for a reader of the novel, the film of Volker Schlondorff is the expected adaptation. not the best, not the memorable. only the adaptation who can be the reasonable answer to the large circle of supposition about the events and characters and the dramatic adventures of Oskar. because, off course, it is the film of David Bennent. but, in same measure, it is not only a good adaptation but the chance to admire beautiful performances. for me- Charles Aznavour and Daniel Olbrychsky are the revelations. the cut of the end is, in same measure, a wise decision. because , like each adaptation, "The Tin Drum" is the start point to discover the universe of one of the most impressive novels of the XX century. like a key to the world imagined by Gunther Grass and, for many of his lines, more real than the life itself.

I'm reviewing the Criterion DVD restoration of 2013.I was talking about this film this morning with a friend. It is one of his favorites; he said he could remember even small details like the heart-shaped crack in the wineglass that Oskar makes for Roswitha. Reading some of the reviews above, I'm astonished at the lack of empathy and imagination displayed by the reviewers. As a Christian--even a lax one--I find nothing depraved or obscene in this movie. It is something you have to watch with a historical perspective. Nazi youth rallies were exercises in mass hysteria, just as the one shown here. Oskar's parents had to be watchful in case the police caught him--as a dwarf, he was in danger of being euthanized. There are many instances of a police state that I could mention but will not.The performances are marvelous. Angela Winker is great as the mother carrying on an affair with Bronski under the oblivious eyes of the family. Mario Adorf as Matzerath plays a warm, caring man who is caught up in the Nazi craziness. He understands that his wife is cheating on him but ignores it for the sake of the family. Daniel Olbrychski is the elegant and befuddled Bronski to a T. David Bennent's eyes sometimes remind me of the kids in Village of the Damned, but he's always convincing.

'The Tin Drum' is so bizarre and stirs up such a mix of appreciation, fascination, revulsion and whatever the best word for "thoroughly weirded out" is that I actually can't rate it. The best comparison I can offer potential viewers is 'Taxi Driver'. (And now that I've said that legions of American film buffs will damn me for a heretic, but it's true.) The central character is intentionally only minimally sympathetic--your fellow-feeling with Oskar (as with the protagonist in 'Taxi Driver') begins and ends with the sense that the world he lives in, a reflection of the world you live in, is a madhouse. Bad things happen to good people and the reverse, innocence is too often functionally equal to stupidity, people are jerks, and life is brutally, cruelly unfair. But the way he deals with it is grotesque, unrealistic and simply can't work. What keeps you watching is a morbid fascination with a single question: "How long can he get away with it?" (Fair warning: "grotesque" in 'Taxi Driver' and "grotesque" in 'The Tin Drum' take very different forms. The WWII setting does not make this 'Life is Beautiful'; the coming-of-age aspect does not make this a charming film. If you're an American and you're not used to the unconventional/off-kilter visions of childhood in some of the films of Europe, this is not the place to start. I recommend Francois Truffaut's films for that.)Other reviewers have criticized the film for promoting Oskar's attitude and choices, expecting the audience to like him. They're mistaken; I don't think you ARE supposed to like him. It's true that in American film making one is supposed to identify with the principal character(s) and cheer them on, as it were. But it's not a hard and fast rule; 'In Cold Blood' proved that. Oskar's twisted response to the chaos around him is as much a part of the film's social/political/human commentary as the chaos itself.'The Tin Drum' is based on a book, which I have yet to read but am curious to do, because knowing that I feel like I'm missing part of the picture. People who are familiar with the book seem to know a bit more about what in heaven's name is up with the weirdest of the weirdness in the film. I'd like to be able to claim more understanding of this formidable master work than I can right now.Some book-based films you're better off seeing before you read the book so that the good things still outweigh the "WTF?! That's not part of the story!" ('Apocalypse Now', 'The Vampire's Assistant') and some films are so intriguing that they lead you to gobble up mountains of original books ('True Grit', 'Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World').... and some films you just won't fully understand/appreciate unless you know the whole story. 'The Tin Drum', for me, belongs to the second group. But in all honesty, for a lot of people, it probably belongs to the third.

There's never a dull moment in this allegorical film about growing up -- or deciding NOT to grow up -- in a German/Polish village between the first and second World Wars. Everyday life is coarse. The cobblestone streets are crowded with horse-drawn buggies and vendors. Everyone seems to shout or to talk emphatically. There are pompous political festivals and fustian speeches that end in rainstorms. Enthusiastic bands march clumsily around, hitting innumerable clinkers. People sit at tables and eat unappetizing meals, not decorously, but more like animals -- not "essen" but "fressen." Sometimes they stuff themselves with fish until they die. There are grotesqueries: circuses, dwarfs, clowns, superhumanly tall psychotics. If we didn't know it was a German movie directed by Volker Schlondorff, we might mistake it for Fellini.But it's from Gunther Grass's novel about a little boy who sees the political climate changing around him and decides to stop growing at the age of three. We follow him until he's twenty, through strife, love affairs, grief, disgust.The background for all this is the development of Naziism in Germany, which the little boy, Oscar, refuses to participate in. What a case of arrested development although, like Forrest Gump, he has one outstanding ability that makes him different from others, and that's a high piercing scream that shatters glass.It's a strange film, ambiguous and full of symbols, some of which got by me. I didn't get Oscar's attachment to his tin drum, for instance, unless it stands for Oscar's neoteny, which, itself, stands for Oscar's unwillingness to grow along with Fascism. In that case, though, the drum would be a higher-order symbol, a symbol of a symbol, or a metasymbol. Where was I? Stanley Kubrick and Adrian Lyne both had a hell of a time getting their versions of "Lolita" made and released. (Child pornography, about which you wouldn't know, Lo.) But here Oscar runs around bare naked, falls in love with and marries a midget, and has intercourse with a teenaged girl whom he impregnates. But the blue noses are not up in arms about it. Those who made "Lolita" a nightmare to release have said nothing about it. Oh, Lo, how the mighty have ignored it.I haven't read the novel but I admire the movie for a couple of reasons, not just because of its recognition that Naziism was an aberration, but because everyone is given his or her due. The evil is there, and it's explored, but not exemplified in stereotypes. Oscar's step father, for instance, is swept up in the movement and wears his khaki uniform proudly, but he's more stupid than cruel -- brusque and thoughtless without being unkind. And Sigismund Markus (Charles Aznavour), the dreamy Jewish dry goods dealer who is in love with Oscar's mother. When he learns she's having an affair with a Polish citizen, he ironically advises her, "Don't bet on the Poles. Bet on the Germans. Or, better yet, bet on me." And if Oscar is the hero, sometimes the hero acts like a spoiled little brat. The film is narrated by Oscar in his little boy's voice and adds a good deal to our grasp of his feelings and of the backdrop against which this drama is played. It's not dull exposition. "I went here, then I lost track of my beloved, then I looked for another drum." Instead: "Once there was a gullible people who were told that Santa Claus was coming, but Santa Claus turned out to be the GAS man." (Cut to a scene of soldiers clearing a building with a flame thrower.) The narration is read most expressively.The movie begins with Oscar's grandmother back around the turn of the century, sitting on a heap of damp earth in a bleak farmland, scorching some potatoes in a small fire. At the end, when Oscar and the others leave, she remains behind. The final shot is of a train drawing away in the distance while an old lady sits before a smoky fire on a heap of dirt. I think I managed to catch that particular symbol. She's Anna Livia Plurabelle, right? A remarkable film.