Tuvalu (1999)

Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.

I wanted to like it more than I actually did... But much of the humor totally escaped me and I walked out only mildly impressed.

Blending excellent reporting and strong storytelling, this is a disturbing film truly stranger than fiction

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

"Tuvalu" is a fantasy/ comedy that pays homage to everything from early German expressionism to Buster Keaton, David Lynch, Fellini and Jeanet and Cairo. In fact, in many ways it's similar to the films "Delicatessen" and "City of Lost Children". In "Tuvalu" a mother and son own a public pool in a creaky old building. Customers pay in buttons to use the pool. Yeah, buttons. An evil contractor, who looks like Jack Nance from "Eraserhead", longs to tear the place down and build a casino. The son falls for a beautiful girl only to have the contractor steal her away from him. He fights to keep the place open and win the heart of the girl. That's the basic plot, although it almost defies description. Even though it's a German film, there is hardly any dialog. The characters communicate by saying each other's names, or using crazy facial expressions, grunts or simple words like "yeah" or "no" which translate into every language. Filmed in sepia tones, It also reminded me of Canadian director Guy Maddin. "Tuvalu" is visually stunning, comical and highly surreal. It is also very cute with its romantic charm.

This is the worst film I've seen in a looooong time. It reminded me of a Cirque du Soleil show I saw in Vegas six years ago -- without the athleticisme. By that I mean a few striking, artsy, images appear randomly, without any sustaining framework. The fake sepia tinted film is really tacky. This device is almost never justified and certainly is not in _Tuvalu_. With apologies to Abe Lincoln: you can fool some of the people some of the time.

Once you sit in the chair in the cinema, the lights are turned down and the movie starts, you enter a wonderful world. The heartwarming work of a Dadaist, which needs no words. Everybody can understand this film.

I have never been particularly fond of movies with taglines like "a poetic adventure" or "a journey into the land of dreams" stamped on their front, as this kind of advertising is usually nothing more than a weak excuse for the absence of a coherent plot or some in-depth characterization, leaving you in the guess why the filmmakers didn't stick to the painting of aquarelles in the first place. My expectations sank even lower when I understood that there wasn't going to be any dialogue in "Tuvalu", at least not in the proper sense of the term. So this couldn't be more than a soothing eye candy at best; hopefully free from the embarrassing "isn't our imagination a wonderful thing"-moments or the "why can't we all be children forever"-messages that tend to haunt this specific genre.After a few moments into the film, I was entirely cured from that kind of prejudice. "Tuvalu" surprisingly brings across the magic that is promised on the poster - and it works well for a variety of reasons. First of all, despite the movie's innocent fairy tale character, it isn't coy about adult themes at all (like all good fairy tales, for that matter). We actually even have scenes of violence and nudity, but both are introduced in a very playful and witty manner; in a style which I should consider perfectly suitable for children.Secondly, "Tuvalu" is hilariously funny, and at times, the humour is pretty far from being tongue-in-cheek... There is a lot of crude slapstick going on, and sometimes the whole movie is close to the coarseness of a Punch and Judy show; but most of the time one just laughs at the sheer originality and inventiveness of the production. Furthermore, the sparse use of words proves to be a great means of comedy as well - the effect is somewhat comparable to the quasi-absence of comprehensible language in Jacques Tati's films, or, for those who have seen it, in "Themroc".Thirdly, there is always joy in watching talented and charismatic actors under the direction of a talented director and screenwiter. You can tell that everyone involved in the making was perfectly devoted to the project; and this justified euphoria of the makers comes across in almost every scene. They probably knew that they were doing something special, and this is indeed what they have achieved. Additionally, Helmer's use of light and colour is always original, but never distracting; every scene of this movie is simply beautiful to look at. Yes, I should say, imagination is a wonderful thing and it is an utter shame that we can't be children forever.