Customer Reviews

Liebestraum [VHS]

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

I first saw a trailer for this on a now defunct late night TV programme back in 1991. It had me hooked from the start with stylish lighting, great music and sharp editing promising a modern noir thriller with shades of "Dead Again". Due to a limited cinema release the first chance I got to see the film was a couple of years later when I saw the box in a video store. I bought it immediately, figuring might be interesting. I underestimated. This is a fantastic film filled with emotion and beauty. The first time I saw it it blew me away. I expected a cool little thriller and was rewarded with something much more. This is not a murder mystery or a thriller, per se, but a love story shot through a noir lens. The soundtrack (also by Figgis) is astounding and the acting is perfect. Particular kudos to the then-unknown Bill Pullman who puts in a career best performance. Also, if you actually figure out the central twist of the film (listen to the conversation in the car between Jane and Nick) you will wonder how on earth Figgis got this past a studio. Ever since I first saw it I've been trying to convert my friends to it's wonders with much success. See it now and your life may not be better, but two hours of it will have been well spent. Remember: Only you can prevent forest fires

I have a feeling most people would find this movie stilted and seriously flawed. I am at a loss to explain my fascination with it. It's partly all the cryptic symbolism that I never could decipher, like why is the letter N missing from so many signs? I suspect Mr. Figgis may have been sending some personal messages. The movie has such an ominous, dream like quality and so accurately depicts the loss of control that comes with obsessive and illicit love/lust. But I didn't find it the least bit romantic, as other reviewers did. In fact it's a pretty uncomfortable, disconcertingly raw picture, no soft focus love scenes and happy endings here. I strongly recommend this film to oddballs like myself who insist on digging into every hidden meaning, all you Jungians out there. Others should probably avoid it; it's definitely an aquired taste.

The word Liebestraum has two meanings in German, "Dream of Love" or "Dreaming While Loving." Neither meaning would seem to be a suitable title for this dark film about obsessions and sins, and the ripple effects visited and revisited upon family members --unless it is that true love remains, in the end, out of reach. Liebestraum is also the title of a romantic musical piece by Schumann. A jazzed-up and decidedly unromantic, contorted version of the piece helps open the film. So perhaps the metaphor here is contorted love.

From the start, there is such a creepy and unnatural chill in the relationship between the featured lovers that I could not care about them or their situation. I actually suspected the twisted nature of the ties between them and some other characters halfway through the film, but was not bored after that. There is that much going on, what with the plot twists and trying to understand the meanings (or not) of all the really odd happenings in the film --like a letter falling off of a sign or the crude sherrif taking an unbeliabely long wiz'. Plus, my suspicions weren't confirmed and fully explained until the very end.

I did care about the fate of a frozen-in-time, caste iron building and also, oddly enough, about the man in charge of its demolition. A good man gone bad or a bad man with heartfelt remorse? Or both?? The feelings of this conflicted character are played out in the best five minutes of the film; the bar scene, and is one of the examples of why Bill Pullman is among the very best actors working today. There is a more recent film, The Guilty, in which he again manages to bring out the heart and complexities of a seemingly unsympathetic character. But in that film he was the star, rather than having just a handful of scenes to create that feat, as in Liebestraum.

Viewers sensitive to music,photography, and photogenic actors, may love this film, even be stunned by it. As often with highly 'esthetic' films, however, where the filmmaker expresses his love for music, painting, fetish actor etc..., other essential components can suffer. Here the story is predictable (character as fate repeating itself in the next generation formula) and for me the characters don't come alive--not so that I care about them anyway. True, the (attentive) viewer will discover a surprize plot twist near the end---does anyone care when it comes? There are great issues lurking here: quality of our life (compassion, love, beauty, craftsmanship) opposed to the quick buck with no heed to consequences. The male lead architect and his old classmate's wife-photographer who long to self discover by opening their feelings as opposed to demolition boss and mother (Novak) who destroy sooner than allow themselves to feel. But I'm afraid these 'great issues' lurk rather than come alive, with the consequence that I the spectator was uninvolved and unmoved. Mike Figgis had potentially precious raw material (including a charismatic leading man): will he someday, like a great filmmaker, turn the dross to gold?

Best movie I've seen in years. The critics and I must have seen a different movie. Very romantic, with over the top emotion. Where has this movie been the last 8 years?

Before "Leaving Las Vegas" Mike Figgis directed this rather nasty adult thriller which features Kim Novak's most recent film appearance to date. She's brilliant in this small part as a dying woman reunited with the son she gave up for adoption. As she slips into morphine induced dementia, he stumbles into...incest?...adultery?...ghosts?... I'm not sure but anyway, my blood ran cold for weeks. This is recommended especially to people who miss Ken Russell's exuberant directorial excesses!

Perhaps because I first saw this on VHS in the early nineties, I might have an advantage over those who find this movie turgid. OK, there are holes in the basic story of adultery and commerce embodied in the wonderful cast-iron skeletoned building. That is hardly a handicap for the genre. I'm also surprised there are so few mentions of the sexual heat in the scenes between Nick and Jane, beginning with his stumbling around at the party. Let me comment that I often find sex scenes in movies not terribly sexy. However, the scene between Nick and Jane in his hotel room IS sizzling. (I also think Ms. Godley had a good lingerie budget for this scene. ) In additon, as someone who wandered about in Binghamton, NY in the mid seventies, the period buildings in this Southern Tier city have seldom looked so good. ( I wish I knew where that bar is located in the city.) This is a favorite, though flawed movie. It was certainly an early indication of how lively Figgis' imagaination is.

Everything about this movie is interesting...I consider it a modern film noir psychological crime mystery with great music (Earl Bostic,for one) and photography of buildings, people, shadow and light. The ending to the mystery is amazing and never suspected by me. Like Vertigo, Sudden Fear, Dead Again, Dead Gorgeous, Seconds, The Talented Mr. Ripley, and others, Liebestraum inspires many viewings for new clues to the mystery.

Yet another film that could have been wonderful but staggers and finally succumbs under the weight of artsy film ambitions. Spoiler: the film's premise of a 30+ year old murder/suicide revisited in a haunting fashion by people connected to it a generation later could have made for a truly compelling story - there are hints of reincarnation and the possibility of changing fate or the danger of reinacting it a second time around.

Characters return, converging to the site of the crime: the Ralston Department Store, now closed and being torn down. Unfortunately, the movie plods along much too slowly. Clues are too slow in coming and too abstractly cloaked in artsy film making. It isn't until the last 20 minutes that things begin to fall into place; The matter of the lone survivor of the crime leaves a problematic element if one accepts the premise of possible reincarnation - maybe transmigration of a soul was intended?

Strangely, the film does pull you to it after you've watched it once and understand what it was trying for. The problem is the lack of action and plodding pace can't hold the attention long enough for most to want to watch it through to the end the first time around.....

I first saw a triler for this on a now defunct late night TV programme back in 1991. It had me hooked from the start with stylish lighting, great music and sharp editing promising a modern noir thriller with shades of "Dead Again". Due to a limited cinema release the first chance I got to see the film was a couple of years later when I saw the box in a video store. I bought it immediately, figuring might be interesting. I underestimated. This is a fantastic film filled with emotion and beauty. The first time I saw it it blew me away. I expected a cool little thriller and was rewarded with something much more. This is not a murder mystery or a thriller, per se, but a love story shot through a noir lens. The soundtrack (also by Figgis) is astounding and the acting is perfect. Particular kudos to the then-unknown Bill Pullman who puts in a career best performance. Also, if you actually figure out the central twist of the film (listen to the conversation in the car between Jane and Nick) you will wonder how on earth Figgis got this past a studio. Ever since I first saw it I've been trying to convert my friends to it's wonders with much success. See it now and your life may not be better, but two hours of it will have been well spent. Remember: Only you can prevent forest fires