"Wer früher stirbt ist länger tot" or "Grave Decisions" is a German 100-minute movie from almost 10 years ago. It is the first full feature film by Marcus H. Rosenmüller and also his most famous work to this day. In the center of it, we have an 11-year-old boy whose mother died when he was born. As a consequence of this, he blames himself and tries to find out if he is really responsible for killing people. This sounds pretty serious, but this film is really more of a (sometimes dark) comedy than a drama movie. Rosenmüller included many funny scenes to make this a lighter watch I guess, but in my opinion it is not working, because the comedy in here feels forced from start to finish, just like I said to make this a lighter watch. But it almost never feels authentic or genuinely funny. One of the worst scenes is probably when we see and hear the protagonist at the supermarket. For no real reason, he confesses also his other sins and his dad completely out of nowhere starts attacking another guy who was just standing around, a complete stranger. This also worked against the intention of the filmmakers to make the father look likable from start to finish.
Sometimes this film also has love story elements when the boy's dad falls in love with his son's teacher. Unfortunately, none of their scenes have any real emotion attached to them, but are just poor flesh lust and strange meetings during nighttime. Of course, right at this meeting they get caught by the children. And still we are supposed to believe this is true love, in contrast to the marriage that the teacher has been in for a while. Some very weird scenes in here. The film's biggest weakness is probably the writing. It's a usual case of black-and-white character with little depth and no shades at all. Do not be fooled by this film's high IMDb rating or all the awards attention it got, came in second behind "Four Minutes" at the German Film Awards that year. This is not a good film at all, neither funny nor dramatically convincing. if you still want to watch it, you may even need a set of subtitles as a German native speaker as the Bavarian accents in here are very thick. But why would you? You''re not missing much. Not recommended.
Sometimes this film also has love story elements when the boy's dad falls in love with his son's teacher. Unfortunately, none of their scenes have any real emotion attached to them, but are just poor flesh lust and strange meetings during nighttime. Of course, right at this meeting they get caught by the children. And still we are supposed to believe this is true love, in contrast to the marriage that the teacher has been in for a while. Some very weird scenes in here. The film's biggest weakness is probably the writing. It's a usual case of black-and-white character with little depth and no shades at all. Do not be fooled by this film's high IMDb rating or all the awards attention it got, came in second behind "Four Minutes" at the German Film Awards that year. This is not a good film at all, neither funny nor dramatically convincing. if you still want to watch it, you may even need a set of subtitles as a German native speaker as the Bavarian accents in here are very thick. But why would you? You''re not missing much. Not recommended.