I'm going to keep this fairly short and sweet, which is not what the Director decided to do in this film. A long and laboring film about a couple who appear to have just met, but turns out are in a long term relationship, and have clear issues with each other and the wider world. All of the characters were unlikable, unbelievable and unpleasant. The redeeming feature should be the cinematography, but that is ruined by the Directors inability to edit the shots down. Uncomfortably long and voyeuristic sex scenes coupled with long silent pauses within conversations, which are painfully obvious there to portray the awkwardness between characters, add to audiences torture. I didn't like nor care for the characters and I was desperate for the Director to put me out of my misery and end this film. It finally did and I was happy. With some discipline, good actors and story this Director could achieve something watchable but unfortunately they didn't here.

this is a most remarkable film. not a great one, perhaps, but an exceptionally finely-judged dissection of a relationship that almost outdoes scenes from a marriage. it's pretty low-key, but every single scene has at least one point of tension, ranging from tiny to quite small, in the relationship between the protagonists, and some a few between the supporting couple thrown in for good measure. the cumulative effect is extremely affecting. achieved through excellence of writing and acting, it's not obscurely subtle and did lead me to wonder if a couple of the other commencer's had actually had a relationship with anyone at all not to be at least partially engaged. it's not for me to speculate here. i would add also, in light of other comments that i found the gender focus to be fairly balanced, which i gather was a concern during production. chris is given a far greater inner life than gitti, and if she is a borderline psych case then so are many other girls who simply want some attention from a slightly hidebound, professionally insecure intellectual whose lone thoughts tend to his self rather than theirs. i only wish there had been more on what attracted the couple to one another in the first place, to make more specific sense of the breakdown, and would have appreciated the relationship's decline being a little less inexorable. but acting and writing are impeccable, and direction very well-paced (including the "nothing happens" bits which are far less frequent than other comments would suggest) and so unflashy that it is probably far better than i appreciated on a single viewing. exceptionally well-observed in detail and not cheerful viewing, and perhaps a little too bleak; the ending hints at happiness - and the lack of resolution is a bit annoying, but appreciated for sparing the who's-afraid-of-virginia-woolf territory that would undoubtedly follow - but it's an exceptionally instructive lesson in how not to take care of the details in a relationship.

Saw this movie during the Bangkok film festival. Unfortunately after 4 great movies, this 5th and final one was a huge disappointment. This is probably one of the slowest movies I've ever seen. Long silences punctuate boring, long-winding conversations that seem to go on forever. After a while, the theme begins to repeat itself. Quarrels over trivial things between a very introvert guy and a girl who apparently enjoys throwing the odd tantrum. This basically goes on for 2 hours. As already pointed out in another comment, at the end of the movie you start to wonder if the girl has some serious mental issues. The acting is not bad, but I wouldn't call it special. At the end of the movie, you're left confused, not really understanding what the point of the story was. The ending is abrupt, and if one would actually be interested in the story at all it would leave one with an unsatisfactory finale. Why this movie won the Silver Bear in Berlin is a mystery to me. In my opinion watching it was a waste of time.

The thinking is too obvious. Get a couple of well built people to talk for two hours, with some (uninspiring) nudity thrown in and no one has to find too much money to produce something that looks like a movie. There are so many film festivals, one of them is bound to play it.Fraulein Minichmayr is lively enough and she's been in some real films (Downfall, Perfume)so her first scene with the little girl holds hope - "Tell me why you think I'm so awful." Co star Eidinger as an architect offers a chance for some comment on taste and style which fail to impress.Production values are in the competent unimpressive bracket.It was the end of the Sydney Film Festival but this was not the movie to offer an audience which had just been blackjacked with the ridiculous Ming-liang Tsai VISAGE. Have they no mercy? Even film festival subscribers deserve pity.