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Pingpong (2006) More at IMDbPro »
13 out of 21 people found the following comment useful :-
Great First Feature, 15 January 2007
Author: jen-kollmer from United States
There were a few moments in this film that I didn't buy (I won't say what--no spoilers here), but that's what happens when you take risks on screen.
Tone-wise, I'd say this film was like American Beauty, but done much better. There were still some over-the-top moments, but unlike the Alan Ball/Sam Mendes mega-hit, parts of this film feel genuine. The script was juggling many nuanced through-lines, and did so surprisingly well.
Solid acting. Nice control of the camera--and the HD-to-35mm blowup looked pretty darn nice.
I'd like to see more from this director.
8 out of 25 people found the following comment useful :-
Ugly and Awful, 10 January 2007
Author: eschwartzkopf from Palm Springs, Calif.
*** This comment may contain spoilers ***
This warmed-over bit of German suburban angst is one of those films where you wonder why you bothered to sit through the whole thing. I did at the Palm Springs International Film Festival, where the screening ended with one person clapping for two seconds and several people voicing support when I yelled, "that was pointless b#!!$%*t" as the credits rolled.
The claustrophobic setting looks more like a project as a final film-school thesis (which, I'm guessing, is exactly what this film is) than any real symbolic statement about this way-too-uptight family and the goofy kid nephew who comes to stay for a bit. I suppose it's a coming-of-age film, albeit one with virtually no soundtrack or any other cultural milepost of teen-aged youth, save for an inane video game. There are no other characters, except for two silent piano movers (who are either moving a fake baby grand by just picking it up without a piano dolly, or are from the planet Krypton).
My real beef isn't the tedious, pedantic textbook-style writing, acting and directing, which delivers characters you don't care about doing virtually nothing. (Even the sex scene is just, well, boring by-the-numbers stuff.) It's that, to prove some point about the lifeless nature of it all, the main character kills the family dog in a manner that is a combination of inhumanity and just plain laziness.
Now, the family dog probably gets too much attention from the mother of the family, but she's got a workaholic husband, a moody kid who keeps getting stinko drunk and this oddball nephew, and I'd probably side with dog in that situation. But there's no reason to dump the dog in a swimming pool and then walk away (even closing a window to its tired panting), leaving the poor pet to exhaust itself and drown. And, then have the mother discover the death as the final scene in the picture.
So this is where we end up after 90 minutes? Pointless.
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