Punish Me
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Movie Reviews of Punish Me
Movie Review: Very intelligently done
Summary: 5 Stars
I am a bit reluctant to compare this the brilliant Reflection in a Golden Eye with its powerful cast of fine actors and fine director. But frankly Punish Me is the best film that I have seen exploring sexual repression and compulsion with some respect and compassion since that classic. Actually Punish Me leaves you with more to think about in terms of the complexity of the interactions between the older woman and the boy. While it may seem over the top on the surface, it leaves a lot of important questions about their inner workings in the shadows and open to being pondered. Belle de Jour is certainly provocative and deserves to be called a brilliant exploration of masochism. But it does not focus so much on the psychological dynamics of a sadomasochistic interactions between two persons as does Punish Me.
Any film that does a compelling job of encouraging an intelligent viewer to think about human complexity can be called art.
The artiness of this film is enhanced by the stark black and white photography. Many of the rooms have oddly blank walls if you think about it, which cuts potential distractions and leads you to focus on the characters. I liked the photography a lot. I think the actors and director and photographer did a lot with little drama and attention to nuances of facial expression and body language.
Actually I laughed several times but not because it was at all funny, but because it was very serious in a very German way. So it was like "Yep they might really say it that way!! (I lived there for a year. They can be rather stern, serious, and sometimes what one might call philosophical) The older woman parol officer's conversations with her auto mechanic husband about sex and about her erotic relationship with the 16 year old boy were almost business like, which is not funny at all unless you recognize the cultural style in it. I raise this point not at all to suggest that viewers should try to see humor in the film, but to suggest that the human dimensions and style of presentation and pacing may seem more authentic, to flow more naturally, if you are used to German films. And if you are relaxed about this then it may be easier to try to get into the heads of the boy and his parol officer, which is the most provocative part of the film. Films like the Night Porter just sort of shove sadomasochism into your face and say, there is -- something in human nature. Okay. Films like Cruising are in my opinion mostly exploitive and again more or less shove it into your face and say look people can get sucked in, there it is -- dark temptation. Then of course there is the whole vast genre of horror and slasher, serious killers etc. Not much to think about there. Escapism or whatever. This sort of thing is the bread and butter of the film industry of course. I am not being critical. It is what it is, and for a lot of people just their kind of fun or addiction or whatever. But Punish Me can leave you with a lot of questions about what can be going on in the depths of the human psyche. Well done in that respect for the patient and thoughtful viewer.
Movie Review: Far more than I expected
Summary: 5 Stars
What I was expecting was soft porn or even porn under the guise of a story. The story and the development of the characters though was the lovely, complex even if ultimately a bit depressing at the end. However, I suspect such an affair between officer and ward would indeed have a sad ending. The acting was very believable and I've been fortunate enough to see similar sincerity in several submissives eyes in my own life. Her reluctance yet embracing of her role felt honest to me and should serve as a warning for wouldbe subs who attempt to intrigue those whom they think are vanilla. I was not disappointed at all in the film though personally I would have had a far more positive, for Elsa and Jan, ending.Movie Review: Needs and Recriminations
Summary: 4 Stars
PUNISH ME (VERFOLGT), aptly photographed in rich black and white, is a deftly made German film that raises as many questions as disturbing thoughts, a film that in every definition is a film noir - and a superb one at that. Writer Susanne Billig and director Angelina Maccarone (note: two very talented women!) have concocted a tale of disparate matching between a 50-year-old woman and a 16-year-old boy, a relationship that builds on sadomasochism as a means of filling voids in each character. The story could easily have become 'sensational' in less sensitive hands, but here, with the sound help of a superb and wholly credible cast, it asks us to examine the extremes to which people will go to feel complete.
Jan Winkler (the gifted and inordinately handsome Kostja Ullmann) is 16 and on probation for petty crimes. He is assigned to parole officer Elsa Seifert (the fine actress Maren Kroymann), a 50-year-old frustrated woman in a marriage that has stagnated. Jan feels a strange attraction to Elsa, an act that at first Elsa rebuffs and discourages but gradually becomes fascinated with the attention and seductive behavior of the young Jan. Committed to helping Jan she manages to talk her husband into employing Jan at his car repair shop the two males strike up a friendship. In a series of subtle episodes Jan suggests his need for 'structuring' to Elsa: what he needs is Elsa to punish him physically, and when Elsa complies she is attracted to the process of sadomasochistic behavior (as the Dominatrix) as well as to the tenderness that always follows their dark sessions. Elsa's husband discovers his wife's relationship with Jan while Jan's friends uncover the secret, and the resulting behavior and recriminations flesh out the surprising ending.
Both Ullmann and Kroymann are outstanding in these difficult roles and manage to maintain our empathy and understanding throughout the story. Both are exceptional actors and both have compelling screen presence. The cinematography allows us to once again remember how powerful black and white film can be. This is a film that some may find difficult to view (sadomasochism, teenage/older woman 'romance'), but the director keeps the story in tight rein and the result is a powerful tale of need and love and the sticky path that often joins the two feelings. Recommended. In German with English subtitles. Grady Harp, December 07
Movie Review: Punishment is such sweet surrender
Summary: 4 Stars
This is an interesting film, released in 2006. The Picture This! DVD followed in 2007, and has some basic special features, being subtitled in English and Spanish, with a Photo Galllery and two US trailers which seem identical to me.
As for the film, it features excellent performances from Hamburg born Kostja Ullmann as the 16/17 year old juvenile delinquent named Jan, who succeeds - by dint of sheer hard work - in so inflaming his 50 year old parole officer, convincingly played by Maren Kroymann, that she adopts a role opposite to that of Isabelle Hubert in The Piano Teacher - here it is she who succumbs to Jan's urgings to inflict bondage,pain and humiliation upon him.
Director Angelina Maccarone has chosen to shoot the film in black and white and it was nearly an hour before this struck me. I think the film works very well if one makes allowances for a number of plot implausibilities, and the excellent cast does a good job in compensating for these.
I am looking at the DVD cover, which features a sultry, bare chested Kostja Ullmann and I have to say that I didn't see this scene anywhere in the movie - is it a publicity shot to seduce the Summer Storm audience?
Movie Review: Unusual
Summary: 4 Stars
Enjoyed this different and unusual European film. This movie again points out the difference in mores, American versus everyone else. American Censorship has crept slowly and relentlessly along for the past forty years are so. Political correctness and Agenda media has reached
suffocating status in the states. "Midnight Cowboy" in it's original
cut was X rated yet allowed to be released into lst run theaters. That
could never happen now. The latest thing that is to be banned is smoking, and use of the N word.
I still need to learn how to locate the English on the selection
There is some progress, the movie "Suddenly" was banned for over 40 years, staring Frank Sinatra is now available.
The Walt Disney movie "Song of the South" remains off the market.
Barker D. Chunn,Jr.