The Tin Drum - Criterion Collection
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Movie Reviews of The Tin Drum - Criterion Collection
Movie Review: Film within History
Summary: 4 Stars
This is one of those films that one watches with a sense of increasing admiration but perhaps in my case diminishing pleasure. It is surely one of the best-made German films of the post-war period. One can't fault the acting and directing; surely the music is as haunting as it is memorable. this time around I found the film less interesting and more repulsive than I had remembered it. Its overall meaning is also rather allusive. The boy has powers that are not explained, nor is their allegorical meaning to which many refer. The boy is an intolerable little monster, but what does it mean that nobody has the guts to take him on? Who does he represent? Much is made of his background, the story of his mother;'s birth, the seduction of his grandmother: where's all this going? The film lovingly concentrates on the grotesque. Lots of toilet-going, eating, and vomiting scenes are filmed in close-up as though they possessed some grand significance, but what in the end do they mean? Why does one watch at length as a horse's head full of eels is dragged from the sea? Why is so much made of the eels, their preparation, and then of the mother's refusal to eat them? Then, before we can begin to understand why she won't eat eel, we are asked to follow along she stuffs her face with fish, eating them as though she were starving to death, head first, munching and chewing with abandon. The sexuality of the stunted boy is made much of, but what in the end does it all mean? Are we called upon to think something of his sexuality? Should we be appalled, find him repulsive...what is the criterion for judging sexual mores? There is in short a kind of vulgarity for vulgarity's sake in this film. I wasn't able to detect an allegorical meaning that ran through the film, giving it meaning and purpose. No doubt the events are not organized arbitrarily, but I don't see a coherent artistic message. Movie Review: More to it than meets the eye
Summary: 4 Stars
Allegorical story or absurdist fantasy? Whichever this is, its a high class piece of filmmaking from director Volker Schlondorff. David Bennett who plays the drum beating young Oskar holds the film together. His is a marvellous performance. Its no surprise to find that unlike a lot of child 'stars' he is still working in films and television today. There is a steely determination to everything Oskar does in this film, which in action and metaphor represent either his or some of the society he lives in's hatred of the Nazi Germany regime.
Perhaps my favourite scene is where Oskar hides under the bandstand and through the power of his own drumming he corrupts the playing of the band at the Nazi rally, so that eventually everybody is dancing rather than playing at being Nazis. Then it rains and everybody departs (another metaphor?) leaving the head Nazi alone with nobody to shout at!
You can of course over analyse films. There is no end of deeper metaphorical stuff that could be found in this film, but really its not neccessary, because if you just view it as entertainment it still works. It is a little to long for me and I would warn that it does have a few moments where you may not want to be eating your dinner at the same time as watching it!
I haven't read the book this is based on, but another reviewer points out that there is an important revelation at the end of the book, which is not in the film. If you wish to know this read the other review. I'd see the film first, if you haven't read the book, so you judge it on its own merits.
Movie Review: STRANGE, DISTURBING & THOUGHT PROVOKING
Summary: 5 Stars
I am not a big fan of watching films that have subtitles, but this movie is so engrossing, it was easy to adjust to. I think because what is happening on screen is so clear, I knew what the actors were trying to say. The true star of this movie is the little boy, played by David Bennet and he does an incredible job. You may have seen him as "The Gump" in Ridley Scott's 'Legend'!
My brother turned me on to this film when it was new. He came home from college one weekend with it and it has been forever burned into my mind ever since. It is like no other film I have ever seen! Nightmarish, surreal, strange, erotic, bizarre, disturbing and very interesting, but not for everyone's taste for sure. If you like truly bizarre films you have to see this one! Fans of Eraserhead come to mind!
Movie Review: The Tin Drum
Summary: 5 Stars
This Oscar-winning adaptation of Gunter Grass's allegorical novel is an absurdist parable in which a willfully stunted manchild becomes the moral conscience of an entire nation. Schlondorff carefully walks the line between fascist critique and the merely freakish, packing his movie with a mesmerizing onslaught of Fellini-esque set pieces. Dark, discomfiting, and sometimes disturbing to watch, "The Tin Drum" is a bitter look at German history and the death of reason, featuring a tragic, haunting performance by bug-eyed, 12-year-old wunderkind Bennent.Movie Review: Nightmarish.
Summary: 4 Stars
I will not pretend that I understood this on a symbolic level. I did not. I cannot say that the movie was a pleasure to watch. It was not. But it was a series of absolutely unforgettable images. Akin to a nightmare. It was all that stuff that SNL skits mock about German film. You may need to be something of a stoic to sit it through; my boyfriend insists it was the worst torture he's ever endured on screen.