It is amazing that these days there are still movie makers capable of creating true gems. Each scene, each minute of this movie is a little masterpiece: Beautiful cinematography, magnificent locations, a thrilling and engaging story, and - perhaps on the top of it all - a superb acting team with Moritz Bleibtreu as its leader. It is even more amazing and sad that this great piece of art has been so badly underappreciated and misunderstood - a brief look at the negative reviews on this website just confirms the trend. The annotation attached to all materials about this movie is partly responsible for this misunderstanding: "A psychedelic mushroom trip turns a successful lawyer into a wanted man." Mushrooms had nothing to do with the transformation the lawyer went through; rather, the inner and unknown side of his soul, which had been dormant for his entire life, suddenly revealed itself, took over his whole self and ultimately destroyed him.

I must say i really enjoyed the first 2/3 of the movie: its atmospheric and the story-line advances fast and the movie really captivates you. But then it all went wrong, that in the end i would not recommend to watch this movie. What happened? For me a story-driven movie like this one needs to have a somewhat plausible end. The story advances to more and more to unrealistic heights, which makes one ask oneself "i am really curious with what "magical trick" at the end everything will make sense". The movie builds up tension and more tension for the end and then the movie more or less just stops. Its like really good sex that builds up more and more and then it just stops without an orgasm: leaving you unsatisfied and frustrated...

I haven't read the novel this is based on, but judging from what I saw in this movie, it should be pretty good. Moritz Bleibtreu is not the only one who is glad that thrillers are made. It's tough because of the expectations and the cinemas not getting the revenue getting anything back (never mind the distributors or investors).This gets pretty dark and you get kind of in the head of our main character and how he is feeling. It's about a dark side that gets awakened, which is never a good thing of course. The movie does suggest a lot of things and the ending may seem a bit far stretched, but overall it does work ...

I saw Die Dunkle Seite des Mondes at the premiere in Berlin and was positively surprised! The story about a successful lawyer whose life spins out of control and races towards a showdown delivers a great atmosphere. Especially the camera-work is amazing delivering very atmospheric and moody shots of nature and the forest which is an integral part of the story. The director really has a great eye for setting up a mood. Also the actors do a real great job. Moritz Bleibtreu is exceptionally good at portraying the different mental states of his character and how he slowly loses his control. Very well done. The movie strays quite a bit from the book but it would probably not have been possible to put everything from the book into a 90 minute film. If you can accept the movie as more of a focused and condensed version of the book you may find it quite entertaining.Especially loved the end which leaves a lot of room for interpretation.