Summer Storm (2004)

Fresh and Exciting

A waste of 90 minutes of my life

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

beautiful landscapes, inspired music, good acting. and a touching story about friendship and self definition. the great virtue of film is the fine delicacy in exploration of a sensitive subject . to define the small details, the powerful emotions, the need to understand, the refuse to accept and the air of competition. a teenage story presented in a manner who defines its specificity. because it is not exactly a gay film. it has the gift to propose a more large perspective about relations and gestures and feelings of an age who is only essential step to self definition as person. and that does it real beautiful. a form of grace. a form of geography of refuges. and the freedom . so, a beautiful film. about a story of summer. and about the nuances of friendship.

"Sommersturm" or "Summer storm" is a German 90-minute (without credits) movie from over 10 years ago. It was written and directed by Marco Kreuzpaintner and is probably still his most known work. Either this or "Krabat". The lead actor here is Robert Stadlober and I remember he was pretty popular back then. However, class prevails and lack thereof as well as he isn't famous today anymore. And yet they made the impossible possible by finding a co-lead to him that is an even weaker actor than Stadlober. Man Kostja Ullmann is really unbearably bad. I swear he had the same face expression during the entire movie. By today's standards, the biggest star in here is probably Hanno Koffler who has emerged as one of the most lauded German actors from his age group in recent years.In reference to my title for this review, I would like to say that the genre of gay-themed movies is especially dominant in terms of short films, but occasionally you will also find one in terms of full features. And sadly, this one here is pretty disastrous. But maybe it's also their own fault. Many of these gay-themed films have rating that are ridiculously high. It seems that the inclusion of gay people or homosexuality as a topic is enough for many to appreciate a film like this. Talk about low expectations. And if they are like that, they actually deserve to be exposed to garbage like this movie here. On a more positive note, I believe some of the supporting actors are actually talented in here, but they were written so badly that it hurts, such as the coach of the rowing team. And how is almost everybody in that training camp gay apparently? At least, that was the impression I got and 50% of those who weren't actually were, but were still hiding in the closet. Very bizarre and unrealistic. Bachleda plays her part well and looks stunning. Probably the best performance from the bunch. She was almost the only that felt authentic. Not enough though to make this extremely flawed film work. Not recommended.

This movie reminds me of one of my favourite movies of all time My Life as a Dog with its matter of fact objectivity.It accurately captures the unbearable intensity of young love.The amount of athletic shirtless flesh and soft porn sex scenes might be too much for a heterosexual person to swallow, but they are not gratuitous.It deals remarkably accurately with homophobia, both by straights and by gays themselves, not overly dramatising it.It was a hard movie to watch because it reminded me so much of my own teen years, having to watch the infinitely handsome male love of my life, slow-dancing with females.The preposterously happy ending tacked on a somewhat tortured film was simply irritating. It was if it were tacked on by someone other that the original writer and director.My other main complaint is the prudishness of whomever did the subtitles. They simply left out dialog that might shock.

I thought I had already sent in a review of this when I saw it a few months back.I just wrote a lackluster review of another German Movie I saw last night it has a similar sports theme as well as coming out.Guys an Balls is the title, It is far inferior to this delightThe characters in SummerStorm are all persons I would like to know, while in the other, no one was even part way likable,.I do not remember many details on this film BUT I do know it was well acted & well made, written & Directed. It also was bright & sunny even in the storm scene.Ratings *** (out of 4) 86 points (out of 100) IMDb 8 (out of 10) **STAR RATING & IMDb rating actual, numerical rating -educated guess