Jan-Ole Gerster's "Oh, Boy," which is called in America, "A Coffee in Berlin," is one of the most gorgeously cinematographed or filmed movies of all time, the stills from which could be framed separately as photo-masterpieces, one after another -- in the hundreds if not thousands of them -- and then displayed in a museum, simply as a succession of photographic masterpieces; but this is instead a motion picture, in which, additionally, the script, acting, casting, musical score, and, of course (doesn't it naturally follow from all those) the direction, are literally breathtaking, and the total impression from that profusion of artistic brilliance left this viewer deeply moved. It's a film I shall want to see many times, because it's the type of film that I'll probably understand the more and experience the more deeply with each successive viewing of it, and there aren't many movies like that. If you want directorial comparisons, the movies of the great director Guy Madden, and the two great movies from David Lynch, can be compared with this one, for their haunting effects and deeply offbeat and surprising turns of script and for their images which (like this one's) burn themselves into one's consciousness at a deep enough level to become a permanent feature of a receptive viewer's being.
Review of A Coffee in Berlin
