Putting talent or gift for music expression apart from individuality is Granny Kruger's justification for her own life. She loved that communist woman as a beauty, as that beautiful, harmonic music, apart from her spirit and her convictions. She takes up teaching Jenny the same way: takes charge of training a musician, not a human being.The Truth the old lady has to learn is one CANNOT separate art and personality. And here the real teacher is Jenny - who plays the piercing 'african' music every time she's got a chance to express herself, the kind of beat and musical chaos that Frau Kruger, a lover of harmony and ethics, can't stand. Both have wounds to heal. The old teacher cannot forgive herself for the death of a beautiful person based on her convictions and faith, which were her insides. So she tries to separate beauty and insides. Jenny was send by God to her to heal her out of this painful justification and to give someone a chance to express himself (=to live) before death.While old woman is stoned in her pain, Jenny is skinless, alive and burning. Being truthful to herself is the only thing that matters for her. She'll smash herself against unbreakable glass to death instead of trying to survive in a lies of reality. That makes her talent a genius, unlike her teacher's very experienced and skilled master-hood.Frau Kruger is prevented from the mad levels of genius talent but wants to establish it's supremacy (to herself and the world) by letting a genius play. That's her atonement.Jenny's outstanding cacophony at the end is what Kruger's soul actually wanted! It's triumphantly right! She's all worried, but actually celebrates (!), drinking glass after glass. THESE 4 MINUTES OF FREEDOM is something which gives sense to her life and something she is now ready to sacrifice anything for.Hats off in revered appreciation and gratefulness before the authors and makers of the film!

It's only the second feature film of German director Chris Kraus, but it's already a strong, mature and dark drama that goes much beyond the apparent limits of its place and time.It's a jail story. Jenny, the main heroine of the story is jailed for murder and has little chances to see anything than prison for the rest of her life. She is however also a very gifted pianist, but her rebellious character drives her playing as it drives anything that she does in life.The penitentiary system, as enlightened as it may be in a country as Germany has the bureaucratic, oppressive, and shadowy treats of any system that punishes and deprives men of their liberty.It's a friendship story. Traude, the piano teacher who gives music lessons to detainees in order to ease their time and improve their lives and who befriends and supports her is herself a survivor of the Nazi persecutions, who is too familiar with suffering and with what life without freedom and hope means. Yet their friendship is not an easy one, none of them is a communicator, the level of mistrust and fears that the outer world imposed on both of them prevents them from relying on each other.It's a music story. Music is supposed to play the role of redeemer and possibly do the job of deus-ex-machina in changing the fate of the heroes of the story. Yet the director who is also the script writer avoided the easy path and never falls into conventional melodrama. More than that, music is one of the conflict reasons between Jenny and Traude and in the superb final scene of the film Hannah will win her internal freedom by rejecting the classical beauty and conventional balance of the symphonic music for the freedom of improvisation of the 'negro' music that expresses herself.... and in the final seconds of the four minutes they seem to meet - psychologically and in music.Acting which is traditionally a strong item in German movies is superb here. I have already seen Hannah Herzsprung in Der Baader Meinhof Komplex and The Reader - here she gets the full screen for a role of a broken young woman, which music cannot redeem completely. Monica Belibtrau is the piano teacher - she is supposed to be the redeemer but far from being linear and angelic she cannot free herself from the sufferings and guilt of the past, and from her own limitations.Vier Minuten may surprise with its pessimistic message - if a remake is ever made at Hollywood it better keep the skeptical look, as any other approach risks to turn it into a valueless melodrama.

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.

This movie was suggested to me by my colleague. It is a German movie made by a former journalist and illustrator Chris Kraus.The story is about a young girl Jenny von Loeben (Hannah Herzsprung) who is a genius piano player but convicted of killing his abusive father and hardened to emotional attachments. Her only contact to life is music. Traude Kruger (Monica Bleibtreu) takes up the job of teaching the unruly Jenny by strict methods. The story is about how both of them find a bond with each other through small trivia of conflicts, fights and lots of emotional scenes. There is a flashback of Truade's mysterious past that associates her emotional bond with Jenny. (I would not reveal much of that to keep the suspense) There is a usual prison villain who stops Jenny from achieving her dream, but Jenny is motivated by Traude to perform on stage for four minutes (the title of the movie) a brilliant piece of solo music with African folk-music touch.Debutant Hannah has performed very well as psychotic young convict and Monica fits perfectly in the strict and severe teacher's role. There are too many dramatic scenes that I personally found a bit clichéd in the narration and emotions too.The music is fantastic by Annette Focks. The last four minutes musical piece though brilliant is not extremely memorable as I had expected.The Writer and Director Chris Kraus has done a commendable job in framing the script that has right notes of emotions, cinematography and music.The movie has already won 15 awards and I think would win a few more.A good movie.(Stars 6.5 out of 10)