Grill Point (2002)

Don't listen to the negative reviews

If you like to be scared, if you like to laugh, and if you like to learn a thing or two at the movies, this absolutely cannot be missed.

The movie really just wants to entertain people.

One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

I heard about the movie from a friend, who had seen it at the Berlinale Film Festival in 2002, where the movie actually won the Silver Bear Award in this year. He only told me about a little, quite but funny movie which is taking place in a city in the eastern part of Germany (former GDR), but he didn't wanted to spoil it. "Halbe Treppe" literally means as much as "on/ at/ to be half stairs" or if one has climbed a few steps one finds itself at "half stairs". This idiom does not make sense in German either, so my conclusion was that this is a term only used in the former GDR i do not understand, because i grew up in the western part of Germany. There are a few expressions only used in the GDR, but now being used in all parts of Germany. My anticipation of the plot was something about living in typical socialistic suburban dwellings in the eastern part of Germany where the term "Halbe Treppe" is used for something i do not know. I forgot about the movie and finally watched it a few days ago on TV (gladly without commercial breaks) and i was absolutely surprised, when i found out that "Halbe Treppe" is the name Uwe's Grillpoint (the English title!) which is situated between 2 stairs at "Halbe Treppe"! In my eyes the story in this movie could take place anywhere in Germany, Europe, but maybe the city of Frankfurt/Oder was not coincidentally chosen by the director. Well, i have been there but many people from the old federal states (and some from the new states, too) in Germany think Frankfurt/Oder is the end of the world, the worst place to live in Germany, because the city is situated head to head to the polish city Slubice bordered by the river "Oder". For people from the U.S. maybe it is comparable to Tijuana, but without the fence!! In the meantime Poland has become a full member of the EU so far, but prejudices about Poland are though. Everything is different: People, language, currency, habits, prices (low). While Slubice is economically growing and growing, Frankfurt is struggling with unemployment and disillusioned citizens where a lot of them have already moved away from the city (for more information have a look at the English Wikipedia). It's very satirical when Chris crosses the border to rent a polish hotel room just to save the money, if he and Ellen want to meet secretly: Even cheating German couples support the polish economy due to cheaper prices! It must be great fun for the director to confuse the viewer with a story about the relationship of 2 couples if one expects a plot about the life in a struggling city, emphasized by the fact that the movie is shot in the depressive mood of winter. Although my expectation of the movie were completely wrong i was hooked up immediately and always thought the situations the characters experience must end up in a tragic and sad disaster, but the terrific comical elements (the search for the escaped budgie, the people who think Chris is a fortune teller who predicted the power failure) make this movie a brilliant piece of German cinema.

The movie works on a plain line, telling straightly the story about this couple of marriages and how they manage to resolve a given situation. At first thoughts, the movie seems to be careless in what techniques are concerned, no esthetics nor photography proposal; but by half the movie you start to notice how some minimal details are driven, happening to work out by the end of it. While the plot management could have been better, though it does entertain, one of the major problems you can find is the camera direction. As opposite as one may think, working with a hand camera (as Lars von Trier does in his Dogmas) isn't a piece of cake, but a matter of great care. If not, you may get some really bad shots that would be the equivalent of shutting down the video and record an audio only scene. This is what happens here: There is a couple of scenes, mostly the ones in the cars, where all you get to see is the face of the character speaking covering the 90% of your screen and then i switches to the face of the interlocutor. That and a couple of gratuitous scenes, like the one with the dentist, that may have been deleted are the big flaws you may find in the movie. As a conclusion I may say that I don't regret having seen this movie, but it didn't change my life either.

Two pairs,each married quite long time,spend their time together happily.two persons,a man,Chris& a woman,Ellen in this pair goes unfaithful to their marriage.conflict starts.four of them meet&discuss about this prob.but,doesn't come to conclusion.Chirs&Ellan try to find a new house for their living.Even after seeing seven houses,they are not settle with one "cause of their diff. of opinion.Slowly,Chris come towards her wife.One pair get reunion.But,Ellan stands on her husband Uwe"s negligence.Ellan still likes to move for a new house,with her children.Uwe awaits for her with hope.

I was not sure what sort of film I was going to watch, when I was entering the movie theater, but I liked Halbe Treppe, although it was VERY influenced by Scandinavian Dogma-releases and therefore very hyped in recent German press releases. The story itself is not that much complex: two couples, of the one the man and of the other the woman become unfaithful... But the gags in-between are terrific. There is this running gag on the 17 hippies playing music in front of the snack box, or the other one concerning Britney Spears, whose music is always running in the background, when scenes were shot at the local radio station. Many devices of the Dogma manifesto were used in this film: no artificial setting, laymen-acting, hand camera a.s.o., but the splendour of a "Idioterne" (Lars von Trier, 1998) or "Festen" (Thomas Vinterberg, 1998) is not achieved. Nevertheless, I liked the movie and was surprised, since most recent German releases bored me a lot. 8* (out of 10*)