MovieChat Forums > The Better Angels (2014) Discussion > Saw it at the Berlinale

Saw it at the Berlinale

posted 10 years ago by Sir_Alfred
8 replies | jump to latest

Beautiful beautiful film.

Alot of people seemed quite restless during the screening and it didn't get a huge applause, but I don't think it helped that
a) there were (strangely) no German subtitles and
b) a lot of the dialogue is quiet and delivered with a very strong period accent. This obviously didn't help what was a mostly a German audience.

I was captivated from first to last though. For "Directed by A.J Edwards" (who as I'm sure everyone knows has worked with the legendary Terrence Malick) you may aswell read "Directed by Terrence Malick" because the camera work, composition, editing, pace, voiceover, music cues- are all trademark Malick.

The only real difference was this is shot in black and white, and oh what beautiful black and white it is.

If you like the most recent Terrence Malick films (post-The New World) in particular, I think you'll love this.

"In this world a man, himself, is nothing. And there ain't no world but this one."

[–] rabbit-room 10 years ago

Thanks for your response to this film. Very much looking forward to seeing it myself.

[–] Lin301 10 years ago

Same here, love the work of Terrence Malick and can't wait to see this!

[–] dreamsareedible 10 years ago

The reasons I largely dislike the film is because it's TOO much like a Terrence Malick movie, and I LOVE Malick.

But this was just a huge rip on his style and even down to some of the content in "Tree of Life" with the father son dynamic. Way too similar.

[–] smfilm 9 years ago

the energy level and pacing seems a good deal faster and with more communication than Malicks work... he produced, didn't direct so it comes off about how I expected it... a slightly more mainstream Malick

[–] canadamelody 9 years ago

They have wasted Diane Kruger she is playing a generic American woman
in real life she is German and they should have used her to be a German immigrant with German dialogue. It was the second biggest language in the 19th Century in the USA and people lived in towns where almost nothing but German was spoken.

That went on for decades in fact it did not fade out until the 20th Century mainly due to the World Wars...even as late as WWII there were propaganda assimilation posters in the USA telling ethnic Americans not to speak German, Italian and Japanese that were identified as enemy languages.

[–] DeepCinema 9 years ago

I haven't watched this movie YET, and am planning to this week.

It's supposed to depict Abe Lincoln's childhood, so to satisfy your suggestion that Kruger be shown as a German immigrant, then Abe's stepmother would have had to have been a German immigrant. Was she?

[–] canadamelody 9 years ago

I do not know what character she is playing she is not the only actress in the movie.

[–] DeepCinema 9 years ago

My understanding is that she plays Abe's stepmother, the woman his father married after Abe's mom died. So, that person, in real life, was either a German immigrant or not.