Four Minutes

I am still feeling quite spellbound, after seeing the film "Vier Minuten" this evening! The director's

opening sequence, with skillful use of silence and a relatively slow pace, immediately caught my attention. The photography was excellent and the acting superb. The story, although slightly contrived, was engaging. I feel that the subplot was not really connected to the main story and could have been developed further. The music was most enjoyable, but I feel that, although music features to a large extent in the film, it is not meant to be a showcase for the music, but rather as a tool to explore the relationship between Frau Krueger and Jenny. This is exceptionally well depicted and the acting absolutely brilliant!

I feel that there is a great depth to this film, which probably needs more analysis than I have had time to give it. I should like to see the film again and wish I could see a version without sub-titles. It is so tempting to peek, thereby missing all the nuances of the wonderful characterizations.

I would recommend this film to anyone interested in intelligent acting and who wants to be able to reflect on a film's deeper meaning, rather than just be superficially entertained. I enjoyed "Vier Minuten" and although it was set in a rather grim environment, I found it uplifting, rather than depressing!

Really excellent film - the two leading ladies give stella performance as an elderly piano teacher (with some interesting secrets left over from German war times) and as a young, brilliant, but disturbed, pianist.

The backdrop of a women's prison and its local dramas and characters is a fascinating stage as their relationship develops their pasts come influence their actions and trust is built. (And no, it is not one of those touchy, feely Hollywood set-ups, this has real depth).

The "4 minutes" the title refers to, is a film sequence which I personally found incredible, I still get gooseflesh down my back when I think back to it. The audience in the cinema I saw it spontaneously burst in to applause at the end of the 4 minutes.

All in all a thoroughly worthwhile film, although there is quite a bit of German history, some knowledge of this would be of use and I am not sure how it would translate from the original German. Some excellent comedy intersperses the intensity of the drama – but all credit must go to the main actors. Really good – go see it..

Vier Minuten left me admiring a young actress, respecting our cultural achievements, and pondering freedom and what part music and literature plays in dividing us from the animal kingdom. Yes, I think this movie is a statement of cultural development in relationship to physical, mental, and emotional stress, anger, hatred, cruelty, and violence.

That is the Conflict theory of social progress.

It reminds me of all the rebellious youth who had something shocking, abrasive, antisocial, and yet astonishing to say in a new format. Hail, hail, rock and roll, Hip-Hop, Punk, Goth, New Wave, Rap, Swing, Jive, Big Band, and even Classical. We have come a long way since the days of Turlough O'Carolan or Steven Foster.

The plot is not as simple as you might think. Two women, both gifted, both abused and injured as youths, both driven. A father seeking redemption at the end of his life... a vast array of opponents meaning to deter hope and subdue expression. Movies have been built on oppression and hardship for a long time. It makes for a great story (like Purple Rain, for example).

Beauty and the beast... continuance, salvation, rebirth, dignity... you could ponder the factors of this movie for some time. The music itself is meant only to be representative, not sterling, and you must remember the settings. I found the opening hard rock song of the piano being transported to the prison absolutely fantastic, and the finale innovative, and yet reminiscent of the "Acid Freak Concerts" of the late 60s, oddly enough. Listen to The Rolling Stones - "Their Satanic Majesties Request", 1967. Maybe they even used the same piano and the strings in the same way. However, I won't tell you how this one ends....

Nevertheless, make no mistake: Hannah Herzsprung's performance throughout the movie is absolutely stunning, for lack of a better word. You will not forget it.

I had a great deal of trouble tracking down a copy of this movie, since DVD copies are hard to find. In the end, I was really glad I took the time, and now, I am tracking down the CD soundtrack as well... yes, I think it is well worth seeing the movie, and owning the music too.

If it only reminds us how to curtsey, and rebel at the same time....

The women's prison in Germany in which this film is set is a place of bullying and beatings, of despair and suicide, of boredom, football and ping-pong. In these grim surroundings an elderly visiting piano teacher collides with a wild inmate serving a life sentence for murder and harbouring an extraordinary talent for piano. Traude and Jenny are polarised personalities from the moment that they meet; again and again their differences boil up and threaten Jenny's entry into a young pianist competition. Their path is troubled further by the hostility of prison inmates and staff alike, including Kowalski, an emasculated prison guard played by Richy Muller, and the reappearance of Jenny's father, which dredges up terrible memories.

Through confrontation of demons past and present, both Traude and Jenny begin to delve into the other's background, revealing the reality beyond the ossified teacher and the abominable student. Traude's history is illuminated through flashbacks to the Second World War, but although these scenes are well choreographed and filmed, they fit awkwardly at best into the main narrative and encroach upon a sterling performance by Monica Bleidbtrau. The details of Jenny's life are left scarce and tantalising, which plays to Hannah Herzsprung's performance, by turns angry and beautiful, scary and charming.

This film is graced by some excellent pieces of classical music, at least from my standpoint as a layperson in the classical music world. The musical and dramatic highlight comes at the film's climax – the Four Minutes of the film's title, which features a stunningly original composition, encapsulating the turmoil of the previous two hours and leaving a vivid and lasting impression.

I saw this last year at a screening by the Desert Film Society. Director/writer Chris Keaus shows promise in this, only his second film. The film is set in a German penitentiary and revolves around two central characters, Traude Krüger (Monica Bleibtreau), an elderly spinster who is a piano teacher at the prison and working long past her retirement age and Jenny Von Loeben (Hannah Herzsprung). a young woman serving time on a murder conviction. Jenny is also a a naturally gifted pianist under her gruff demeanor who Krüger wants to tame long enough to enter her in a piano competition to give a four minuter recital in a prestigious concert hall before an affluent audience. Krüger lives and teaches order and conformity and comes from a past where the Nazi's were about order and conformity in their world of fascism and she had to adapt to that world while suppressing her the non-conformity of her lesbianism. Jenny has a violent temper and comes from a world of childhood abuse and has lived a life of disorder and non-conformity while suppressing the order and conformity of her protégé talent. Jenny likes modern music and the modern rhythms and passion of the street and experimental music scene while Krüger hates modern music. Ironically the piece Krüger has chosen for Jenny's recital is by German composer Robert Schumann who's own approach to music incorporated rhythm that was considered daring for it's day. Director/writer Kraus may have thrown in another little ironic tie-in to Schumann where a guard at the prison has a young daughter named Clara who Krüger had no patience with because she wouldn't curtsy. Schumann's wife and great love of his life was named Clara. This is a film that keeps your interest throughout but the screenplay has lots of gaps and implausible scenarios and runs a little long but despite its flaws, the two fine acting performances by Bleibtreu and Herzsprung are certainly noteworthy and I would recommend the film and give it a 7.0 out of 10.