The Goethe Institute is currently screening a bunch of new German films in the Festival of German Films 05 including Oliver Hirschbiegel’s Downfall, the last few days of Adolph and his gang in the Fuhrer’s bunker which is getting lots of attention around town, coz… you know, Germans, Nazis… can they do a film without it coming across as apologist propaganda … um, yeah they can actually.
But the film I want to see is Agnes und seine Brüder, Agnes and His Brothers. For all the obvious reasons.
Agnes and His Brothers tells the story of three brothers who couldn’t be any more different from each other: Hans-Jörg (played by German cinema’s hottest male property Moritz Bleibtreu) is a librarian with job-threatening sexual obsessions and uncontrollable voyeuristic urges. Werner (Herbert Knaup) is a smooth and successful politician with a self-confident wife and two sons. But behind the facade of their marriage, the foundation is starting to crack. Then there is Agnes (Martin Weiss), who was born male and changed his gender in the quest for love. Agnes now works his way through the night and the sexual underworld as an exotic dancer.
What each of these radically different siblings has in common is a love-hate relationship with the same man who greatly influenced their lives – their eccentric father. One day, one of them finally breaks free and no-one’s life will be the same again.
