If you want to get a first impression of the current faces of German cinema with just one admission ticket, then you should go to see The Baader Meinhof Complex. This new film by Uli Edel stars almost all of them: from Martina Gedeck to Moritz Bleibtreu, Johanna Wokalek, Alexandra Maria Lara and Hannah Herzsprung to Heino Ferch and Jasmin Tabatabai. And if you then watch the DVD of Elementary Particles you will immediately see why Martina Gedeck is regarded as the most versatile and accomplished German actress: be it a terrorist or an obsessive-liberal teacher – Martina Gedeck is the chameleon of German cinema. Seemingly effortlessly and yet meticulously prepared, she changes genres – television plays, feature films, theatre – and roles. She plays the battered wife, the seductress, the gentle waitress in Rossini, the ambitious chef de cuisine in Bella Martha, the unstable actress in The Life of Others. One critic speaks of her as intense, genuine, “adaptable to the point of self-renunciation”.
Nina Hoss is equally versatile. She also cleverly avoids clichés in her roles or routine in her acting. In fact, women are stronger than ever in German cinema, especially the young ones, those in their mid-20s to early 30s. Of course this is also due to the outstanding training at German drama schools. Julia Jentsch became famous for her powerful performance in the role of the resistance fighter Sophie Scholl; Hannah Herzsprung transformed herself into a traumatised murderer in Four Minutes; Alexandra Maria Lara, the gentlest face in German cinema, is now enthralling international audiences in the main role in Francis Ford Coppola’s Youth Without Youth; Karoline Herfurth, the beautiful red-haired “Mirabelle Maiden” in Perfume, began her career in cinema at the age of 15 , and now, at 24, she is showing the full range of her ability in Caroline Link’s new film A Year Ago in Winter. The critics are in raptures. But she says: “I’m an actress, not a star.” Which is modest and typically German. Ego-trips in the beam of the flash-lights are the exception. These young women approach their work with a great seriousness. They seem to seek the difficult roles – also on stage – and they sustain their force throughout the whole film. This also applies to the movingly intense acting of Anna Maria Mühe (November Child) and Johanna Wokalek (Hierankl, Nordwand) – and a whole series of other young actresses.
And the men? Of course there’s Otto Sander and Armin Mueller-Stahl from the older generation, and from the middle generation characters as different as the versatile Sebastian Koch, the lady-killer Til Schweiger, screen-berserker Ben Becker and the sensitive Ulrich Matthes. The younger men pall a little, however. Exceptions: Moritz Bleibtreu and Jürgen Vogel, character-actors who play just about everything from the “cool guy” and the “clown”, humorous or dramatic roles. Good Bye, Lenin!
meant fame for Daniel Brühl, who is meantime also to be seen in international productions. That is perhaps “poetic justice”: the men are in the majority among the successful directors, while in front of the camera, at least at the moment, the women are to the fore.
