Auf das Leben! (2014) Reviews

• Love, loss, and life.

  twistedmint2015-07-23

  Hello! I watched "Auf das Leben," or "To Life!" on July 19th at the Stony Brook Film Festival. This is a slow, reflective film of two people's lives (Jonas/Max Riemelt and Ruth/Hannelore Elsner) and how they have lost their wills to live but eventually help each other find a reason to stay alive. While the plot is not the most complex and expansive, there is a whole lot of themes, the most prominent of which are loss, life, love, and suffering. The whole film is shot beautifully, and some scenes are absolutely breathtaking. There are a lot of imagery that Alice Brauner (the producer) explained during the QA, like small symbols to why they chose to portray the gritty side of Berlin. The score is filled with remastered Yiddish songs that will make you want to up and groove. These songs do serve a bigger purpose in the film however, and that is exposition about Ruth's past romance and experience in the Holocaust, both of which play a huge role in the film. Now, this is also where my biggest gripe of the film kicks in: the exposition flashbacks, while entertaining, are way too long. They are the only things that screw with the otherwise good pacing of the film. Ninety minutes have never felt so long, yet at the end only one storyline (Ruth's) feels actually conclusive. Jonas' storyline only kicks into full gear the last 30min of the film and as a result feels abrupt and very inconclusive. Because of that, I love this film quite a lot but I could not bring myself to completely adore it. Max Riemelt is amazing in this film. His performance as Jonas is stunning and it's hard not to fall in love with the character very early on. It's hard to imagine someone as soft-spoken as Max to yell and shout so fiercely in specific parts of the film, but he pulls it off perfectly. His portrayal of a young man frustrated with himself and his life is truly heartbreaking. Max is great at displaying emotions subtly on his face. He plays a double role- Ruth's lover in her flashbacks. He doesn't do too much acting in that role, but he does sing. Yes, you heard right, Max sings and it's glorious. Hannelore Elsner also pulls off her role as a jaded Holocaust and broken-heart survivor (Ruth) very well. I'm not familiar with this actor at all, but her tight delivery of lines truly embody the personality of her character (sarcastic and tough on the outside but very scarred and tired on the inside). I look forward to more work by her! Bottom line: I love this film. It's slow, but a beautifully woven story about two people learning to embrace life again. 8/10 ____________________________________________________________________ -About the evening itself- The huge theater in Stony Brook's Staller Center was packed, to my surprise. It was mostly seniors, but among the crowd were a few young ones like me and my friend, the producer Alice Brauner, her son, and another important person who is just slipping my mind right now. Oops. The crowd's reception to the film was very positive (the crowd clapped quite loudly and cheered and one audience member raised his hand just to praise the film ("WOW WOW WOW WOW!") and when Alice did the QA she got a whole lot of nice questions. After the QA, audience members started filing out. However, we did have a chance to talk with Alice herself. My mind was still reeling from the film and I couldn't think straight, so I blubbered that I loved the film, hugged her, and requested autographs for my friend and I. She went beyond a simple autograph by asking us our names and scribbling way more than her name on our tickets. Thanks, Alice! If anyone has specific questions about the film after it has been publicly released, feel free to ask. Alice did a whole lot of explaining!

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• Sad, powerful film

  Red-1252015-07-24

  The German film Auf das Leben! was shown in the U.S. with the title, To Life! (2014). It was directed by Uwe Janson. Ruth (Hannelore Elsner) was a young girl when the Germans killed everyone around her. She was able to escape because of a fortuitous attack by partisans. We don't learn if she was eventually captured or remained hidden. However, after the war she had a successful career as a cabaret singer. (Sharon Brauner plays Ruth as a younger woman, and she's very good.) Ruth is being forced to change apartments, and she hires a young man and his van to help with the move. Max Riemelt plays the young man, Jonas. An unlikely friendship arises between Ruth and Jonas. Although the friendship is predictable in the context of films like Harold and Maude, the outcome of the friendship isn't predictable. This film is plot-driven, so I can't really say too much more about it. The acting is exceptional, the story is fascinating, and the movie held my interest throughout. We saw the film at the excellent Dryden Theatre in Rochester, NY as part of the phenomenal Rochester International Jewish Film Festival. It will work very well on the small screen. I recommend it.

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• Potential for more, but stays shallow for the most part, tear-jerk movie with not enough depth

  Horst_In_Translation2016-12-08

  "Auf das Leben!" or "To Life!" is a German 85-minute movie from 2014, so relatively new. It was directed by Uwe Janson and written by a whole lot of writers, which is why I find it especially underwhelming how it turned out overall. The cast features two of the most known and most successful actors from Germany when it comes to their respective age groups: Max Riemelt and Hannelore Elsner. Riemelt plays a young man apparently running away from life, his girlfriend and everything else, while Elsner plays an old woman who has to leave her home and tries to commit suicide afterward because she does not really have any joy or perspective anymore in life. Luckily, Riemelt's character comes to save the woman's life and from that moment on the two have a connection that gets even further when they realize that the young man's father was a love interest many decades ago to the woman. Anyway, the big problem I had with this film is that it is not too great when it comes to coincidence. looking at all that happens in these under 90 minutes, it is just not realistic or authentic anymore. The problem aren't the actors, the problem is the script. I still have to say that I am not a big fan of either Riemelt or Elsner. They were both okay in terms of their talent, but it's nothing either that makes me appreciate either of the two. Aylin Tezel, however, is a shining light once again and her scenes are possibly the very best moments of the movie. It's for a reason that she is included in the final moments of the film in a core role really and it helps the film, but it cannot save it anymore. Another problem with the movie is the drama. Lets be honest here, it is way too much. Nazi references, holocaust, dead parents², suicide attempts, heartbroken girlfriends, loneliness, destroyed careers etc and if this isn't enough already, then why not give the young man a fatal illness towards the end. It just doesn't feel credible anymore. By the way, about the illness I just mentioned, IMDb gives away a major spoiler in the plot summary and this is not good at all. Somebody should correct it. Anyway, finally a note on how the film plays during two completely different times, namely the 1970s and the now. In the 1970s, they show us a bit about the earlier days of Elsner's character's life. And I personally did not appreciate these sequences at all. First of all, regardless of the question whether you consider Sharon Brauner talented or not, I felt she did not resemble Elsner physically at all, apart from the hair color. Bad casting decision there. With Riemelt, they simply took the easy path of having him play his own father when he was the same age as he is in the now. I was not convinced by this either, even if these parts were maybe Riemelt's best. And yeah, I mentioned the Holocaust references already. In my opinion, this was done to make the film even more dramatically relevant, but it all rang pretty false to me and just included for the sake of it. It's such an important topic that you have to handle it right. And I do not think, this was achieved here. "For the sake of it" is probably the right way to describe it. So yeah, there are some okay moments in this movie, but overall the weak outweighs the strong and that's why I give it a thumbs-down. Not recommended.

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