tykwer's title character receives a phone call from her boy friend, Manni, breathlessly entreating her to come up with 100,000 deutschmarks within twenty minutes or he will be killed by gangsters. Tykwer runs through three separate scenarios as though he were writing and re-writing the screenplay. In each case, a different outcome prevails. But again, fate is to govern the results. Since Tykwer is adapting another person's novel this time around instead of controlling all aspects of the film, the results are not as astonishing as before. Instead, we are treated to a casually paced story line amid the snowy mountain landscape that evokes the bleakness of Atom Egoyan's "The Sweet Hereafter," also about a tragedy affecting children amid an icy, elevated panorama.
But like "Lola Rennt," "Winterschlafer" (its German title) is stylized--with each principal character wearing a distinct color. The sensual blonde Rebecca fixates on her bloody finger in the opening scene and wears red throughout. The drab movie projectionist, Rene, wears gray, while farmer Theo wears earth colors to handsome Marco's blue. "Winter Sleepers" is a disappointment only to those who expect Tykwer to duplicate his masterfully entertaining, fleet-of-foot "Run Lola Run," but given the man's technique, his photographer's facility with a camera (a stunt man is photographed for thirteen takes executing a drop that would terrify the divers at Acapulco's Le Quebrada), and his 20- something characters' self-centered behavior within a closeted scenario, this study in coincidence is nothing short of compelling.
Not Rated. Running Time: 124 minutes. (C) 2000 Harvey Karten, film_critic@compuserve.com
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