Grimm Love

I wanted to look away, I tried to walk away, and yet I found myself watching intently. The grisly story unfolds as Russells character investigates a serial killer for her thesis. The more she finds out the more she seems to want to know and the audience is brought along with her. I will not giveaway anything because it would ruin it for anyone. Having never heard of the film I mostly watched it since it was endorsed by Fangoria Magazine and admittedly after watching its obvious why. There is no bright spot in this dark, chilling tale, somewhere halfway thinking how can I continue watching I don't want to know the truth was I did want to know, maybe this frightened me more than the tale itself. Towards the end I was the so engrossed I couldn't stop and had to finish it, and like characters final reaction so was mine.

I can't help but wonder, after reading so many negative reviews, if people really got this movie. Yes, it is a commentary on a depraved culture. But, as the narration points out, the important things are not what makes us different from people like cannibal Oliver Hartwin, but what makes us the same.

As Hartwin, Thomas Kretschmann does a great job in a role that can be described in a mastery of understatement as "difficult." He plays a man who fantasizes about eating human flesh. He finds the yin to his yang in Simon Groembeck (Thomas Huber, equally superb), a man who's veritable truckload of I.S.S.U.E.S. see him abandoning his GQ model boyfriend to be eaten by a guy with a Herman Munster haircut and a predilection for beige. Go figure. They hook up over that great haven for all the demented and depraved - the Internet. Go team!

Kerri Russell narrates the film in a somewhat unnecessary framing device. Quite frankly, what I found most irritating about the film were the most over obvious attempts to sell it internationally - Russell is the known "face" but the majority of the cast is comprised of German actors. Why not film it in German? Why not drop Russell altogether and instead focus on the relationship between the two men? A relationship which is, in its own way, oddly affecting. For as the title implies...this is a love story.

Well, come on. How many movies does Hollywood churn out annually based on the central premise of a woman (once upon a time Meg Ryan, lately her mini-me Reese Witherspoon) and a man (preferably Hugh Jackman but Mark Ruffalo or one of the Wilson brothers in a pinch) who are made for each other? When you really examine it, this film is based around the same premise. These are two men who are, in Russell's own words as she drably narrates, a perfect match. Far too much screen time is given to Russell poking around Hartwin's farm house and looking generally freaked out, at the expense of the developing of the relationship between two true oddballs. This is not monster and victim - these are two lonely men who have found each other, and not nearly enough time is devoted to the why of it all.

In it's look, the film very much honors it's subject matter, to great effect. It is shot mostly in muted tones, yet avoids the trap similar films have fallen into - namely looking too dark and leaving the audience wondering if they need to turn the contrast on their TV up. Very much a 1970s horror movie feel. Clever tricks abound - we see a grisly horror film being enjoyed by Hartwin reflected on his eyeball in an extreme close up, while in an earlier flashback the camera travels under the sheets to watch him reading under his bedclothes as a child. The running time is concise, a mere hour and a half, with the majority of the film's most difficult to watch scenes occurring in the final twenty minutes. There is the odd unexpected moment of black humor - yes, you feel guilty for chuckling - while the bare bones script is stripped of exposition and all the better for it. On the whole it is a well made movie, not what you'd call entertaining, but a worthy watch none the less.

Oh Man...as the Joker said..."Why so serious?".

It all Starts when We are Young. Psychologist generally Say that Our Personalities are, for the most part, Formed in the Beginning Years. The Complexity of the Human Condition takes so many varied Forms that Occasionally it Produces Monsters of all sorts.

Freedom of Expression allows Us to explore and expose these Aberrations for Education and Entertainment purposes. So, there is a Place for the Data no matter how Horrifying. But most who watch this Movie, Arguably, are doing so for some kind of Horror Movie Thrill. Good luck.

The Film is presented in such a Serious, Deep Deconstruction and is so well done that the Entertainment Value is Vacant and what We are left with is Guilt for Watching, and Sympathy for the Maladjusted Men who are Convinced in that the only way to show a Connection with Humanity is through an Exchange of Material Matter with Sexual Perversion of the most Extreme.

As these Carnivores Consume and Consummate their Love it proves to Them that this is the Ultimate Love. But, this places Them in the Unnatural Selection of the Specie...Categorically...Inhuman.

If Your Party or Gathering is Over and You have Unwanted Lingering Guests. Put this Movie on and it is Guaranteed to Clear the Room. If it does not, go to the Kitchen and start Frying up some Meat. If the Guests are still there...Dial 911. But I Digest...I mean Digress.

Before writing the review, i have to state that i already know of knew what i was getting my self into. Learned about this case ages ago, and ive seen like 2 years ago the movie Cannibal from 2006, so i already had knew what is coming up.

The movie could of been much better. Main issue is the sub plot of Katie. That whole subplot does not fit here. Instead of focusing on our main characters, Kati gets the most development, and her only purpose in the film is to watch this urban tape.

Second problem is that the movie is extremely confusing. The beginning, where we see our two prime characters growing up, it's really hard to follow. You get mixed up who are we following, are following Oliver or are we following the victim, or The Flesh.

I am shocked how tame this was compared to the Marian Dora's film, which is in every way effect wise superior over this movie. If you want to truly see how horrific this case is, i'd strongly advise the Marian Dora film.

I think if this movie did not have Katie's sub-plot, we'd have a more interesting watch. I think the whole purpose of Katie's role is that she gets so traumatized that she breaks the tape. That was the point that she breaks the tape. But if you are sensitive to human depravity, why study criminology? Why pick this case as your lead subject matter? Why is she obsessed with this case in the first place? Nothing is really explained there, she just seems completely forced into this movie.

Camera work is great, the acting seems okay, music is morbid hunting, the effects are tame as hell and when i heard about this movie, i thought it was going to be as graphic and hard core as Marian Dora's film was. But no, no where near Marian Dora's level.

This movie however was informative in some aspects, how both of the men lost their mothers, how both are lonely in a way, how both fantasized about this for years now.

I think i have to rewatch this movie mostly because of the first half.

This was inspired by the real life case of Armin Meiwes who put an ad over an Internet site looking for a willing victim to be slaughtered and their flesh consumed. What made the case so unusual was he was not only serious but another man named Bernd Jurgen Brandes obliged apparently without being physically forced as a share of the event was captured on videotape. "Grimm Love" is a tale that paces as a dark narrative drama with a fictional college student named Katie Armstrong, played by Keri Russell, returning to where these two lived in Germany in an attempt to get inside their heads for a research paper.

Instead of concentrating on horror and shock, the filmmakers switch back and forth between the present with Ms. Armstrong and also in the past with the two men who eventually meet up in a kind of twisted, interconnected fate. Oliver (based on Meiwes) is shown as far back as adolescence with his father leaving, trouble fitting in at school, as well as having no life apart from taking care of his ailing mother. He's alone and looking for companionship, though his way of connecting with people isn't hugs, kisses or long conversations, but instead a longing fixation of consuming the flesh of someone special to feel stimulation and closeness.

Simon (based on Brandes) is a homosexual who fears showing his feelings in public out of misunderstandings and ridicule. He has severe depression and searches for a sense of belonging through some normal and not so normal ways. He looks at extreme fetishes on an Internet chatroom as a way of feeling alive from a life that never accepted him. In 2003, Gay Chinese actor/composer Leslie Cheung was successful but still committed suicide by jumping off a building, likewise Simon also has things going for him, though it's too much and he wants to meet his end with symbolism that directly "severs" ties with his burdensome sexuality that gives him a guilt complex from his mother's suicide at an early age.

Dodging the pulse-pounding route of "Silence of the Lambs," this comes across more like "Kalifornia" by hearing the thoughts and experiences as they come through with narration. It also flows as slow as Cronenberg's "Spider" in an attempt at an on-the-surface character study of these atypical individuals' thought processes and motivations. Though the college student's montages about how these two men affect her take up extra screen time away from finding out more. There are metaphors and poetic wordings interspliced to sway the audience towards deep sympathy for these two fractured individuals. Sometimes making you think with introspection, but at other times being desperate to make a point and forcing their way in, like some of Keri Russells' obvious voice overs instead of letting the camera do the talking.

"Grimm Love" isn't going to be like watching a biopic on the History Channel by just stating the events as is, as the filmmakers are doing select reporting to be more convincing towards a certain compassionate, sentimental way of thinking than letting your own thoughts flow free. To some it's going to be touching, to others it's going to be sympathy for the devil. The heavy leaning towards the first here can take away from the experience as it feels written with a prior agenda in mind, not to mention before all things were considered in the case as the real events took place in only 2001 and an overturned verdict came in 2006 when this came out. I like the angle of diving into their background even if it breaks psychology down for the layman, though this would have worked better as a biography with anecdotes from relatives, friends and experts. Or if a story is to be had, something like the route taken with "Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer," where the director of that film said he feels that he shouldn't have to decide a stance for the viewer, that that's up to them.

This isn't an exploitation film that takes advantage of real events such as "Men Behind the Sun" did, as it's more suggestive than showing candid nudity and bodily infliction like "Cannibal" about the same events. Though by the time it closes--right after the infamous scenario between the men that's akin to the real life events in "In the Realm of the Senses"--it can't seem to decide what it wanted to be. In the beginning and middle it was going out of its way to reason with the audience that these guys aren't just a couple of kooks with mental issues like the media sensationalized. Though by its close they left the story up in the air and ambiguous with the young woman being either deeply moved or having a change of heart. It makes me believe she was only included as a ploy for the writers to speak through her and then at the end decided it was time enough to let the audience choose. Not to mention at an inopportune time as it ends abruptly and doesn't show what happened next. (See my profile and click chronological for the second review of "Cannibal" or the third review "Downloading Nancy.") (Also submitted on http://fromblacktoredfilmreviews.blogspot.com/)