Thursday Movie Picks - Foreign Language Films: German

Written as part of the blogathon hosted by Wandering Through the Shelves. You should join us - just pick three films that fit the week's theme and tell us about them!

For this week's Thursday Movie Picks, we delve into the wonderful world of Foreign Language films (well, at least, they're foreign to us English-speakers...). Awesome. I love a good foreign language film just as much as I love films in English, and there are many that I hold very dear to my heart. Unfortunately, German films are not an area of expertise for me. I just haven't seen any films from their canon of great filmmakers (Herzog, Fassbinder, etc.), and while I've seen plenty from the silent era (Metropolis, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, etc.), I decided that choosing something without any spoken dialogue would be cheating a bit. BUT! I shall persevere. Here are three wonderful films in German.

Run Lola Run (Lola Rennt, Tom Tykwer, 1998) Tykwer burst onto the scene in 1998 with this blast of fresh air starring the tremendous Franka Potente in a star-is-born performance. Franka is the titular Lola, a young German lass whose boyfriend Manny has gotten stuck on the raw end of a drug deal and must come up with a large sum of money in a short amount of time. He calls Lola and tells her he's going to rob a market to get it. She implores him not to do something so stupid, but the clock is ticking. So she runs. But there are many options open to her around every corner, starting with where to get the money. And each choice she makes has an effect on the people around her, which Tykwer shows us in a series of snapshots after Lola runs into certain people. The film tracks her through three different runs, each with a different outcome but each with the same propulsive energy. In between each run, we see a scene with Lola and Manny in bed, presumably post-coital, talking about what love means to them. If all that sounds like too much, or too pretentious, let me reassure you: It is neither of those things. Everything here is in perfect balance. Run Lola Run is a thinking person's action film for sure, but everyone can enjoy it.

Wings of Desire (Der Himmel über Berlin, Wim Wenders, 1987) The angel Damiel is one of many of God's emissaries on Earth, able to hear the thoughts of everyone around him and offer comfort to those who are at the end of their rope. But it's a very lonely existence, because he cannot be seen by anyone except the other angels (who, it must be said, don't seem particularly friendly). And then one day, he sees and falls in love with a trapeze artist. But it cannot be, unless he chooses to become human, one of those beings he watches over that are always in despair. Sound familiar? PLEASE don't judge this gorgeous film by its Americanized version, City of Angels (which starred Meg Ryan and Nicolas Cage). This is the real deal, a film about what it means to be human, what it means to be alone even in the most densely populated of cities, and just what it is that makes life worth living.

Summer Storm (Sommersturm, Marco Kreuzpaintner, 2004) One of the better gay films in recent memory, Summer Storm follows Tobi, member of a German rowing team installed at a training camp during the summer in the lead-up to a big regatta. The team is supposed to be camping with a girls' team, but instead gets placed with a gay youth team after the girls cancel. Naturally, this leads to all kinds of youthful exploring and pushing of buttons and boundaries, because Tobi has been hiding his attraction for his best friend and teammate, Achim. It's not a great film, but Summer Storm excellently captures the confusion and searching surrounding youthful sexuality - both gay and straight - in a way very few films seem to grasp. Plus: CUTE boys!