Die Blechtrommel (1979)
Genre: War / Drama
Duration: 142 minuten / 162 minuten (director's cut)
Alternative titles: The Tin Drum / De Blikken Trommel
Country:
West Germany / France / Poland
Directed by: Volker Schlöndorff
Stars: Mario Adorf, David Bennent and Angela Winkler
IMDb score:
7,4 (26.438)
Releasedate: 2 May 1979
Die Blechtrommel plot
"A savage, sweeping epic of society in chaos."
Danzig, 1924. Little Oskar has been a strange fellow from birth. He would rather not have been born because he doesn't like the world at all. Still, he longs to turn three as soon as possible. Then his mother gives him a tin drum. On that day Oskar decides to stop growing and falls down a flight of stairs. Oskar indeed remains small and with his drum and his high-pitched voice - with which he can break glass - disrupts the lives of adults. Through his wide, anxious children's eyes, we follow the rise of National Socialism and the catastrophe of the war.
Actors and actresses
Alfred Matzerath
Agnes Matzerath
Oskar Matzerath
Maria Matzerath
Jan Bronski
Young Anna Koljaiczek
Anna Koljaiczek
Joseph Koljaiczek
Onkel Vinzenz
Lina Greff
Reviews & comments
des1
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- 1698 messages
- 976 votes
"Das Oskarchen"... It still resonates, after all these years. Nice storytelling, to put it in the old Dutch way. You wish more films like this were made, a mix of hard realism and densification. The small, annoying boy Oskar is an observer (the voice-over), also a participant in what is happening around him, with the necessary opportunism now and then in what drives him. Nazism, not as a superhuman evil that pours itself out (as you get in documentaries and during commemorations) on humanity, but the banality of citizens who join the loudest cry. Fantastic acting. Just to take a sidetrack, seeing this again might have moved A Most Wanted Man director Anton Corbijn not to use American actors. Just the veiled (or not) eroticism that was in scenes. Not a movie to watch often. With the death of Günther Grass partly done again. A unique one.
Translated from Dutch · View original
Fisico (moderator films)
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- 9534 messages
- 5190 votes
Very bizarre film about an equally bizarre boy who just refuses to grow and stays 3 years old forever. While drumming you see him walking through the film with at times very strange manners and will of his own. His eyes are sometimes wide - so is his mouth - and the nearby glass knew all about that ...
But Oskar isn't the only stranger in the movie. The romance between his grandmother and father alone is a nice intro to how comically absurd this family history can get. The film acts at a child's level and the dream world and fantasy that comes with it. However, make no mistake, this print is certainly not soft, because at times people are also shot. Heavy themes alternate the humorous scenes. Oskar himself is also quite dualistic because of the many things he experiences: scared and anxious versus strange and indifferent. He may be small and behave accordingly, but where are the limits of his responsibilities?
A fascinating film that will not leave you indifferent. Beautiful images, well presented. One that you must see as a film lover.
Translated from Dutch · View original
Shadowed
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- 9905 messages
- 5930 votes
Solid.
Completely different film than I expected beforehand, because certainly for a war film from the 1970s in which the techniques were not nearly as advanced as the techniques shown in contemporary films, it comes out quite distinctive. Perhaps the film should not be seen as a full-blooded war.
What distinguishes this film from similar genre films is that the war is mainly background. The world in which we see the boy knows that there is a war going on, but not himself, and takes his drum with him wherever he goes. That is mainly what the film shows, the life of a boy with absurd character traits who is finding his own way at a very young age.
This is combined with some remarkable style exercises that I really appreciated. It is true that the film rattles on for too long, because after a while there seems to be less to tell. For example, when the boy, rather unusually, enters into a sexual relationship with an older lady, this seems to have been brought in rather in a frantic attempt to distance the film a bit further from other war films, but I saw it personally irrelevant.
Furthermore, many special situations with a good visual style. A film that goes on for a long time and after a while doesn't have much to say anymore, but also a film that distinguishes itself in a positive way from its peers. I was able to enjoy it against expectations. It's also nice to see that not every film I think I see uses that outcome. Die Blechtrommel managed to surprise me well.
Translated from Dutch · View original
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