PodBill Just what I expected

BelSports This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

Frances Chung Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

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

Horst in Translation (filmreviews@web.de) "Wolke 9" or "Cloud 9" is a German movie from 2008, so this one will have its 10th anniversary next year. The writer and director is Andreas Dresen, one of Germany's most successful filmmakers and possibly the most successful from the former GDR right now. The title of this movie is a play on words (and numbers) with the German "Wolke 7", where you find people that are in love, so the translation Cloud 9 is not accurate at all as it should be Cloud 10 or 11 perhaps. Anyway, this movie here is about a woman slightly under the age of 70, who has been married for a long time, but falls in love with another man. This has drastic consequences of course on her life, on her husband's life and also on the new guy's life. This film received major awards recognition at several prestigious ceremonies, such as the Cannes Film Festival or the European Film Awards. At the German Film Awards, Dresen won for his direction, Werner won for her lead performance and the movie itself was picked as one of the top three of the year.I personally felt as if this film needed quite a while to get going and become interesting. But from the moment on when her husband finds out about the affair, even if that is already pretty late in the movie, things get better quickly and I was mostly underwhelmed before that. I would also say that i was not too impressed by Werner here. She did what she had to and she wasn't bad, but it was nowhere near such an awards-worthy turn in my opinion. I guess they honored her because of her courage as she is in nude and sex scenes despite her age. The film is much more about the script here than about individual performances. The depiction of life and sexuality above the age of 60 is something that is just not done frequently in film, maybe because many don't find it too much of an interesting, let alone, aesthetic topic. So it's okay that Dresen did it I guess. But being different is not the same as being good, so you should not appreciate a film merely for the reason that it elaborates on a subject that has not been elaborated on that much. You still have to deliver quality. For example there are hundreds of Nazi-themed films out there and occasionally, they still manage to make convincing new ones despite the quantity of films existing already from this corner of the movie genre world.Anyway, all in all, I recommend "Wolke 9" as it was a decent watch and there were no real weaknesses about the film. At 95 minutes, it is already pretty essential, even if it dragged on some occasions in the first half of the film. What I also liked, however, were the musical interruptions here that provided a strong contrast to the more serious scenes that came before or after these. "Freude schöner Götterfunken" is always a joy for sure. I give this movie a thumbs-up, but just a cautious one and I think the awards attention really may have been far too much.

groggo I don't think there is another film in the history of cinema that examines the lives of seniors (including -- gasp! -- their sex lives) with such honesty, poignancy and, yes, accuracy as Wolke Neun (Cloud Nine). Those characters on the screen could be your parents or grandparents, and there they are, still grappling painfully with the problems of love after all these years. This is a powerful film that is about much more than a mere examination of old people f***ing. Despite the typical stress on the (non-explicit) sex, it is a film more about the discovery of first love by a woman well advanced in years, a woman who should have known all this stuff (or so the theory goes) 45 years before. Hats off to director/co-writer Andreas Dresen for giving us this honest, courageous film that can upset and depress you at the same time as it can ultimately uplift you. Ursula Werner provides a shattering, bravura performance as the besieged, 66-year-old Inge, a married woman who is strongly attracted to a man ten years older (Karl, played by Horst Westphal). She engages in an affair with Karl while still proclaiming her love for Werner (Horst Rehberg), her husband of 30 years. Inge cannot understand the startling turn of events, or why they happened, but she discovers she loves Karl.Inge says, again and again: 'I didn't want this!', but the camera forces the viewer to challenge her. This woman has lived a life hidden from herself; she has spent 30 years being protected by Werner, who helped to raise her child. After a sheltered life dotted by drudgery and routine (she goes on aimless train trips to please her train-loving husband; she sings methodically in a church choir), we see Inge coming to the painful realization that she is finally emerging as a real person at the age of 66. She begins to understand, with tortuous internal conflict, what love really is. There is a riveting scene in the film when the sublime Werner (Inge) stands by railroad tracks in cascading rain. With her back to the camera, she screams at the earth (or is it at herself?), then turns and walks towards us: we see then a face of boundless anguish, a face that has realized something for the first time: after all these years, it is, for her, a terrifying and devastating discovery.There are flaws in this film (we know little about Karl or Werner, for example), but I still highly recommend it. This is a first in cinema, an adult film about REAL 'old people,' and we'll probably not see another like it for a long time to come. Finally, seniors in cinema have been given a genuine, authentic voice. It is a tribute to Germany, and perhaps Europe in general, that a film like this could be made. It's a work that would never (repeat, NEVER) be considered in the dumbed-down, juvenile, cartoonish world of Hollywood, which prefers to mass-produce movies that have little to do with the reality and pain of everyday human existence.

Stephan Ortmann Sometimes you watch movies that are pretty empty. Well, this is one of them. A woman falls for another man in an affair that seems to be only motivated by sex. After some arguing, she decides to choose her new boyfriend and leave her husband for 30 years. After that, her husband dies, probably of suicide. (That is really not explained). This all takes a very long time. Except for the songs of a choir, there is not really a soundtrack. This makes it more difficult to understand the emotions and also makes some very long scenes very boring. What stands out for me, is that this woman decides against her love for life even though she still loves him, for a life of sex. And that her daughter agrees with her and even encourages her to continue. If that were my mother, I would certainly advise against a thing like that.While some acting was good, others was not very convincing. I especially think the directing lacked coherence. The use of rain and colors did not clearly add to the meaning of the film. Perhaps, the lack of a score did really make this movie really appear empty. This is reinforced at the end, when the "new" couple hold to each other shortly after the tragic event. All this adds up to a very poor movie. Definitely not recommended if you want to have an enjoying evening.

loker When I saw the summary of the movie with a bright, strong image of the characters, I thought it would be quite exciting to see a movie about a (kind of) love triangle of elder people.I mean, feelings constituted on pity, gratitude, humanity or any other cliché about age really bored... Thus, the possibility of seeing a story about elder people which doesn't care about age itself was exciting.Additionally the strong sex images in the movie made me think the director will open up some provocative conflicts...However, the script was so conventional and straight... Maybe the word shallow can fit here, I don't know... The problem for me was, without the detail of the characters age, there's nothing special in the movie. On the other hand, the concept of age should be totally discarded (so we should be looking for something else?) or discussed... Neither of them was there, so there was just a lack I guess...