Product Details

• Actors: Ulrich Matthes, Marie-Lou Sellem, Floriane Daniel, Heino Ferch, Josef Bierbichler
• Directors: Tom Tykwer
• Writers: Tom Tykwer, Anne-Françoise Pyszora
• Producers: Maria Köpf, Stefan Arndt
• Format: Color, DVD, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Language: German
• Subtitles: English
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Studio: WinStar Cinema
• DVD Release Date: November 7, 2000
• Run Time: 122 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (25 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B00004Y7CY
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #88,560 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
• For more information about "Winter Sleepers" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Tom Tykwer, writer-director of the international hit Run Lola Run, shows a more pensive side with Winter Sleepers. The film examines the lives of five characters in the aftermath of an auto accident. As with Run Lola Run, Tykwer's main concern is with chance and coincidence, and the ways people unwittingly influence the course of each other's lives. Theo, a farmer, sets off to take his horse to the vet, unaware that his daughter is hidden in the trailer. Momentarily distracted, Theo swerves to avoid a sports car coming the other way and crashes into a mountain slope, critically injuring his daughter. The sports car is covered by snow, and René, the driver, digs his way out and leaves the scene. Meanwhile translator Rebecca negotiates a stormy-but-sexy relationship with loutish ski instructor Marco, both of them unaware that Marco's stolen car was involved in the crash, and Rebecca's roommate Laura nurses the young accident victim by day and begins a tentative relationship with René by night. While Winter Sleepers doesn't have the same manic pace as Lola, Tykwer's visual style is very much in evidence--he makes beautiful images of everything from the snow-covered Bavarian mountains to a cut finger. As it moves through a series of tiny but crucial events to a truly haunting ending, Winter Sleepers is in many ways reminiscent of Atom Egoyan's The Sweet Hereafter, both in its central plot device and in its melancholy atmosphere of fatal inevitability. --Ali Davis

From The New Yorker

Tom Tykwer wrote and directed this film before his hit "Run Lola Run," and it shares a similar obsession with chance happenings and coincidence. Rene, a young outcast who has lost his short-term memory, steals a sports coupe on a whim. Travelling up an icy mountain road, he swerves to avoid a farmer's station wagon, plunges off an embankment, and walks away from the scene, forgetting everything. The farmer is not so lucky; his daughter is gravely injured. Uncovering the identity of the "other driver" propels the film and eventually connects Rene with three other twentysomethings in the German alpine village: Marco, a blank, womanizing ski instructor; Rebecca, a blond temptress; and Laura, a local nurse. Tykwer displays mesmerizing skill with the camera-it zooms over mountaintops, slinks around corners, and spies from the ceiling. At surprising moments, the action spirals into an all-white screen, and whiteness becomes a recurring motif, a symbol of death and life. The stylistic brilliance is almost enough to distract you from the film's essential flatness. When played lightly, this kind of interconnected plot can build wonderful suspense, but when it's overplayed, as it is here, the story's greater resonance gets lost in all the machinations. In German. -Michael Agger
Copyright © 2006 The New Yorker

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Twists of fate, December 22, 2003

By 

E. A Solinas "ea_solinas" (MD USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Winter Sleepers (DVD)

Before Tom Tykwer created international hit "Run Lola Run" (or "Lola Rennt"), he created the ponderous "Winter Sleepers" (or "Winterschläfer"). Like Tykwer's later films, this one deals with fate, destiny, death, and love. It's an interesting execution, with a flawed climax and the occasional question of "where is this going?"

Laura (Marie-Lou Sellem) arrives at her little country cottage, where her pretty friend Rebecca (Floriane Daniel) lives. Things are complicated after the first evening: while handsome but loutish Marco (Heino Ferch) is in bed with Rebecca, a strange man (Ulrich Matthes) wanders over and takes Marco's car. But when he is driving, he causes an accident that puts a child in a life-threatening coma.

The child's father (Josef Bierbichler), stricken with grief, goes on the hunt for the man who accidently killed his daughter. That man, Rene, is now in love with Laura, but can't remember anything about the accident. Rene is also inadvertantly causing cracks in Laura and Marco's fragile, tempestuous relationship. One person will die -- two will find happiness -- and one will find freedom.

"Winter Sleepers" has a lot of the same themes and feel of Tykwer's later films, but more unpolished and loosely knit together. Though we know the fates of all these people are interconnected, much of the screen time is devoted to Laura and Rene's blossoming romance, or Marco and Rebecca's deteriorating one, and not to the central theme of the movie.

The cinematography is breathtaking, with a lot of Tykwer's signatures like a camera panning in a complete circle around Rene, and a character death never being shown except by a thud and darkness. As he often does, Tykwer filmed many scenes in a portentous manner, as if every tiny event could start off something important. Perhaps the biggest problem is the conclusion. While beautifully filmed, it seems out-of-character and a bit of an easy way out, as if Tykwer wasn't entirely sure how to end the various interconnected storylines.

One thing that Tykwer does well is give humanity in subtle ways to the characters, even the stupid, cheating Marco, who is genuinely miserable and guilt-stricken after his girlfriend falls off a ledge. Matthes is instantly sympathetic as the sensitive, memory-impaired Rene. Daniel and Sellem are quite nice in their roles as, respectively, the sexpot and the quiet wannabe-actress nurse.

"Winter Sleepers" lacks the tightness and focus of Tykwer's later films, though his good directing style is still present. However, those looking for an interesting philosophical drama/romance might want to check it out.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Not another Run Lola Run? You bet..., October 17, 2003

By 

K. Vuthi "nYc_TirOnC" (new york, ny) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Winter Sleepers (DVD)

...much better. No question that Lola is a great movie, but turn off the soundtrack and it might get boring. This reminds me one of O'Henry's stories. Winter Sleepers takes it from a different angle. Not how the things might come if we miss by a minute the train or the bus, or if we take right or left. Winter Sleepers is deep. It tells you of what happens to us,is a reflection of how we behave in life itself...And we strugle to remember things we've done, to find explanation,no wonder!

8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Something different, wonderful (4 1/2), March 30, 2001

By 

Blake Kleiner (Troy, Michigan United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Winter Sleepers [VHS] (VHS Tape)

I'm not sure what I expected when I snatched "Winter Sleepers" off the shelf at the local Blockbuster. I know I didn't expect what I got, though. After a pulse-pounding action masterpiece like "Run Lola Run," Tom Tykwer must have decided to tone down his action muscles and start exercising his drama talents. "Winter Sleepers" is one of the best foreign films I've ever seen, filmed with Tykwer's manic style and passion for atmosphere, yet with a hint of Atom Egoyan's love for plot twists. This is a film that Egoyan (my personal favorite director) would've loved to make, but Tykwer took it, shook it up, and he did it right.

The film begins with an almost totally silent introduction that sets the tone for the entire movie with its lovely overhead shots of the snow banks and the musical score playing. Each character is unveiled in long panning shots and small captions. The movie's pace moves along rather slowly for about five minutes, and then POW! A car crash that results in the incapacitation of a little girl, and triggers a father's need for revenge. Then Tykwer grabs ahold of the reins and let's her rip. The relationships between the characters in this movie are so carefully constructed and so keenly developed that by the end of this film we realize that if just one of them were to not exist, it would completely alter the outcome of everyone else's lives. Just like Atom Egoyan. Because this is a Tom Tykwer movie, it has a faster pace than a movie Egoyan would've made, but it is because of that that it is not as good as an Atom Egoyan movie. Egoyan loves giving us the time to contemplate while we watch the film. Tykwer gives us that time too, but he also loves distracting us with his camerawork and one too many shots of nudity. Sure, sex is one of the demonstrated evils in this film, and some of the shots do have a point to them, but most do not. Egoyan would've vetoed those shots, I'm pretty sure. But let's pull up the carpet and get down to brass tacks: "Winter Sleepers" is an extremely entertaining, powerfully written, acted, and directed film. It held my attention from its rather slow beginning all the way to its heartstopping end. Tykwer may be meant to make action movies, but "Winter Sleepers" shows us that he can do other stuff, too. Just not as well as Atom Egoyan.