Customer Reviews

The Tin Drum

5 star:		(29)
4 star:		(15)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

I saw this movie back in 1983. I was only 9 years old but the movie to this day left an indelible impression on me. It was sad, yet humorous. Some parts make you go a little bug-eyed but that's all part of the surrealism of this movie. The young actor who played Oskar was amazing. Obviously you could tell he was just a child but I could actually see him as an adult as the movie goes on. I'm not in the habit of seeing foreign language films. In fact, I can honestly say that I've seen only a handful of them. This was my first German language film and I can safely say it was my favorite. Buy this video. You will not regret it. Its that amazing.

Schlondorff brought a superb cast together to tell the story of Oskar, who ceases to grow beyond his three year old size; a symbolic representation of Germany in the twentieth century. Oskar's mother is courted by a German and a Pole. Gunther Grass's allegorical solution to the wrenching of national borders and ethnic shuffling brought about by World War I is to show the mother, unable to choose between her lovers, choosing them both. One becomes the father of Oskar. Which one? Does it matter? Thus Oskar arrives amidst the confusion of the twenties, only to witness the degradation of the homeland by revolution, runaway inflation and finally, the steady growth of National Socialism through the thirties. Oskar mirrors the turmoil of Germany's struggle of the twentieth century, unable to free itself from its own dream of Teutonic superiority, unable to find peace in the national soul. View this work with an eye to the inadequacies of your own country and begin to see Gunter Grass's dilemma with his.

I've watched the Tin Drum several times, and have learned new things with each viewing. I own the VHS and the DVD version. The DVD is superior because it offers a behind the scenes feature, and also a Director's Commentary from Director Volker Schlondorff which is very good. The story deals with a little boy named Oskar who decides on his third birthday after receiving a tin drum, to stop physically growing. There's much more to the plot, but that's just the gist of it. Fine acting by the entire cast also. A movie that should be seen.

The Tin Drum is based on Gunther Grass's Nobel winning novel. The whole setting revolves around the most tumultous period in recent German history, spanning from the late 19th century till the end of the second World War, Germany had seen boundaries and name drawn and redrawn numerous times. Not to mention the various follies of wars that had ravaged the country. Oskar, the perpetual 3 year old kid, who refused to grow after observing the immorality that adulthood has to offer. Oskar represented the conscience of the ordinary German of that era. Being impassive, and at the same time bitter and vulnerable and again embittered (especially after the armistice treaty), Oskar presented a whole range of emotions that reflects the public mood of that period.
The DVD presents a beautiful transfer and a Dolby Digital 5:1 audio track. It also comes with an enlightening audio commentary by the director and co-writer, even though at times the commentary may seem bland and screen specific. Nevertheless, it's insightful in the discussion of the production of the film. Another noteworthy extra feature in the 2nd disc is the documentary "Banned in Oklahoma", which chronicled the banning of the film in that state and its ensuing consequences to the country's values of freedom and liberty.

This movie was fantastic. I read the book first and loved every word of it. The only reason the book is better than the movie is because, sad to say, is that the movie was only half the book. When I first got the movie and watched it, I couldnt wait until the pivetal point in the movie where the main character drastically changes, but when that part came it was the end of the movie. This would have been a GREAT GREAT movie classic if the director made a longer more fuller version or a second film that ended the full story of the book. But I must say the actor who played Oscar, the main character, was exactly as I envisioned. I highly recommend you buy the book first and then the movie, but both are a MUST to anyone who likes a bit of the strange.

5 stars to the film and 4 1/2 stars to the DVD transfer! Kino Video did a superb job in producing the DVD version (not perfect but way, way better than most transfers). The DVD is a must have for film buffs. This stunning film is about the family of Oskar in Danzig (Poland/Germany) during the time Nazism was creeping its way through Europe and is seen through the eyes of Oskar, a boy who refuses to grow at the age of 3 and does so by throwing himself off the stairs. Unlike Peter Pan, Oskar does this in protest of the inevitable Third Reich. Beautifully shot in the same location with a haunting musical score by Maurice Jarre and a brilliant performance by David Bennent as Oskar. The story is bizarre enough to keep you glued to your seat and at the same time mesmerizes image after image. A great extra is an audio commentary by Volker Schlondorff, the film's director. One of the best films of its decade rivalling Fellini's Amarcord and Szabo's Mephisto.

The Tin Drum is a movie that you can watch more than once and find something new each time. One of the best films I've seen and the cast does an excellent job; especially the boy who plays little Oskar. A movie that deals with many things, and truly is worth a viewing from anyone that likes films that make you think.

What a richly textured film with captivating use of magical surrealism to explore the Nazi rise and fall during WWII.

Not as a factual chronology, mind you, but a perspective that we see through the eyes of a little boy, who has decided that the only way to protest being part of the frightening adult world around him is by banging on his drum and remaining a child forever.

This is his rebuttal of society and perhaps against all passive people in Nazi Germany at that time. The kid's performance is astonishing, by turns demonic, prophetic, innocent, and impish.

The screenplay portrays the vacuity of German middle-class culture and its susceptibility to the vagaries of the Third Reich.

Like most movies of this 'offbeat' cadre, Tin Drum does go overboard on occasion. It contains some scenes of childhood sexuality (nothing overly objectionable in our times, I guess) and some fairly grotesque scenes of slithering eels being caught using a severed horse head as bait. Not fun to watch.

Such moments may make it a bit less palatable to a mainstream audience looking for regular entertainment, but if you don't mind different cinema with some flashes of brilliance, I highly recommend this unique angle on the futilities of war.

This movie was great! It has tons of symbolism: Oskar not growing up reflects the stunted society of Germany after the First World War was until after the Second World War, when Oskar began to grow. Oskar protests social aspects of Germany through his drum and voice. Unfortunately the movie is extremely disturbing at times. If you are unable to forgive some of the harsher scenes in the movie, there are plenty, you will not be able to appreciate the film.

Guther Grass wrote this novel in response to Theodor Adorno's anguished statement that to write poetry after Auschwitz is barbaric. The Tin Drum is one of the only successful attempts to pick up the pieces after World War II, and ranks as one of the greatest triumphs over grief, belonging with Beethoven and Dante. The story is well-adapted, depicting the atmosphere and images in the only way I can imagine it to be, which makes it "a masterpiece in its own right," separate from the novel. Regarding this film as child porn and void of depth is to be entirely ignorant of the profound themes it deals with, and the revolutionary way it deals with them - with asceticism and ambivalence, humorous yet dire.