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Sommer vorm Balkon (2005)

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11 out of 12 people found the following comment useful :-
Berlin Summer, 22 January 2006

Author: Lola33 from Germany

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

Nike and Katrin are friends. One of them is an old people's nurse, the other has a son but no job. Chances to find work again are small. The two women live in the same house in East Berlin. Nike's apartment has a balcony. There they sit in the evenings and chat, discuss life and drink. They drink a lot, actually. Sometimes Katrin gets back to her own apartment only when her son Max has to leave for school in the morning. Their regular "sittings" come to a temporary stop when Nike picks up Ronald, a dim-witted trucker who moves in with her. He is not a man of words but obviously does an okay job in bed. For Katrin his presence is a nuisance. One evening, after she had an argument with Nike, she drinks just the bit too much and ends up in Hospital – having to finally recognize that one of her problems, if not her major problem, is alcohol. Life goes on. And on. "Sommer vorm Balkon" is about ordinary people who lead ordinary lives and do ordinary things, and yet it is special. The gentleness and love with which director Andreas Dresen portrays his heroines really makes one care for them. The characters, though going through some unpleasant experiences, never lose their grace. On the contrary, you really come to admire these brave women. The depiction of the social milieu they live in is meticulous with special attention to all the little absurdities and droll details of daily life. Especially the scenes where Nike visits her elderly "customers" are hilarious and touching at the same time. Nadja Uhl as the saucy matter-of-fact Berlin girl with a striking preference for very tight clothes is fantastic. So is Inka Friedrich as the sometimes lonely and desperate jobless single mother. Congratulations to the director for these terrific leads! "Sommer vorm Balkon" is surely not a movie for everybody (there is pretty much no "action"), and as part of the humor comes from the thick Berlin accents, maybe only Germans will be able to fully appreciate it. I loved it, and to everybody with a taste for movies that make you laugh and cry and think about your own life, I highly recommend it.

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16 out of 29 people found the following comment useful :-
"Summer in Berlin" and so it is, 6 November 2005

Author: ehol from Chicago, IL

Saw this one when it played at the Chicago festival in October. Two gals share a friendship over a summer. And over a summer they change and the friendship changes. Things occasionally stray into melodramatic territory, but fine performances all around, especially by the two female leads, make for a pleasantly watchable movie. The day to day struggles of the leads provide not-so-subtle political subtext about tough times in post-unification Germany.

Andreas Schmidt's subdued portrayal of an underemployed trucker provides a contrast to his more exuberant performance in a similarly blue-collar role in "Guys and Balls."

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16 out of 40 people found the following comment useful :-
solid, yet average, 30 January 2006

Author: Matthias Heuermann (mheuermann@web.de) from Berlin, Germany

Although this was hailed by the critics in Berlin as yet another masterpiece of German film-making I can't really see anything special here. Solid acting, solid script, solid camera; but at no stage does this film become more than the sum of its parts. Its set in the trendy part of former east Berlin and revolves around the friendship between unemployed shop window decorator Katrin and the stereotyped blonde Nike, an old people's nurse. At first glance they have nothing much in common apart from living in the same house, both being single and both having taken an unhealthy liking towards vodka. The plot itself is rather trite; we just fade in on their everyday problems and yup, you've guessed it, there are men involved. Then, after the usual complications that come with love, friendship and too much drink we fade out again. To give the whole thing a little more depth, a kid is thrown in for good measure. Still, after the credits rolled in I asked myself, whats the point? Three days later I couldn't remember much of it anymore. True, there are some good lines and a few mildly amusing scenarios, but the story stays rather predictable all the way through. I reckon this film is supposed to depict life as it is but if life is that dull, I don't really see any reason to make a film about it. My summers in Berlin are usually a bit more entertaining, that much I know.

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