Much has been talked about the pros and cons of contemporary German film. While most of them still suffer from bad acting, bad directing, bad music and bad scripts, this one outdoes them all. As the previous comment is already outlining: this film shows reality much in the sense of the new realistic cinema of the 70s, that Germany never much contributed to, with one great exception: the now almost unknown, but then quite successful director Klaus Lemke. He thought of his works as "anti-intellectual" films, which means nothing more and nothing less, than getting to the nucleus of a reality shown, leaving out any moral obligations "society" may demand from an artist in his rightful attempt to simply fascinate, a point that especially in German cinema cannot be emphasized strongly enough. It may not always be in favor of brutal realism, it can even be fun. So, what is it that Sylke Enders does right? Deducting from her biography, she is a writer herself, she even does script-doctoring for others. She does this part in her own film with an admirable subtlety; only at the very end of the film, last scene, last picture, the main blonde Kroko shows one real happy smile on her face, and Enders allows the viewer to project any hope for a better world we all need into this smile. It's simply enough and by doing so she takes the viewer seriously . While other directors hammer their moral message into the audiences brains as if they are all children or imbeciles, Enders offers something much more valuable: trust. The second thing she does with vertiginous greatness: leading of the actors. It has been my suspicion for a long time that the bad acting I find in most of todays German films rather owes to the directors and the bad scripts they try to film, and not so much to the actors themselves. In the case of Kroko Franziska Jünger isn't even an educated actress. Yes, she is talented, but I think it takes a director like Sylke Enders to discover this talent, make it blossom and bring it to the screen.
Review of Kroko
