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SpuffyWeb Sadly Over-hyped

AnhartLinkin This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

InformationRap This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

Horst in Translation (filmreviews@web.de) "Homo Faber" is a German movie from 1991 directed by Oscar winner Volker Schlöndorff, but this time he did not write it, but let Rudy Wurllitzer do the adapting of Max Frisch' novel. Schlöndorff's most known movie are all based on works from famous authors and this one here is no exception. The cast includes Oscar nominee Sam Shepherd, who looks like taken right out of a Hitchcock or film noir movie, Julie Delpy, probably the most stunning, most natural and most beautiful actress out there in the early 90s and Barbara Sukowa, who is a really weak actress usually with her constant overacting, but bearable in here, even if the European Film Award nomination is an utter joke.The story is about a man, who on a business trip falls in love with a much younger woman. After some initial struggles about how (even if) a relationship may work out, the two are truly happy, but luck may not be on the protagonist's side this time after early on he survives a plane crash without any injuries. He seems to be very cold and calculating, but when he meets Delpy's character, he offers us and his love a totally new side, emotional and caring until the ghosts from his past come back to haunt him. Won't go any further into detail to avoid major spoilers, but this was such an unrealistic development, but I guess Frisch had it in his base material, so they had to include it here too. Also everything before he meets Delpy's character is fairly forgettable to me and I could have done without it, even if the film may not have crossed the 90-minute mark this way. Overall, despite occasional criticisms, I thought this was a really good watch for the most part and I can definitely recommend checking this one out. Oh yeah, you may also find it under the title "Voyager".

stingray_b5 The Voyager is in fact a drama that happens to use the novel Homo Faber by Max Frisch as its backdrop. The director picked the main three characters and boiled down the plot to its essence which takes the viewer on a globe spanning journey of coincidences and places its main protagonist Walter Faber who is an engineer who doesn't believe in fate squarely in front of his past and down a spiral to the destruction of the life of his own daughter. Certain aspects of the movie come across as far fetched because the viewer cannot benefit from the additional information available to the reader of the book. On the other hand the movie brings across the immediacy of the tragic events much closer to home and resonate with a receptive audience. The novel and this movie try to show that life cannot be reduced to a simple formula and that the mind is not equipped to deal with the matters of the heart. In that the Voyager succeeds in translating the core of the plot. Students of the novel will of course be disappointed because the director had to cut out many scenes and aspects of the book. With that in mind we are still left with a movie that should get some emotions flowing.

lakeidamike I thought this picture was nothing short of just plain creepy. I've never read the book and doubt that I ever will. But the whole idea of a man through a series of accidents having intercourse with his daughter is pretty nauseating. The story line, as creepy as it is, is extremely far-fetched to the point of silliness. I felt as though I was watching something almost as facile as "Somewhere in Time." One other point: if a director is intent on making a movie set in another decade, in this case the late 50's, I wish he would take some care to watch over some of the small details. The street scenes in New York are full of modern day cars. Worse yet, there is a scene in which baseball scores are heard over a radio involving the Angels, the Blue Jays and the Royals--none of which were major league teams in the time this story is set in.

b-gaist I saw this when it came out. All I can say, is I still remember the basic plot, and the cinematography. Walter Faber is paradigmatic as the post WWII individual, still blindly devoted to the goddess of Reason in his personal attitude to life, but beset by the unconscious flood of irrational experience: a real example of Carl Jung's warning that what is not made conscious will be lived out as destiny. It is overall a wonderful, understated film, beautifully directed and shot, representing in a gentle way what European directors (and all directors) should concentrate more on - literature, myth, relationship, culture. It's only fault, if I recall correctly, was that it was not longer and deeper, because it really could have been a great film. Go ahead and watch it!