Watch Abendland For Free

Thanks for the memories!

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

Great movie. Not sure what people expected but I found it highly entertaining.

It's a feast for the eyes. But what really makes this dramedy work is the acting.

"Abendland" is an Austrian German-language documentary from 2011, so this 90-minute film here had its 5th anniversary last year. The director and one of the writers is Nikolaus Geyrhalter and I really loved some of the other stuff I have seen from him. This one here may not be his best work, but it is still fairly good. His approach to documentary filmmaking is to let the images speak and avoid a narrator, which is also why you can watch his works, including this one, without subtitles, even if you aren't fluent in German. This one we got here is about what happens at night while most people are sleeping. We see undertakers working, cops training, people partying and a lot more. It's really the aura and atmosphere of it all and this film really does not need a voice to tell us what's going on. Actually, that one could have even hurt the overall experience as they way how you perceive these scenes is the heart and soul of the movie and statements by others and commons could have hurt the viewing experience and the film at its very core. It may not be the most relevant or important work out there, but it does not need to be. It also doesn't try to be. It's a take on the here and now and in my opinion, it is good enough to say that it is very much underseen. I agree that this is certainly not a work for everybody. If you are looking for informative and insightful, then this is not your preferred choice. But if you are going for a film that depicts the simple yet haunting directions of life in the 21st century, then give it a go. You will not be disappointed.

I rented this film online without expecting anything. I was surprised that IMDb had no information, reviews or comments regarding this film. The trailer (clip of the film) didn't give away much but I decided to go ahead anyway after reading about the director's previous film. I'm not even sure what the title means, but I think it might have something to do with nightlife, as the whole film is shot at night.It's showing a glimpse into all walks of life working at night in Europe without any voice over or titles explaining what you're watching. It's like you're spying on the scene and the director gives you a lot of space - still camera shots, wide angle etc to comfortably observe without distracting you or forcing his own opinion on you. This is the truest form of observational documentary.You find yourself daydreaming whilst watching parts, such as a shot of a hospital room with an incubator which then cuts to a conference room inside the UN where politicians are arguing about what language they can communicate in before discussing EU military operations in the Middle East. It's quite fascinating as you rarely get to sit and watch this kind of thing as if a fly on the wall.The film continues to intrigue as it moves on into other nighttime activities, - following waitresses around the Oktoberfest (presumably in Munich), paramedics picking up an injured person and taking them to hospital, CCTV security operators in London watching a huge wall of monitors, the news teams in the UK, the mail sorting office, the police doing shooting practice on a blue-screen target, a helpline in the Netherlands, a pornstar doing a webcam show in Prague, a crematoriumin Germany, police evacuating hundreds of protesters stopping a train carrying what could be nuclear material, an immigration officer talking to someone who just got denied entrance and has to go back, security guards patrolling a huge boarder fence in Spain and finally a fantastic steadicam shot through a huge rave...You're never told where these places are or given any information other than what you see through the lens so you have to make your own judgements about what's going on and where it might be. This sounds frustrating but it makes the film much more interesting.The location access is impressive and the quality of shots/sound is very good. Although I think this will be mainly appealing to people into documentary/social films, I think it's well worth picking up and leaves you feeling a kind of mix of appreciation and unease of what goes on around Europe whilst you're probably sleeping!