Liebestraum (1991)

Beautiful, moving film.

Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

It is encouraging that the film ends so strongly.Otherwise, it wouldn't have been a particularly memorable film

Based on some recommendations, I bought this film and made sure to get the director's cut because everyone says there is necessary info in it.But skip this one and go straight to Kenneth Branagh and Emma Thompson in Dead Again if you want an overall better movie.This plot was okay, but highly predictable in almost all respects EXCEPT I'll stipulate that there was at least one really gross moment (involves a tongue), one really freaky/scary moment (involves a wheelchair), and I didn't guess correctly who was the killer. Which elevates it above a lot of movies.I still liked Dead Again better. Pamela Gidley was okay, but I couldn't get past her being the robot in Cherry 2000, the hero was okay but I think he is that same guy with Julia Roberts in Sleeping With the Enemy (kind of the poor movie's Brad Pitt) and the usually reliable Bill Pullman was kinda wasted here.P.S. Okay, I'm going to go in-depth a bit here about why the hospital wheelchair scene was so freaky to me. This movie is about something very intense that happened in the past working itself out again in the present through mostly reincarnated people. However, some of the people in the present were alive when the original events happened and have a stake in seeing that the past remains covered up or perhaps still feel tremendous jealousy/rage etc. at the reincarnated characters although they don't know why.The Store manager in the past was reincarnated as Nick (the store manager was in fact Nick's biological father and his soul apparently still felt a tremendous pull towards his pregnant wife even though (or perhaps because) they had a problematic relationship of infidelity and intense jealous rage) and the Blonde Rich woman was reincarnated as Jane. Ah, but some of you may disagree because the blonde woman didn't die in the past, she only became completely brain dead in the higher functions although able to live with constant care and no need for a respirator due to no damage to her brain stem where the autonomic bodily funtions reside (breathing, regulation of heart rate, blood pressure etc.)And that is why I found the scene where the brain dead blonde woman is in close proximity with Jane so disturbing. If her soul left her when her consciousness died (although her body lived on) and was reincarnated as Jane, then you have a soul-less brain dead body violently reacting involuntarily due to being near the soul it once had. I found that just freaky as all get out and something I had never seen in a reincarnation type movie before or since.

Mike Figgis wrote and directed this woefully pretentious claptrap about a young writer (Kevin Anderson, in a wholly uncompelling performance) who becomes obsessed with a landmark building about to be torn down. That impossible title refers to a piece of music which was playing in the building the night a mysterious crime took place (it was a crime of passion, yet there's no passion in the leading character, and nothing for the viewer to become involved in). Figgis gets amusingly flashy with this scenario, but it's certainly no threat to "Vertigo"--even with Kim Novak cast in a completely thankless role of a bed-ridden hospital patient. Empty all the way. * from ****

This film is a unique combination of film noir, an object (building) as the leading character, comedy, and horror. It works.Except for one thing - the sound. You cannot understand most of what they say. Not to say that this was a cheap cheesy flick with bad sound - this was a decent production. Either the sound was accidentally bad, or the Brit director did what they often do over there - make films with poor sound quality. I mean, the voices are muffled (poor frequency response of the equipment or setup) and the mikes are too far from the actors. For years, I thought it was just that I could not follow the British accent, but friends with whom I have watched several British films concur. It is a national trait. It's the same with Vera Drake.British TV productions that they show on US networks have good sound. It's British produced/directed feature films that sport bad sound.Rent this one, but turn your hearing aid up or use the subtitles.

A piece of advice:the very same year,Kenneth Branagh made a movie with a similar subject:"dead again" featuring himself ,Emma Thompson and Andy Garcia.So avoid Mike Figgis's aborted attempt :what he tries to do,Branagh pulls it off with gusto.What's lacking here is a strong screenplay:an ominous music is intriguing and we often think that the movie is about to get off the ground:it never does and the more it's complicated ,the more it's disappointing (why for instance does the hero hear lovers making love in the bedroom next to his?)Bill Pullmann tries his best in the first part to give his character substance but to no avail.A wasted Kim Novak "spends most of the film bedridden in a gloomy hospital" (Maltin).The drunken sheriff has the longest micturition in the history of cinema.