Powerful

Perfect cast and a good story

best movie i've ever seen.

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

A reviewer referred to this catatonic movie as a "feminist horror story". While I wouldn't disagree with that, I'd prefer to call it a plot-poor yawn-fest melodrama with a cretinously banal story-line. Old people's love-triangle Bumsfest romantic drama? That works too. Or I could simply refer to this pseudo-cinematic drivel as GILF porn. The hideous actress who toys around with men (and very "fittingly" looks like one too) is naked throughout the movie. Yes, it's such a "deep", involving, artistic story, isn't it. Actually, all these different descriptions could be merged into one simple term: rubbish.Pretentious rubbish. Note the absence of music – aside from the inane, superfluous choir scenes which somehow are needed to remind us that she is indeed old, and not 18. You see, the absence of music means the director bows down (to his knees, and then chin-to-ground) to Lars Von Trier's Pretentious Dummies 95 manifesto, which basically instructs its blind (and empty-headed, not to mention talent-free) adherents not to utilize music because somehow a soundtrack makes the story "insincere" (or some such rubbish; I don't pretend to know much about this cretinous, art-fart Eurotrash movement aside that it's absolute horseshit for bird-brained film students and impotent, obese film critics). One of the other tenets of the 95 (bowel) movement is that porn is not only acceptable, but that dangling (or upright) male genitalia represent another highly artistic step toward more sincerity. Yes, I know. We all know: Lars is a degenerate, pompous ass. And European cinema still wallows in its own self-indulging ineptitude laced with sexual obsessions most of which are perversions. No, I don't mean old folk having sex, I mean full frontal nudity of an underage girl, a scene which the lustful film-maker somehow managed to squeeze in, despite that being the only scene in which any minor appears, and despite that girl being wholly irrelevant to the plot. (The old "sneak-a-bush" tactic.) Or was this some tiny New Age feminist commentary about how "progressive" the nympho's daughter is to have her kids running around naked in the garden? European film-makers know their audiences all-too well: give them naked underage kids, incest, or bondage, and your movie-festival rating as an "artist with a unique vision" goes through the roof. The story? An amazingly stupid old nymphomaniac woman (who looks like Gary Numan after years of alcoholic binging) screws her husband – literally and metaphorically – by cheating on him with an even older geezer. Now, it's not as if she develops a romantic, touching, unintentional, spontaneous relationship with this other guy over a period of time. No. Like a hormonally-challenged teeny-bopper she has him humping her within minutes of meeting him for the first time. No, this is no joke. Nor am I joking when I tell you that the woman's adult daughter LAUGHS and then SMILES and then APPROVES of her affair when her mother confesses about it. Her daughter – ever the ungrateful skank but viewed sympathetically through the film-maker's immoral feminazi prism – actually encourages her mother to continue the affair, because, after all, the man she is cheating on is "only" her step-father who "only" sacrificed his best years to bring her up (another man's offspring as his own) so why the hell not, right? She warns her mother to keep it secret though. She does have THAT much common sense at least. So not all female characters in the movie are necessarily utter imbeciles, only partially mentally and morally impaired. However, in the film-maker's eyes, they are not moral degenerates at all.Alas, her daughter's advice is not heeded by the choir-singing floozy who turns out to be beyond daft. To selfishly unburden her sense of guilt, the fat ugly cow tells her hubby about how she's been shagging this other guy. As expected, her hubby is outraged, becomes depressed, and concludes that his wife of 30 years is "a moron". It is at that point that the audience in the theaters rapture into a spontaneous applause: "yes, man, she is soooo dumb!"Oh, but I kid. Of course no audience applauded (nor would I ever watch this trash in a cinema). No, not because most of audience are feminazi zombies, but because most of them were snoring by this point. You see, this movie is so saturated with padding. It's so full of unnecessary Euro art-fart BS that if you'd compress this sex-film-impersonating-a-serious-character-study into its plot-relevant scenes, you'd get something like 10 minutes. So yes, the movie WOULD be a 10-minute GILF porn clip with a touch of generic drama if only there weren't all those fabulous scenes of German landscapes and parks, which are intended to give the typical hipster-hat-wearing coffee-sniffing art-fest film-goer a chance to MUSE over the incredible philosophical ramification of a fat nymphomaniac having sex, over the ridiculously underdeveloped characters, or simply a chance to go for a leak.If only the lazy film-maker had had the common sense to make her husband impotent. At least that could've served as some flimsy but somewhat credible excuse for the affair. But no. Her husband is still sexually active, AND she enjoys the sex with him, whereas it's the new boyfriend who can't always get it up! Sure, in many ways this has all the hallmarks of an Ed Wood classic.Her husband – very very very predictably - ends up committing suicide shortly after being ditched by his perpetually wet wife, and that's it. What's the point? The message, dare I say? Well, in terms of feminist "logic", the message is: "girls, enjoy yourselves, indulge your hedonism, and by all means screw over your loyal partner if your vagina ever gets that nympho need". For the rest of us, the message is more like: "all you fat, ugly, selfish bitches should keep your affairs secret – IF you're going to cheat on your husbands."Want more laughs? Read the comments section.

A beautifully acted film that captures intimate feelings between people without unnecessary noise or clutter. Precise in its execution of scenes, the story takes the viewer through intimate moments between people and how aging can strengthen the passions, rather that diminish them as popular culture would have us believe. Whilst on the outside, the characters are "your average pensioners", on the inside they harbor deep, unfulfilled wells of desire which aging can only enhance. As one character Karl says: "I don't how long I have left" and at 76, he's making the most of it. And why not? We see in detail the attachments and separations unfolding between the three main characters in the excellent acting of the cast.This film gives hope to us all as we age, that we will still be loved and desired, that sex can be in some ways more fulfilling and relationships less angst-ridden. But also that the cost of these things may well be higher as we have to let go of long-term habits and beliefs that have given us security and predictability. And that is the hardest thing to do in the seventh decade of life, an intense dilemma indeed which this film beautifully portrays.

The film poses the question : what do we do when we can the chance of some happiness, and someone else may be hurt as a result? Ignore it if it makes us feel guilty, or give into it and accept that there will be a price to pay. And it is a good question as happiness is such an elusive quality. Igne has been with ( and presumably married to) Werner for some thirty years. They are fond of it each other, content with each other, but their relationship is dull, maybe always was. He loves trains, likes watching film of trains, travelling on them, reading about them, telling their grandchildren about trains, a man obsessed. Meanwhile Inge unexpectedly feels a strong attraction to Karl and for the first time, late in life, and goes off Werner's rails. She is torn ( "I didn't want this"), still fond of Werner, but drawn to Karl. She confides in her daughter Petra who is glad her mother is happy, who tells her to say nothing to Werner. But Inge cares so much for him, she tells him. It is a truly remarkable performance from Ursula Werner. The scene when she learns of the death of Werner is wonderfully moving. The direction is excellent and subtle. I liked the scene of the morning after she tells Werner and the camera is static as she walks around their flat not knowing whether to disturb him, finally knocking on his bedroom to find (we presume) he has gone out. She no longer knows what he is doing. And the scene at the funeral where Inge is frozen with true grief as people line up to formally comfort with. It is a very "real" film. All the actors distinguish themselves. I found this film compelling from the beginning to the end. It is genuine, heartfelt. The question is impossible to answer but I felt sympathy for the plight of Inge. We do the best we can. Time spent watching this film is not time wasted.

CLOUD 9 is a touching, yet disconcerting look at the romantic longings, and sexual desires of people in the late Autumn of their lives. Inge, a woman in her 60's, who has been married to Werner for over 30 years, has a spontaneous affair with Karl, who is 76. Their sexual encounters are portrayed in graphic detail, and I can't think of a film which has depicted such explicit sexuality between elderly characters. Although Inge feels a certain comfortability with Werner, she is slowly realizing that their life together is nothing more than marking time until death. Inge is awakening to the fact that she just might be entitled to a bit more, and Karl seems to provide the change for which she has been yearning. Andreas Dresen, the director, has provided a plot, however all of the dialog was improvised by the actors while filming. Little background is given, and the film explores the intensity of the sexual encounters, and the ramifications of these interactions. In depth narrative detail is sacrificed for the vividness and drama of the emotional consequences. CLOUD 9 clearly targets a mature audience, and for a small budget film which addresses a rather taboo subject, it is quite heartfelt and poignant.