Fraülein.

"An intimate, elusive drama about the boundaries of friendship and nationality, Fräulein presents immigrant lives with significantly more empathy than detail," writes Jeannette Catsoulis in the New York Times. "For some, though, the movie's narrative shorthand will be enough, its teasing snapshots of three disparate (and desperate) women difficult to shake off."

"[I]t seems disingenuous to call Fräulein a film when it's more like a glossy fashion magazine layout," writes Ed Gonzalez in Slant. "Like the upcoming Ballast, Fraulein almost entirely shuns backstory, coloring around the lives of its characters with ostentatious style (in this case, fuzzy-wuzzy visual vibes and music tailored to each character's generation) and hoping audiences won't mind filling in the blanks."

Andrea Staka "has previously written and directed one short and one documentary, and Fräulein, her first full-length narrative feature, is indeed short (barely 80 minutes, including credits) and most definitely has a documentary feel," notes James Van Maanen. "She understands the importance of brevity and gives us just enough information about her women to hook us and keep us on that hook. (Barbara Albert - Falling, Free Radicals - collaborated on the screenplay, along with Marie Kreutzer.)... The movie may not, finally, go where you'd prefer, but I doubt you'll be able to dispute its reality."

"The story of a free-spirited stranger warming the hardened heart of someone older and colder may be worn out... but Staka confidently breathes joie de vivre into the film's green-gray bleakness," writes Aaron Hillis in the Voice. "Stylized with a recurring misty focus, the film's economically captured detail shots (gestures, expressions, caught moments) convey genuine sensitivity without the expected weepiness."

Posted by dwhudson at September 19, 2008 3:20 PM