von_stauffenberg Reviews

Madame Claude (2021)

Interesting biopic - I do not understand all the negative ratings here

[7/10 · 4 April 2021]

Not a high drama action film but interesting biopic of a highly ambivalent figure in a well reconstructed Paris of the late 60s/early 70s. Madame Claude is certainly no feminist hero, but at a very basic level she not a brutal pimp either: she does provide a "family" for her "girls" while managing her "business" in a male dominanted environment to satisfy male desires (but that does not prevent her from exposing her girls to dangerous situations and she certainly does not get the sympathy of the viewer). She operates at the fringes of legality yet police and security forces use and exploit her to their ends (and drop her likel a hot potato), while she also has to deal with the figures of the underworld... Film scores very highly on the reconstruction of the peculiar atmoshere of the period, and I recommend viewing this picture.

15 Minutes of War (2019)

Not so bad - enjoyable action film based on real events

[7/10 · 2 November 2019]

Reading the reviews I was expecting much worse... Solid & realistic action film describing a real event. Probably less explosions and pyrotechnics than in an American film of this genre but it did not take away anything in terms of suspense and drama. The seventies feel and a certain level of amateurism of policing is quite well depicted.