Winterschläfer (1997)

User Rating:

7.3/10   

Director:

Tom Tykwer

Writers:

Anne-Françoise Pyszora (novel)
Anne-Françoise Pyszora (screenplay)

Release Date:

30 October 1997 (Germany)

Genre:

Drama | Romance

Tagline:

Ein Liebesthriller.

Plot:

Young blonde translator Rebecca lives with her boyfriend ski instructor Marco in a mountain villa owned by her friend...

Plot Keywords:

Ski Instructor | Short Term Memory Loss | New Year's Eve | Hit And Run | Amnesia

Awards:

8 wins & 10 nominations

Cast

Ulrich Matthes	...	Rene
Heino Ferch	...	Marco
Floriane Daniel	...	Rebecca
Marie-Lou Sellem	...	Laura
Josef Bierbichler	...	Theo
Agathe Taffertshofer	...	Theos Frau Edith
Sophia Dirscherl	...	Theos Tochter Marita (as Sofia Dirscherl)
Laura Tonke	...	Nina
Sebastian Schipper	...	Otto
Werner Schnitzer	...	Chefarzt
Saskia Vester	...	Schwester Anna
Robert Meyer	...	Keibl

Also Known As:

Winter Sleepers (USA)
Wintersleepers (Europe: English title)

Runtime:

122 min

Country:

Germany

Language:

German

Colour:

Colour

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby

Certification:

Finland:K-12 | France:U | Germany:12 (bw) | Spain:13 | UK:15

Filming Locations:

Berchtesgaden, Bavaria, Germany

Company:

X-Filme Creative Pool

Goofs:

Revealing mistakes: When Marco is falling, the parachute on his back is clearly visible.

Movie Connections:

References Gone with the Wind (1939)

Soundtrack:

Untitled #1

The Cycle of Life Through the Lives of Five Persons

This movie pictures the life of five characters connect by a car accident in a snowing road, provoked by the projectionist Rene (Ulrich Matthes) and the broken farmer Theo (Josef Bierbichler). Rene is a kind of melancholic intellectual, who has amnesia problem and takes picture of the most important events of his life to recall them. One night he drinks too much and steals the car of the ski trainer Marco (Heino Ferch) just for fun. Due to a lack of attention of Theo on the road, there is a dreadful accident, when his young daughter is seriously hurt in the head. She is sent to a hospital without the necessary resources for such a case, but she is unable to be transferred to another suitable place due to the bad weather and her conditions. The nurse in charge of the young girl is Laura (Marie-Lou Sellen), an anorexic woman full of problems and inferiority complex due to her body, who lives in a house inherited from her grandmother with her friend Rebecca (the delicious and sexy Floriane Daniel). Rebecca works in translation, usually wears red colored clothes and has a kind of engagement (indeed their relationship is limited to sex) with Marco. He is a typical unfaithful male man, sexually chasing the women trained by him and being an empty person. The story is a kind of metaphor with the cycle of life, through the lives of five persons with different attitudes and behavior, who are linked by an incident, having death and birth but with life going on. The direction and the performance of the cast are excellent and the photography is wonderful. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): `Winter Sleepers – Inverno Quente' (`Winter Sleepers – Hot Winter')