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| Plot Synopsis German screenwriter Achim von Borries makes his directorial feature debut with the stylish period drama Was N�tzt die Liebe in Gedanken (Love in Thoughts), based on original material by Annette Hess and Alexander Pfeuffer and the novel The Suicide Club by Arno Meyer Zu Kueingdorf. Bohemian Guenther (August Diehl) and the sensual Hilde (Anna Maria M�he) are a wealthy brother and sister who host a wild weekend of sex, poetry, and alienation in a countryside summer home. Invited are working-class Paul (Daniel Br�hl), hunky Hans (Thure Lindhardt), and shy Elli (Jana Pallaske). They all take absinthe and indulge in their most romantic psychosexual urges, only to return to Berlin on Sunday completely depressed and/or suicidal. Love in Thoughts premiered at the 2004 Sundance Film Festival. - Andrea LeVasseur Reviews CHRISTOPHER NULL 2005 filmcritic.com RATING (out of 5) I wasn't expecting much from this movie. It's called -- appallingly -- Love in Thoughts (or at least that's how it's loosely translated from German), and the cover shows two young men with their shirts unbuttoned, standing in a field of golden grain. Well, you shouldn't judge a book by it's cover and you shouldn't judge a DVD by one, either. Love in Thoughts is a taut and exciting thriller that deserves a much bigger audience than it will ever receive. The story is based on an incident in 1927 (known commonly as the Steglitz Student tragedy), unknown in the States but the equivalent of Leopold and Loeb for Germany, a trial which had been decided in Illinois only three years prior. The setup is familiar: Two college kids, Paul (Daniel Br�hl) and G�nther (August Diehl) spend a break in the country, inexplicably unsupervised by anyone at all responsible. While they're best friends and have a similar outlook on life, Paul and G�nther are quite opposites: Paul's a working-class wannabe poet, and G�nther is a disinterested rich kid with no future plans beyond what he's drinking that evening. Complicating the friendship is Paul's unrequited love for G�nther's sister Hilde (Anna Maria M�he, who looks like Anne Heche if you compressed her head by a third but left her eyes normal size), plus a tangle of other relationships that no one wants to take seriously but ends up with hurt feelings all around. All this talk of love leads to the film's ultimate point, a suicide pact between G�nther and Paul, in which they promise to kill themselves when they no longer love. Smart move, teens: G�nther is dead before the opening credits, and Paul is in custody to tell exactly what happened. The story is Paul's narrative as he examines the last few days in the country: a binge drinking, sex marathon with the central trio and a dozen or so friends. Love in Thoughts is moody and well-made, and even though we know G�nther will end up dead, we're not sure until the end who pulled the trigger and why. Directed by Achim von Borries (Good bye, Lenin!), the film is the work of a craftsman who obviously cares about the topic and his subjects, even if their pseudo-philosophies are juvenile and untenable. More to the point, we keep wanting Paul -- the only character her with a shred of sense -- to break away from the clan of phonies and the shallow Hilde, but he just never wises up. That, ladies and gentlemen, is how you make a tragedy. Awards Film Presented: World Cinema- -2004-Sundance Film Festival |
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| LOVE IN THOUGHTS 2003 - Germany - 90 min. - Feature, Color AKA - Was N�tzt die Liebe in Gedanken (Original Foreign Title) Director - Achim von Borries |
| Genre / Type - Drama, Erotic Drama, Period film Keywords - cottage, depression, sex, sibling, suicide, uninhibited, weekend, bohemian, poetry Themes - Suicide, Bohemian Life Tones - Summery, Sexual From book - The Suicide Club Produced by - X Filme Creative Pool Released by - Beta Cinema / Wolfe Video Cast Daniel Bruehl Daniel Br�hl -- Paul August Diehl -- Gunther Anna Maria M�he -- Hilde Anna Maria Muehe Thure Lindhardt Jana Pallaske -- Elli Verena Bukal Julia Dietze Christoph Luser |
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