-
"A fast, complex, exhilarating roadster ride through history and time.... Kino is an intoxicating Euro-brew, written with enormous skill and dedication." — Frederick Barthelme
"Jürgen Fauth's deft mashup of genre and historical period is both a full-throttle literary thriller of ideas and a contemplative examination of film and fascism. Kino is a debut of great intellectual force."– Teddy Wayne
"A surprising alternative history. Kino brings the golden age of German cinema to light with loving, sometimes gritty, detail and great precision." – Neal Pollack, author of Jewball.
"A delirious melange of conspiracy, magic, sex, history, bad behavior, and cinema, Kino is a stellar entertainment, and Jürgen Fauth is a writer of rare, sinister imagination." – Owen King, author of Reenactment
"A light-hearted romp that leads straight into darkness and back through the shadows on the wall."– Ben Loory, author of Stories for Nighttime and Some for the Day
"Movie nuts arise! A happy and felicitous debut."– Terese Svoboda
Yowza! Yowza! Yowza!
Tulpendiebe
Free Willy
It’s not that I can’t tell a killer whale from a serial rapist — it’s simply that the dumbest puns sometimes amuse most, especially when they offer mild relief for otherwise unbearibly grim tales of doomed love and ill-fated desires. Benten‘s fourth DVD release Der Freie Wille (The Free Will) streeted last week (yes, it’s a verb), and my review is up over on About.com.
All half-hearted joking aside, Matthias Glasner’s unflinching look at uncontrollable desires and evil urges is shot, acted, and told with such an uncompromising sense of purpose it’s almost impossible to endure (how’s that for a blurb guaranteed to jack up sales?) The fearless plumbing of the abyss on display here recalls Kinski and Herzog’s Woyzeck.
I’m responsible for the translation of the disc’s commentary track subtitles, a task that required putting each scene on replay loop, and as a result, some of the images and situations seem to have permanently burnt themselves into my subconscious. What did Der Freie Wille do to my free will, and can you blame me for trying to replace tortured Jürgen Vogel, both fists jammed into his parka, with a Disneyfied orca?
Der Freie Wille. Matthias Glasner, 2006. ****
http://jurgenfauth.com/2008/06/30/free-willy/