Rating: 
Summary: Pretty hard to describe, which is A Good Thing
Review: -- though if I had to try, I'd say it's ERASERHEAD meets DELICATESSEN meets MODERN TIMES meets KANAL meets itself. To paraphrase cracks about Woody Allen, it's its own grandfather.One thing: I cannot urge you strongly enough to TAKE A SHOWER and CLEAN THE HOUSE before you see it. Trust me.
Rating: 
Summary: long, painful, deliberate and boring
Review: 90 minutes you'll never get back. this is NOT even in remotely the same league as Amelie. just because a film is foreign doesn't mean it's good or worth your time. there is tons of unnecessary gratuitous female nudity if you're into that.. but really, there is nothing here worth seeing. it's garbage trying very hard to be artistic.
Rating: 
Summary: A modern poetry
Review: A simple love story between 2 human beings in a material world, that's what it's all about.
If you liked the monochromy of Delicatessen, the characters of The city of the lost children, you'll love this film.
Anyway, it's not an ersatz of Jeunet : the story is simple, there's no real dialog.
See this one. It's what should be a film : original
Rating:
Summary: Una obra maestra
Review: Comic Esperanto? I guess I'm getting too old to pay attention to this sort of pretentious European surrealism, or at least to bother trying to figure it out. Still, this is an interestingly crafted movie, with the scenes tinted like an old silent film, in washed out greens, greys, blues and sepia, and the odd, Jacques Tati-like slapstick of the acting. The plot is simple enough, and reads like an old "Metal Hurlant" comic strip: an odd old blind man runs a decrepit bathhouse in the middle of a post-apocalyptic countryside; the locals come in and trade potted plants and buttons in orer to gain admission; meanwhile the blind man's son and the bathhouse staff go to elaborate measures to ensure that he doesn't find out that the "success" of the bathhouse is actually a sham. The older brother, however, is a greedy capitalist, and has plans to raze the building in order to build a mall. When a sexy young woman enters the picture, the rivalry between the brothers intensifies, with the soul of the family at stake. Shot in Bulgaria by German director Veit Helmer, this film drags horribly at the start, but picks up steam in the second half... It's a bit insufferable, but creatively realized. The evil brother looks a bit like Lyle Lovett.
Rating:
Summary: Creative, unique, but potentially irritating
Review: Comic Esperanto? I guess I'm getting too old to pay attention to this sort of pretentious European surrealism, or at least to bother trying to figure it out. Still, this is an interestingly crafted movie, with the scenes tinted like an old silent film, in washed out greens, greys, blues and sepia, and the odd, Jacques Tati-like slapstick of the acting. The plot is simple enough, and reads like an old "Metal Hurlant" comic strip: an odd old blind man runs a decrepit bathhouse in the middle of a post-apocalyptic countryside; the locals come in and trade potted plants and buttons in orer to gain admission; meanwhile the blind man's son and the bathhouse staff go to elaborate measures to ensure that he doesn't find out that the "success" of the bathhouse is actually a sham. The older brother, however, is a greedy capitalist, and has plans to raze the building in order to build a mall. When a sexy young woman enters the picture, the rivalry between the brothers intensifies, with the soul of the family at stake. Shot in Bulgaria by German director Veit Helmer, this film drags horribly at the start, but picks up steam in the second half... It's a bit insufferable, but creatively realized. The evil brother looks a bit like Lyle Lovett.
Rating:
Summary: Pan-European whimsey
Review: Equal parts Guy Maddin (Tales from the Gimli Hospital, Careful), Lars von Trier (Element of Crime) and Jean-Pierre Jeunet (Amelie, City of Lost Children), this unique almost-silent film uses monochromatic tinting to convey an otherworldly feel in its story of characters whose life is primarily confined to an ancient bath-house located in the middle of nowhere. The single color permeating the screen varies--from sepia to blue to black-and-white to green, and back again--giving the work a fantastical aura that works quite well. The characters act out the story with spoken language confined only to their names, an occasional "OK" and the phrase "technology system profits". Only once I caught some French, but that disappeared as suddenly as it was heard. The written words that are displayed seem to give the feeling of an eastern European setting, but the viewer is never sure where he is. This is accentuated by the isolation of the castle-like bath-house and the costumes which could be worn by denizens of a dozen different places, at least. Though the director is German, it was shot in Bulgaria and features Bulgarian women singers and a cast of actors from various countries throughout both Eastern and Western Europe. The story is of a young man, Anton, who, with his blind elderly father and a middle-aged woman, runs the bath-house for those who need aquatic soothing. An ancient machine in the basement keeps everything going, supplying steam power to run whatever must be run. When a pretty young woman and her father visit for a swim, Anton's world is shaken; this is the first time in his life he's smitten and this, of course, sets the real story in motion. Anton's brother Gregor is the bad guy; not only does he have an evil laugh, but his Eraserhead hair is a dead giveaway. Gregor's idea is to do away with the bath-house and make money by converting what's old into what is "modern" (another word that pops up a few times, with the accent on the second syllable). Also involved are a friendly policeman, a safety inspector, and a group of helpful villagers. The suspension of time and place is critical in appreciating this piece, whose title refers to a mysterious place that...well, better if you watch the film. Definitely recommended.
Rating:
Summary: Una obra maestra
Review: Esta es tal vez una de las mejores peliculas de los ultimos años, con la gran fortaleza de ser contada en una narrativa clara y nostalgica, con cambios en los colores de fonde y dandole la mayor iportancia a la historia y no a los efectos especiales. Indispensable
Rating:
Summary: Fritz Lang Resurrected as a Surrealist in Bulgaria?
Review: I love films in which the director shows that he's a true auteur by creating a universe of his own, a universe that is neither past, present, nor future, a universe that can't be found on a map. And while Tuvalu is a real place and can be found on a map (the tiny nation has about 10 square miles of dry land and you might come across it somewhere between Fiji and the Marshall Islands if you're ever drifting across the Pacific Ocean on a raft), Veit Helmer's film by the same name doesn't take place there. Tuvalu was filmed in Bulgaria but the film is set in a stark dreamland during what seems to be either a mildly post-apocalyptic future, a somewhat stilted present, or maybe just another dimension altogether.
Tuvalu is a relatively simple love story, but unlike other love stories this one is draped in enough surreal eye candy to keep you interested even if the thin plot doesn't. The details are amazingly well thought out. The interior scenes are shot in sepiatone, the outdoor scenes in a stark blueish black and white. The locale is vaguely Eastern European with evidence of a local Slavo-Germanic language: one scene is shot inside the workshop of a "Mekanika", a building inspector waves a piece of paper labelled "Protokol" in another. The cracks in the walls, floors and ceilings of the bathhouse in which most of the action takes place are beautifully decadent. Every light fixture and doorframe seems chosen for atmosphere. The fact that this is effectively a silent film adds to the dreamlike feeling. There are snippets of speech, and sound is heard, footsteps, crashes, the roar of steam engines, and water dripping, lots of water dripping, but the film could be viewed with the sound turned off without any loss of understanding: a filmic Esperanto, film as international language. This universalism was intentional according to Helmer, although he did state in a recent interview, "My sound editor would like to kill everyone who calls it a silent film, because he worked for six months creating the sound design."
French "Next Wave" actor Denis Lavant's portrayal of Anton, the bathhouse attendant, is very believable and at times he seems to channel Buster Keaton, performing physical comedy without seeming to be aware of it. His harmless yet weathered face is also perfect for the role of innocent in a netherworld.
Russian actress Chulpan Khamatova was also a good choice for Eva, Anton's love interest. She looks like a teenaged schoolgirl (she was in her mid-20s at the time of filming) but when she first catches Anton spying on her while undressing her laugh betrays anything but innocence. Clothed or not, Khamatova also has a bearing, an offbeat beauty, that is completely in sync with the world in which the film takes place. She seems to belong to this time and place as much as the grotesques that populate much of the rest of the film. Helmer has mentioned in interviews that he auditioned over a thousand actors for this film and it shows. French veteran actor Phillipe Clay plays the blind bathhouse owner with understated grace. Terrence Gillespie as Anton's rival comes off like a slimy Eastern European Lyle Lovett. Even down to the extras, Helmer has cast this film with the same eye for detail that went into its design.
A blurb on the box for the DVD version of this film says that Tuvalu feels like Fritz Lang directing Delicatessen. I think the Fritz Lang comparison is valid, and would be surprised if Helmer didn't cite him as a major influence but, except for the surreal elements and the alternate universe both films portray, the comparison to Delicatessen is a bit of a stretch. Tuvalu is a much kinder, gentler film, and while its world is not without its dangers, and indeed even death and night and blood, its spirit draws more from classic European cinema of the 30s and 40s than from the post-punk Gilliamesque humor of Caro and Jeunet. Tuvalu to me feels more like Fritz Lang teaming up with Guy Maddin to make a classic love story.
Rating:
Summary: Outstanding
Review: I was very sceptical at first, after reading all the reviews and seeing the screenshots. But the movie exceeded all the expectations and revealed a new dimension in the world of cinema. It is not a cilent movie, but only a few words are spoken, however the director and the actors managed to kept me mesmerized and captivated from the beginning till the very end. I only wish this movie were twice, no three times longer, and after it finished I kept reliving the episodes and the atmosphere for many hours and days. Chulpan Khamatova is utterly fascinating and her character is not only unforgettable, but also very personalized and lively. I will watch this movie again many times.
Rating:
Summary: a parody of communist bloc?
Review: I went to see the movie waiting to be entertained (yes, having in mind those films of Jeunet/Caro) but while the movie keep rolling i catched this feeling of watching a sort of parody on the recent history of the communist/sovietic society. Politics and economic frustration permeating throughout the film. I might be taking this too far but that's what i got from it. Just think of it as another way to read this funny and entertaining piece of art.
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