Good Bye Lenin!
Short Spoiler Free Premise:A socialist mother in East Berlin goes into a coma. When she comes out of the coma, everything has changed because the Berlin wall has come down. Her son (Daniel Brühl) creates a scheme to keep the reunification of Germany a secret until she gets better.
Quick Thoughts:
This German film is at times touching, at times funny. The film has a great tone, although sometimes the pacing is a tad slow. It offers an excellent personal perspective on how East Berlin changed in the early days after the wall came down. (Thanks Will for the recommendation)
End of The Spear
Short Spoiler Free Premise:A dramatization of the real life story of 5 missionaries and their families who head to the jungles of Equador to reach out to a very violent tribe, the Waodani.
Quick Thoughts:
A very touching and moving film that delves into many themes about family, dedication, compassion, violence, and spirituality. The film is low-budget (estimated at 10 million). But they did an excellent job at doing a jungle period piece with out making you realize it. The most low budget aspect is the presence of no recognizable actors (unless you recognize Chad Allen from the TV show Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman)
Related Tags: End of the Spere, Good Bye Lenin!, Foreign Film, Movie, Chad Allen, Daniel Brühl, Berlin, East German, Socialism, Berlin Wall, Missionaries, Ecuador, Waodani, violence, Film
8 comments:
I watched "End of the Spear" with my husband (he heard Elizabeth Elliott--Jim's wife--speak in the late 1980's when they were raising money to go back) and my friend when it was in the theaters. Low-budget or not, I thought it was well-done. A very sad but touching story.
Goodbye Lenin
I watched this recently and loved the way it turned everything upside down to shine some light into the cracks. Beautiful and subversive.
End of the Spear caused a mini controversey with the casting of Allen, an openly gay activist in a film that is about conservative Christian missionaries. I haven't seen the film but understand it's ptretty good.
Tom,
Albert Mohler (president of Southern Baptist Seminary) wrote on his own blog some comments regarding this issue back in January. I think they are very good thoughts and wanted to post a link to share with you.
What Were They Thinking? The Controversy Over The End of the Spear
Enjoy!
I've wanted to see BOTH of these movies for some time now, especially Goodbye Lenin, which I can't find ANYWHERE around here to rent. Posts like this convince me more and more that we're going to have do the Netflix thing.
Actually, on February 3rd I weighed in on the topic. You may disagree.
http://www.amplyblessed.net/?p=51
Goodbye, Lenin! was a great movie. Made my top 10 for that year.
-JW
fictiondepartment.blogspot.com
Dude, you picked 2 great films. I loved goodbye lenin, it is so subtle, but I still found myself laughing. The end of the spear was a suprise for me. I loved it.
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