Horst in Translation (filmreviews@web.de)
"Karl Marx City" or "Karl Marx Stadt", the old no longer existing name of a German city, is a German 2016 film that runs for 1.5 hours almost and scored a solid amount of awards recognition for writers and director Epperlein and Tucker and for the former it is a family affair really as we find out about a woman's journey into the past life of her deceased father and what caused him to commit suicide at the end of the old millennium. The film is partially in black-and-white, but more from a historic than aesthetic perspective. Large parts of the movie are in English, the rest in German, so maybe I'd even call it an English-language documentary and maybe you will even need subtitles. Most of the film is about GDR references and how they had an impact on the dead man's life back then. Surveillance and espionage is as much of a subject as resistance here all in the frame of the history of one family. I personally think it will be difficult for wide audiences to feel involved in this one, partially because of how bleak and slow-moving it is, but also because with this one it is probably to have your own history and connection with the GDR in order to really appreciate the film. The thing I liked the most was one female narrator in this one and she had a really good voice that may not have fit the context and contents entirely, but still elevated the material every time we could hear her. Overall, this is a priceless addition to the family history of the people depicted in there, but for general audiences this hardly makes an impact and with the exception of a few moments (not enough for the runtime), I found it mostly forgettable. Watch something else instead.
