When you watch "Wintersleepers" you'll instantly discover the style of director Tom Tykwer. A lot of close-ups, images which make you think of an american movie and not a german one. Every moment is underlaid with a fast-paced musical score. And we get the heart beat that will later become famous as kind of a score for "Run, Lola, Run". In "Wintersleepers" Tykwer shows that he doesn't like his images or story to stand still. Everything is in motion - always. The best performance comes from Floriane Daniel as Rebecca but also Heino Ferch as Marco is remarkable - we really can hate this guy, we really wanna punch him in the face. The big flaw of "Wintersleepers" is that we can see that Tykwer has a lot of fun with visuals and the cinematography of a film. But he forgets about the story sometimes. It's more exciting to look at his film than to follow its story.

"Winterschläfer" is a German movie from 1997, so it will have its 20th anniversary next year. The director and also the screenplay writer who adapted Anne-Françoise Pyszora's novel here for the big screen was Tom Tykwer and it is one of his earlier, even not earliest, career efforts. The cast includes a handful of names who are still very much known today to German film buffs, such as Josef Bierbichler who received a German Film award nomination for his portrayal here. I will not mention the other ones as you can read the names yourself in the cast of course. This is a fairly long movie as are most others by Tykwer too. It runs for slightly over two hours and tells the story of a terrible accident and about the man who committed it and cannot remember anything because of memory loss. What will be in store for him and how are his friends and their friends sucked into the story? But why would we even care honestly. Apart from Bierbichler, I found nobody in this film memorable at all and sadly also not Matthes who I usually like a lot more than I did here, which is quite a shame as he had so much to work with in terms of his character. I am underwhelmed by some other stuff from Tykwer I have seen in the past and this movie here does not change my opinion about him at all. Still I must admit that, for a young relatively inexperienced filmmaker it is not a terrible achievement and he stepped things up on several occasions as he grew older and more experienced. But this film here does not give him a great name (yet). Thumbs down from me and if the movie delivered in any area, then it is maybe in the atmospheric department. I also think that towards the end, it went pretty wrong with what happened between Bierbichler's and Ferch's character because the idea of depicting what happens when you choose the wrong words is quickly undermined by unrealistic drama and showy action sequences. Back then, Tykwer still needed a lesson in subtlety or maybe the original writer of the book did. Anyway, I do not recommend checking out "Winter Sleepers". Go for something else instead.

the German response to the french new wave. hardly! this movie follows the true lineage of main stream German cinema, in that while exploring human relationships and human drama it does not get too existentialist about it. the characters and story is grounded in reality and has a little bit of action, a la German TV detective shows, to quicken the pulse. the story is about two women sharing a house somewhere in the German mountains/alps. one of them is in a destructive yet highly sexual relationship with a ski instructor. the other mops around feeling lonely and meets an intriguing new stranger. the ski instructor is well defined in that while he is a cad and cheats prolificly on his girlfriend, he is not too one dimensional. the feeling one gets about him is that he is young and full of his strength and sexuality. although, there are scenes where in typical new wave backlash to the immancipation of the German male, he sits back and picks lint out of his navel while ordering his "woman" around. as in get the coffee, biatch. not to spoil the story, but he gets his just reward in the end. the mysterious stranger who becomes a seemingly rewarding boyfriend for the other female lead is less well defined. he is weird and i kept thinking now he will be a junkie or a serial killer, but he just gets amnesia. although he does steal a car in the beginning with disastrous results for a local farmer, which is one of the plot tangents which is meant to evoke universal human suffering empathy. the two lead females are humdrum boring and seem to get along well, while searching for a good man. personally, a good dog and more masturbation, is what i would recommend to them. the movie also features some good cinematography, especially the shot in the end of the blonde girl in the red sweater, smoking a cigarette, as she looks out of the frosty window at the cloud draped mountains. all in all, twyker delivers an entertaining film, which is perfect for a Saturday afternoon after a heavy meal, when heavy thoughts and philosophies are best avoided. might i also recommend taking your buxom (if your'e lucky) girl toy ;) to this movie in a dark theatre. geocities.c*m/free_love98

I've seen a lot of films. And I'm drawn to this genre, usually. But this film was dull and torturous and definitely not innovative. The characters were each very unbelievable. Realizing I'm in the minority on this one, to the other reviewers, I'm glad it gave you some pleasure. I won't try to change your taste in movies. However, if you're over thirty, and understand the concept of needing to 'like' or identify with at least one character in a film to be moved by it, good luck. Don't say I didn't warn you. PS - one of the biggest DVD disappointments this year.CH 2/5