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Sick Product of a Sick System

I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

Watching it is like watching the spectacle of a class clown at their best: you laugh at their jokes, instigate their defiance, and "ooooh" when they get in trouble.

I was slightly surprised to see this rather mediocre German social-drama having reached the US video stores. Less surprising was that Moritz Bleibtreu was promoted as "star of 'Munich'" (which is true – he did have a 30 second appearance) and some critics witty line, "Freud filtered through Fassbinder". Ironically, the line is true: Fassbinder wasn't a particularly good or interesting director and Sigmund Freud's theories are rather outdated.The story revolves around the Tschirner clan, what, consisting of neurotic transsexuals, sex-addicts and paedophiles, all hidden behind the facade of an average middle-class German family.The dysfunctions within the family seem at all times beyond hope or redemption and none of the characters are remotely sympathetic, likable, even completely comprehensive (unless perhaps you're from a similar background, in which case you might not even want to watch this film in the first place). "Agnes and his brothers" simply isn't a pretty film nor is it a film that will leave you feeling better if you happen to watch it when you feel down. Most importantly: it doesn't tell us anything new.What can be said about the acting? Well, the main focal points of the film being Martin Weiss as Agnes and Moritz Bleibreu as his sex-addict brother, neither performance comes across as completely convincing. Especially Bleibtreu, at the time hailed as the new hope of German cinema, seems stuck with a limited repertoire. Weiss on the other hand proves that he can convincingly wear a frock and woman's make-up – that doesn't make an actor but explains why this has remained his last appearance on the big screen (with the exception of the children's movie "Nick Knatterton").Herbert Knaup, playing the oldest brother Werner and member of the Green Party, still has the best part in the movie – although the scene where he, in a grand-gesture, defecates on a piece of paper and ceremoniously carries his "product" away, seems to say more about this type of movie making than about his own schizophrenic behaviour.As said, if you're looking for a film to drag you down or tell you time and again about the rotten times we leave and if you're looking for the most sanctimonious endings in recent European cinema, this may be for you.

hmm... so surely someone who has fully trangendered wouldn't still be sporting a 'five o'clock shadow' under their thin layer of foundation... and of course it is also the transgendered character in the film who must die at the end... (you go girl... just don't live past the last frame)... tiresome... but perhaps this equates more to a comment or a quip than a film review... it could have had so much more power and bite especially in fassbinders (possibly the original source material for this film?) hands... a handsome cast of good actors in what felt like surface flash/titillation... and just enough 'get your freak on' quirks and a pastel/pop colour schematic tacked onto a copycat almodovar wanna be sensibility... ughh!

This movie is rife with weathered stereotypes, spiced with a few somewhat original, but inane ideas that are supposed to "shock" and impress the viewer. It is pure pulp. Not of the good, but of the embarrassing variety, pretending to be art disguised as pulp. It's not a highly "symbolic", merciless comment on the state of today's Germany, it's just nonsense on parade: Agnes was a guy who had his sex changed, because he thought his gay friend would like that. Turned out, he didn't. Too bad for Agnes. Sometimes it's a good idea to surprise your loved ones, sometimes it's really not. Oskar Roehler got this sad story from the arguably trashiest of all Fassbinder movies: "In einem Jahr mit 13 Monden". For Fassbinder it was the basis of one of his awkward melodramas, for Roehler it's just a queer gimmick. Actually, Agnes is by far the happiest and most self-assured of the three brothers in this movie, which therefore concentrates on the other two, Werner and Hans-Jörg.Werner is a "Green Party" politician, working for the German environment ministry. His proudest achievement: He can produce his own biological fertilizer. His wife hates him, because she has to watch him doing so - every single day. During an especially inane "shocking" scene he feels the need to produce something valuable while he's having an intense discussion with the leader of his party on the phone. He pulls down his pants and takes a dump on a single sheet of paper. Later on he picks up this sheet and carries his - obviously highly concentrated - biological fertilizer away.Hans-Jörg works as a librarian, at a really big, modern library, with lots of hot chicks, studying. When he sees a hot woman walking towards the ladies room, he follows her. His 6th sense tells him that there will no one in the first room, with the washing basins, that she will take the booth next to the one he's prepared with a small peeping hole, that she is going to have a tough fight with her constipated bowels, featuring lots of heavy breathing. And he's got another kinky superpower - no one can hear him masturbating.This is an original idea, because quite obviously it would not work in real life - where a sad creep like Hans-Jörg would have used a spy camera. It's the brainchild of a hack writer who is writing by numbers: 1. aiming for an intellectual audience (library), 2. "underground" appeal (seedy sexuality/peeping Tom), 3. symbolic value (fecal matter).Hans-Jörg is a sex addict, which in German movies never means that he's having sex all the time, but that he's always occupied with dysfunctional schemes to get some. He's in a self-help group, where everyone has got quite obviously exactly the same problem. That's where he gets recruited by a porn producer. The first day on his new job he meets his first new colleague and falls in love with her. He confesses that he's just shot his father, whom he blames to have abused "Agnes" as a child, thus turning him into a transsexual. The porn actress agrees to flee with him. They are heading towards Iraq, "to help the people down there".Whoever takes this movie seriously, got a serious problem. Oskar Roehler takes his brainchild very seriously. This is not a comedy, nor a campy trash festival. It's just sad.

No, I didn't like it. There were some good scenes, but most of the story based on bad taste and unnecessarily spotlighted human squalor. (Just think of the episode with the dog-lover -- was this supposed to be funny?) Some of the actors were great -- Katja Riemann for example, or Moritz Bleibtreu, who was cast way out of character, but rather convincing. Anyway, the story didn't do -- I'm not even sure there was one. Director Roehler seems to be too angry with the world, The Family, and himself to tell a straightforward story or to cast any light of warmth on his characters. I left the theatre quite irritated and disgusted, but nothing to last long -- a day later all is forgotten. (3/10)