To me, this movie is perfection.

Simply A Masterpiece

Absolutely Brilliant!

The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.

A laconic engineer/adventurer, with a fear of chance and coincidence, courts both when he meets a young waif half his age who reminds him of his lost love, and not without good reason. The final surprise plot twist is telegraphed well in advance, but after a clumsy introduction, with too many flashbacks within flashbacks and odd, impulsive changes in scenery (Europe to South America to New York City), the globetrotting story settles down into a haunting parable of memory and fate, showing how one can be forgotten but the other never avoided. The only other flaw to the film is Sam Shepard's annoying and unnecessary voice-over confession, which sounds as if it were added for the benefit of slow thinking American audiences. The narration spoils what could have been a minor romantic masterpiece; notice how much more enigmatic and involving the story becomes without it.

The only other Schlöndorff movie I was aware of having seen before this was Palmetto, a hyper-twisty neo-noir made in the States . I liked that movie a whole lot, but it didn't prepare me for Homo Faber which is very dense, well made and literary. Definitely not the "man with hot pants" type of neo noir, like Palmetto, The Hot Spot, Body Heat, Romeo is Bleeding &c. Indeed it's not that obviously noir, because it's steers free of many of the cycle's clichés, whilst keeping what is perhaps the essential ingredient: fatalism, wherein an initial mistake spirals out of control and controls your destiny. The film is not conceptual film noir, it doesn't wallow in the plot arc, or the destruction of a character. The only film I feel I can truly compare it to is the English Patient. Both movies have romantic themes, have extremely good literary-based scripts, contain educated well-spoken protagonists, excellent location shooting, unobtrusive period recreation, and take place in eras not too far apart in time.So Homo Faber is a man, Walter Faber, a prodigal engineer, who seems like a laid back cross between Fitzcarraldo and Brunel. He's too caught up in his romance with engineering to seize the moment and the girl. He is reminiscent in this sense of Dominic in Youth Without Youth, and Zetterstrøm in Allegro (excellent films), both love-blind men caught up in their pursuits (linguistics and piano playing). As Cupid is the real God and reigns over drama, these men must be punished.Homo Faber is Latin for The Man Who Forges His Own Destiny, which is ironic, because in the film Faber is subject to a series of extremely rare coincidences, seemingly manipulated by Providence. There's a duality though, because in a very real sense he has forged his own destiny, it's just that it's inescapable.The movie is a luscious wonder, it takes place all over the world in often exotic locations, and the recreation of late 50s period details works really well (there are far too many "look at me" type films where the production team feel the need to introduce absolutely superfluous period details). I mentioned the phrase "the passage of independents", in my title, which needs explaining. You come across many characters in the movie who are independent. Even when Faber is in love and travelling in Europe, quite often he will go off on his own, or she will go off on her own. The folks here are extremely insulated from the manipulations of others. Faber even has the annoying habit of ignoring questions put to him. I think the movie is very ambivalent on the subject of independence, which is displayed as being quite heartless, however on the other hand, you can see, for example, that if Faber had maintained his cloying New York relationship, that would clearly have been the wrong move. So the film allows you to make up your own mind on that subject, and really in the process becomes elegiac.To be more forthright on the subject, the film may indeed be best described as being about the folly of existentialism. Although as mentioned there is a large level of ambiguity to this. Faber, the "intellectual Philistine", at one point draws a blank when Sabeth mentions Camus and his existentialist (although Camus rejected this term) novel The Stranger, and then makes a joke when Sabeth asks him if he knows about Sartre and existentialism, "aren't those the guys who dress in black and drink espresso" (quote from memory). This is despite him being what I would describe as a textbook existentialist himself. He is an authentic person, full of enthusiasm for his own interests, who lives for himself, whilst recognising his level of duty, and its strict limits. When he truly starts to understand love, and, although he feels absolutely nothing in the presence of art, is able to appreciate the happiness of Sabeth whilst she appreciates art, it is too late for Faber.Couldn't recommend it more highly, would help a lot if you liked The English Patient. Is currently available via DVD from Germany.

Do you know people who say books are better than films? Well, with this one, they hit the nail on the head. I have to question both the intent of the movie, as well the reasons for which it was shot. Homo Faber is a book which engrosses us in character analysis and it's done in such a matter, that a conventional film could never cover it fully.And that's what this is, a conventional film. Walter Faber is way "underdeveloped", his relationships with the people around him are somewhat chaotically put together and in the attempt of emphasizing some of his traits, there are moments in which the film becomes uneven. I can but be disappointed by this work, because it feels fake; everything does: the actors, the circumstances, the "existential questions".A book which is elevated by style and substance can't be the starting point of a movie, unless the film itself aims in achieving the same uniqueness.

In comparison with the book, the film is in a scale from 1 to 10 a 3. On a good day a 5. In my opinion, for someone who has read the book and analysed it, it will be easy to see all the awful flaws in the characters interpretation and actions. The hole set is nicely developed and explored, but a few details (in Hanna's apartment for example) don't actually match with the characters personality. The book has a high quantity of symbols and metaphors and they are almost not shown in the film at all. The importance of small details like Walter constantly shaving in the book is superficially explored in the movie. Walter's disgust to Nature isn't shown at all! I think the movie could be more exciting. The plot has every spice it needed to be really great. Maybe if the actresses could have been better chosen, since Ivy is just to old, Hanna at the end just too young.. Only Sabeth fits perfectly into her role. Congratulations to Julie Delpy, for once again performing so beautifully. About Walter: Walter's interpretation of the role is unreal and unfaithful to the book. In the film Walter is a man full of charm, seductive and caring. Where is all the distance, cold-heartiness of the book's character..? The control-freak, the workaholic character? While having sex with Ivy, Walter usually thinks about planes and turbines, but in the movie he is an amazing lover. Hanna's importance in Walter's love life is also not given enough importance. In the book walter says that only with Hanna wasn't sex absurd. She was afterall, the true love of his life. The End of the film is an open ending, in the book Walter eventually dies with Cancer, after a huge change in his vision of the world. His relation towards nature totally mutates. He becomes a different man. Important details such as symbols that warn Walter about Sabeth's death (and his own death as well) are inexistent in the film.But in an overall, and ignoring the fact that i've read the book by Max Frisch.. I've rated the film with 6 points, knowing how old it is, and how the budget might have been, it's a nice Sunday-afternoon film, that let's you reflect about destiny.