Am Freitag ich watched der Film Lola rennt mit mein Klassenkamerad und Freund, Luke Bruski! I saw the film once already, vor zwei Jahren, wann ein anderer Freund lived in Max Kade Haus. It's incredible that ich verstehe so viele Worte, nach so wenig Zeit in die Deutsch-Klasse.
Oft höre ich meinen Lieblingslied aus den Film, "Running Three" von Franka Potente et al:
The movie is very intense - just like the first time I saw it, I was super into it the whole time and was happy to be surprised at many turns. Though I haven't seen many, European films seem to break out of the usual story line of American movies. European directors seem less afraid of offending audiences with gore or taboo subjects - but perhaps this is because Europeans are more frank about those topics to begin with. Amélie, a French movie, is just plain weird.
Oddly, America is often portrayed as the arms-wide-open, come-as-you-are country... and while for many things this is true, our policies aren't always the most freundlich. We're uptight about some very specific things - as are the Europeans, about different things. Consider, for example, nuclear power in Germany. It is not receiving a warm welcome, to put it mildly. But on the other hand, many Germans are very forthright about, say, sexual orientation. In the US we have existing power plants from the '80s and a good number more are going through the licensing process, but we're certainly apprehensive. And goodness knows we're having trouble figuring out 'that gay thing.' Adding still another issue, there's American freedom-of-religion-except-Islam attitude. (I'm generalizing here; obviously many of us are fine with Islam, and much of the paranoia evolved from a very violent attack, but the fact that Islam runs into restrictions that other religions don't is significant.) The French, for their part, generate over 80% of their power using nuclear plants but also take issue with Muslims, for very different reasons. In short, we all pick and choose what we're cool with and what makes us cringe.
I believe I started this with movies, so I'll finish with movies. Watch a few European movies, not even just German, and check out how they differ from the American mold, in which the plot has clear-cut good and evil characters and nearly always resolves with a happy ending. It's easy to think European movies are "creative" for doing something other than that... but maybe it's just what European audiences expect.
