The Break

The German actors' German dialogue is very badly dubbed. Toward the end of the flick they hardly seem to be trying to fit the words to the on-scrren lips. Why?

It's an entertaining & funny flick,with 2 or 3 very good actors, especially Hoppe. But if 1946 Berlin is so poor & bombed-out and near starvation, why are all the main characters well-dressed and well-groomed?

The only place I could see this was on Kanopy. It's good enough to have had wider distribution in the US.

The actress who plays Tina is reserved but that's very funny as she tries to avoid committing to either one of the naive boys.

While it was filmed in 1988, the movie is set in a depressingly pale post-WWII Berlin of 1946. The film makes good use of the culture of that time and the scarcity of stuff just helps the movie with its plot.

While the opening 15m may seem quite boring and slow, the later parts of the movie make you understand why the Director shows you those parts.

The actors look their parts from the positively calm Rolf Hoppe as Bruno, to Reiner Heise as Mr Pinske.

Like an intricate jigsaw, Der Bruch, assembles itself in front of you and then equally rapidly disassembles itself when the robbery is done.

Lots of the shot composition seems very Wed Anderson like in its use of pastels and pan shots, with symmetry.