Die Unberührbare (2000) User Reviews

No Place to Go

[random_avenger · 8/10 · 28 July 2010]

When the Berlin Wall is torn down in 1989, a left-wing author Hanna Flanders (Hannelore Elsner) is completely shocked and sees no future for herself without the DDR. She decides to move to Berlin to start over with her former lover but everything has changed so profoundly that she just cannot find her place in the world anymore.

Even though at first the movie seems like a primarily societal one, the politics provide only the backdrop for Hanna's personal journey and the examination of feelings of alienation in the modern world. The beautiful, classy black & white cinematography and the mise en scène emphasize Hanna's loneliness and the film focuses entirely on her. She meets a lot of people on her travels, both old friends and relatives as well as new acquaintances, but none of them stay in the picture for long and very few understand how she feels about the DDR or life in general. They all have different views on the events, thus providing a look into the minds of ordinary Germans of the era, so in the end the film does have a strong societal level too, despite the main attention being on personal feelings.

The character of Hanna Flanders is based on director Roehler's mother, German writer Gisela Elsner who committed suicide in 1992, so I can imagine the film having been a very personal project for Roehler. Luckily his strong directorial style makes the story appealing to the general public too and not just to those familiar with Elsner's life and works. Hannelore Elsner (no relation to Gisela Elsner despite the name) also does a very convincing job in showing Hanna Flanders' emotions throughout the film. I think I can safely recommend No Place to Go to anyone who is into bleak, depressing portrayals of anxiety and loneliness, but the presentation of the social climate of the era should also fascinate those who are interested in the Division of Germany and the end of it.

A sad tale about the loss of belonging

[denis-23791 · 8/10 · 13 July 2020]

What happens if the world turns upside down over night? Socialist writer Hannah loses faith in life when the Berlin Wall comes down. Neglected as a writer, and also as a lover, she tries to find a new grip in East Berlin. Excellently played, beautifully shot, wonderful music. Very memorable female hero, and fantastically casted supporting actors as well. Very sad but very touching story challenging social conventions.

Grotesque!

[mdw-1 · 7/10 · 13 March 2005]

I thought this movie was HILARIOUS! Yes, hilarious... not moving, not engaging, just comic in its cheap sleaziness! This is nothing but a pretentious pseudo-artistic film that tries to explore everything but adds up to zero. Everything about it suggests that this should be a some kind of modern film noir, but what it actually is -is a soap opera in black and white. The main character is a grotesque woman feeling sorry for herself (the reason is exploited on a very shallow basis), lacks any trace of development and abides in pointlessness and pathos. Did anybody give it a thought WHAT she actually was doing in Berlin? Here's the answer: She slept there 2 nights doing absolutely nothing, except for smoking and taking pills. Wasn't the goal to revive her career? The movie's aims are way too high. It tries to depict Hanna as a person, woman, artist, mother, daughter, lover, politician... but as there's not enough time (or ambition) to evolve that, the movie wastes itself. Oh, and the "love scene" with her ex is just repulsing! I laughed seeing the first scene, seeing her smoking two cigarettes simultaneously - that was so ridiculous so the tragedy just passed by, and I laughed at the silly ending... Die Unberührbare (The Untouchable) - I don't think so...

Simply excellent and impressive

[norma_desmond · 10/10 · 8 June 2005]

"Die Unberührbare" simply is a wonderful movie! It has everything that a movie should offer: a demanding story, beautiful pictures and photography and most of all great actors!

Hannelore Elsner plays the role of Hanna Flanders with so much beauty, honesty, truthfulness and heart - it is just amazing to watch her. With this performance she joins other great actresses like Vivien Leigh or Elizabeth Taylor who can touch you and impress you by playing daring and honestly.

Everybody who likes intelligent, tragic dramas and loves stunning acting performances should definitely watch this movie! It is just great!!

Has technical merit, but won't play to western audiences

[Art Snob · 22 September 2000]

Know right from the start that NO PLACE TO GO is definitely NOT the kind of film likely to have a lot of appeal to most western filmgoers. And if you're looking for "the feel-good film of the year," THIS ISN'T IT! It's a hard-hitting tragedy, the type of film that Hollywood greenlighters can't reject FAST enough.

The film is based on the late stages of the life of director Oskar Roehler's mother, prominent German novelist (and devout Leninist) Giseta Elsner. The story begins with the fall of the Berlin wall and the end of Communism in Germany -- events that sent her personal and professional life into a tailspin (her novels had always sold better in communist East Germany than in her native West). She comes across uncannily as a real-life Norma Desmond (from SUNSET BOULEVARD) -- a self-indulgent once-prominent woman with garish tastes who is fighting a losing battle with a major mid-life crisis. For Desmond, the advent of talking pictures meant no roles to play; for Giseta Elsner, the fall of East Germany meant -- no place to go. She tried resettling in the new Berlin, but found herself to be an anachronism who just didn't fit in at all.

Hannelore Elsner (no relation to the real-life character) gives a performance that's every bit as convincing as Gloria Swanson's was as Desmond. And if you're a fan of black-and-white cinematography, I can't recommend Haden Bodganski's work here highly enough (it'll NEVER survive the transition to the small screen, trust me). Like I said, the film is definitely not for everyone, but it's one that I plan to tell a couple of film scholars with whom I have occasional contact with to check out.

Outstanding German movie.

[wilfinger-1 · 10/10 · 18 July 2002]

The movie is a master piece of German arthouse. Outstandig cast. A very strong and touchy story. It represents the situation in recent Germany after the fall of the wall. The German actress Hannelore Elsner shows that she is one of the best character actresses of these days.

Wonderful attack on double standards

[nickgeorg · 10/10 · 1 January 2008]

Exposed by openness- as depicted by the collapse of the wall. High minded Marxist and high life beneficiary travels west but is rejected as a fake. Returning east the same fate befalls her, travelling back and forth she descends into madness as her rejections mount.Degraded and rejected by the east and west

Some brilliant depictions of humiliation as she tries to return a posh coat to a exclusive shop only to be told no

The acting is magnificent from Hannelore Elsner It's shot in black and white which adds to the power of the story

A brilliant and harrowing tale perhaps too inevitable in it's outcome but the chain smoking makes up for that

Disappointing, must have been a weak year for German film

[Horst_In_Translation · 4/10 · 2 August 2017]

"Die Unberührbare" or "Umnachtung" or "No Place to Go" is a German movie from 2000, so not that long anymore until it has its 20th anniversary already. This one won Best Picture at the German Film Awards that year and it seems they also liked black-and-white films back then. But that's really all it has in common with more recent winners "Oh Boy" or "Das weiße Band". For writer and director Oskar Roehler as well as lead actress Hannelore Elsner it is among their career-defining works, for Elsner maybe number one even. She has appeared in more famous films, but she never was really in it from start to finish playing a character as she does here. The great deal of awards attention and the fact that this got selected to represent Getmany at the Oscars are helping too. But the Academy made the right decision in not nominating it. It is not the problem that the film is very sterile and bleak from start to finish of its 110 minutes. The problem is really that the story does not justify the running time. I am still undecided about Elsner's performance if it was good or bad, something in-between I guess. The character is a lot about the make-up I guess. The supporting characters are just as forgettable as Flanders pretty much all of them. The ending may be shocking, but not entirely unexpected. I guess thanks to the last shot many forgot how mediocre it had been all the time.

I usually like black-and-white films and I also find the genre German history / GDR interesting in many other German movies, but here not at all the way it was depicted. Then again the story randomly switched away from that and all that stayed was the aimless of the main character that still had to do with the initial subject. Quite a shame as stories about people in the center of the action regretting the Fall of the Berlin Wall are still a rarity these days, so the plot idea definitely offered the opportunity for a very good and relevant movie, especially as when this was made the Reunification was only a decade ago if at all. But they missed out as really none of the production values left a lasting impression here. Quite a shame. There is a lot of superior stuff out there by both Roehler and Elsner. I give their work here a thumbs-down and don't recommend checking it out.

Best German film of the last years.

[wilfinger · 10/10 · 19 October 2000]

Excellent cast. A must for all arthouse fans! The main actress Hannelore Elsner does an amazingly intense acting. If you like the German tradition of Fassbinder or the French Nouvelle Vague you will love this movie. It won the German Film Award this year.

The old girl and the whig

[Karl Self · 2/10 · 19 April 2015]

Director Oskar Roehler depicts the final phase in the life of his mother Gisela Elsner, who once used to be something of a German it-girl, an up and coming writer -- sexy, independent, leftist, successful. Now she is failing to come to terms with the fact that times have changed. For her, because her books aren't getting published anymore, and because men are no longer chasing after her. But also for the world at large, because the Wall has come down, which also means the end to her communist aspirations.

Somehow, she still seems to have some money -- she can afford to walk into a boutique and buy a Dior coat at a whim -- and influence, as she is still interviewed by a journalist. But she is also addicted to pills and cigarettes, and unable to cope with her loss of influence and youthfulness.

Films like this are often described as "an unflinching look", in this case of a son at his mother. But this doesn't make it an engaging or just watchable movie. Yes, it's filmed in black and white, it's very bleak -- and consequently it had German critics raving. But despite the valiant efforts of lead actress Hannelore Elsner it's simply depressing and uninteresting.

exposes the hypocrisy of communists

[nicochicago · 28 September 2010]

The movie has great cinematography and acting and a lot of other things but its strongest point in my view is the criticism of all west-based communists that lived in the west and venerated the virtues of the east, consciously or unconsciously ignoring reality. She loves East Germany but lives in Munich and buys her clothes at Dior. The movie criticizes the belief (central in many communists) that something (in this case communism) is good for others and society although I don't choose it for myself. From another perspective it is a movie about people who refute reality by creating their own world. Sooner or later reality catches up with them.

A heart-sore masterpiece of Orwellian proportions; a dark quiet feast of bleak

[redsplat · 10/10 · 3 August 2010]

East Germany has come to pieces, leaving one of its artistic icons without a single landmark by which to orient herself. Her iconic wig and obsessiveness about her appearance, her isolation and loneliness amongst rejoicing, her merciless chain-smoking, her strong will set against a backdrop of self-consciousness all combine to make this an absurdist, nihilist, broken-hearted swan song for an ill-born country that was hated, but still called home. The protagonist (played by Hannelore Elsner) almost seems to represent East Germany herself, cognisant of its own obsolescence.

One of the most eloquent expressions of baleful, alienated sentimentality I've ever seen on film. Made my heart sore with its painfully intimate pathos. A tragedy for the acutely political. If you like Orwell, Camus, Sophocles or Brecht, you'll like this film.

A thrilling tour de force

[Waedliman · 9/10 · 28 February 2024]

I had the pleasure of doing an interview with the leading actress. I can still hear Hannelore Elsner's voice today and when I avoided questions about the movie, I got a few things out of her that she probably didn't tell everyone. I can really relate to her way of acting and believe that the role of Hanna Flanders had to be a gift for any actress who was able to portray the desperation of a woman who has to witness the world she has built for herself collapsing and in which she can no longer live. According to her, the sex scene with Wadim Glowna worked so credibly because they knew each other well beforehand and had never seen each other naked. You can literally feel how amused and at the same time shocked Elsner and Glowna were when they saw each other naked. This bears positive fruit for Röhler's masterpiece, whose sensitivity gives the actors enormous freedom and at the same time offers the viewer a tragedy that is unrelenting and leaves no one cold. If the film had been shot in English, Elsner would probably have received an Oscar nomination. When I told her that, she was thrilled that a young man like me recognized the value of this film. If you want to delve deeper into Germany's complicated post-war history, this movie is definitely a must-see.

A disappointment

[paolo-35 · 1/10 · 29 October 2001]

I missed this movie when it appeared, and I saw it just lately, because I read some very enthusiastic reviews on it and, living in Germany, I think one has to cope also to the local cinematographic up-to-date situation. Well, I felt disappointed. I mean, I agree with the main point of the reviews, that is to say the extraordinary performance of Hannelore Elsner as the main character, a leninistic writer, smoke- and sleeping pills-addicted, who just after the fall of the wall decides to leave the capitalistic Federal Republic of Germany and to move to the socialistic East Berlin. But, of course, the wall is fallen and she cannot find herself anymore also in her dreamed on world. I am afraid that the main trouble with this movie is the uncapability to create a really living character, notwithstanding Mrs. Elsner's efforts, and the complete unconsistency of the secondary characters (like her boyfriend, or her son, or her former lover). Besides, the screenplay has too many holes (for instance, at the beginning she has all her furniture removed from her house in Munich, because she is leaving: but where is she sending them?): I mean, we must not know any particular of the life of any character (for instance, Bresson did not care at all about it...), but it is difficult to sympathize with a character who only speaks with slogans. And what about her outfits? What are they here for, just to present the woman as a relict from the 68-ers revolt (with a Christian Dior overcoat...)? Or was she a novel Norma Desmond wandering in her delirium? In that case, a more baroque scenery should have been more suitable. And, last but not least, the cinematography has annoyed me: I love black and white, but in this case it was that kind of arty black and white which reminds me more of some Madonna videoclips than of movie classics. So, I'm beginning to understand why German movies very seldom are exported...

nevrotic, black&white, and cigarette smoke

[camel-9 · 2/10 · 9 April 2002]

do you like to watch a black&white shot that last 5 minutes of theater time watching a still on someone talking on the phone about her neuroses and chain smoking cigarettes? then this movie is for you. The only good scene was the male prostitute (he asked for 400 DM) putting at ease his client (Franco Citti in ACCATONE was good too).

you must seek the hidden message within the film

[sweetnsauicy2001 · 28 May 2003]

I can not believe what i am reading. I thought many people liked this film? It is a masterpiece of an arthouse style film that links various elements from other classic german films.

The film portrays a possible west German point of view of the fall of the Wall. Hanna speaks of the problems before others have realized them-which an inside beauty of talking about an issue from the past is knowing the future and its consequences.

The film has to be in black and white to make the main protagonist stand out. Yes, perhaps she would look ridiculous in colour but the essence is that black and white are the colours for truth and certainty and this is what Hanna has lost. She doesn't know what the 'Wahrheit'(truth) is anymore. The world is only grey.

Horrific

[rivera66_99 · 2/10 · 12 February 2001]

Oh, come on... who the hell could find this movie of all the awards it actually got? Touching a political topic, it doesn't offer any political illumination (that is to say, no interesting QUESTION), dialogues (apart from the intense beginning) are paper-like, the story has no development (I mean: even in the petrification there have to be developments, if not we should do a painting instead of a movie), and acting is scarcely bearable. (What about H. Elsner? She has an attractive face, that's it.) A "nadir" of German movie-landscape.

intermittently interesting character study

[littlesiddie · 16 December 2003]

The premise of this movie is a little silly, that a spoiled 50 year old Leninist writer living in West Germany finds her life unraveling due to the fact that the Berlin Wall has just come down. It's a little far fetched, but not entirely unbelievable. Like the flip side of "it's an ill wind", in this case it would be "it's a rare wind that doesn't blow somebody ill".

And I suppose it's pretty obvious that Hanna Flanders is meant to represent and symbolize the badly faded beauty of communism. But this didn't have much resonance for me.

All that political stuff aside, this was an extremely episodic movie. And unfortunately, most of the episodes just fell flat. One or two were engaging, and one, the one involving her spending the night with her horribly alcoholic ex-husband, was both pointless and extremely ugly, almost unwatchable.

The upside is that this was an extremely well crafted movie, apart from the screenplay. The cinematography, acting, directing, were all first rate. It's a pity they were wasted on a screenplay that was as cold, flat and ugly as the old regime it was directed against.

Another positive aspect is that the whole syndrome/complex of someone trying to use drugs to cope with reality and maintain an emotional equilibrium was well observed. And the fact that it was someone who should know better, an intelligent middle aged woman, was also useful. As shallow and self centered as Hanna is, I still felt some pity for her as a fellow human being.