The Microscope (1987)
Summer films for subtitle fans
European film fest starts rolling today
Representing West Germany at the festival Sunday is the "Forms of Love" trilogy, in which writer-director Rudolf Thome offers interesting views on relationships between men and women in contemporary Berlin. Though the stories are a bit uneven, they're enhanced by the intriguing presence of Adriana Altaras, a saucy, dynamic young actress who stars in different roles in each of the three films - "The Microscope," "The Philosopher" and "Seven Women."
3 p.m.: "The Microscope" (West Germany, 98 minutes). The first film in Rudolf Thome's "Forms of Love" trilogy is the most incisive. It's a comedy-drame chronicling the ups and downs in the relationship of an unmarried couple (Adriana Altaras, Vladimir Weigl). When she tries to persuade him that they should have a child, he escapes the controversy by becoming preoccupied with his new aquarium and microscope. Their struggles to settle their differences and accept new responsibilities are presented intelligently, realistically and with low-key wit and irony.
6:30 p.m.: "The Philosopher" (West Germany, 83 minutes). The second installment of Thome's trilogy is a lively romantic fantasy about a gangly young ghilosopher (Johannes Herrschmann) whose introverted and virginal existence is forever changed when he meets three seductive young women (Adriana Altaras, Friederike Tiefenbacher, Claudia Matschulla) who run a chic men's clothing store. After accepting an invitation to share their airy apartment, the naive young man learns about life and love from these doting women, who are actually Greek goddesses in disguise.
8.30 p.m.: "Seven Women" (West Germany, 90 minutes). The final part of Thome's trilogy, a meandering Comedy-drama in need of a lighter touch, reteams Johannes Herrschmann and Adriana Altaras in different roles. It's the story of a young man (Herrschmann) who discovers his late banker father may have left him a fortune. Before he can get the money he must solve a tricky computer puzzle his father left him and try to ward off his father's enemies. Fortunately he's well looked after by his next-door neighbors, the seven women of the title - grandmother, mother and five daughters - and finds himself attracted to two of the daughters - a feisty karate expert (Altaras) and the sophisticated oldest daughter (Elisabeth Zuendel).
By Robin Deemer in Weekend Plus, Long Beach, California, June 15, 1990
THE MICROSCOPE
The first film in West German writer-director Rudolf Thome's "Forms of Love" trilogy establishes a tone of earnest romanticism leavened with wry wit perfectly suited for its tale of amorous obduracy.
The film opens with the fracturing of a longtime romance between the ardently in-love Maria (Adriana Altaras) and her computer-programmer lover Franz (Vladimir Weigl). The somewhat dry Franz is definitely in love with Maria, but her talk about children has frightened him off, and he tries to sublimate his desire in a madly intensive interest in home aquaria and a casually sexy romance with Tina (Malgoscha Gebel), a woman he meets on the street.
Maria, however, is not one to give up easily, and she outflanks Franz by befriending Tina and refusing to be brushed off.
Though Maria's story takes up much of the external action, Thome is equally interested in Franz's internal drama. For Thome, Franz's scientific and intellectualized hobbies are merely hopeless male gambits to escape a romantic nature that is by rights as warm and affectionate as any woman's, and when Franz trades in his fish tanks for a microscope and becomes engaged by the mating habits of single-cell organisms, the game is up.
Thome is a critic of sexism, not because women have been denied their fair credit for "male" characteristics - Maria, despite modern trappings, is a classic cinematically romantic woman -- but because men haven't had sufficient justice done to their ”female” side.
The film preaches a gospel of equally, submissive susceptibility, an iffy proposition made palatable by its warm, good spirits and regular flashes of psychological insight, (3 p.m. Sunday)
Henry Sheehan in Hollywood Reporter, June 15, 1990
The Microscope. A curious film, both reluc-tantly modern and longingly old-fashioned. Franz (Vladimir Weigl), a computer programmer deeply in love with his longtime girl friend, Maria (Adriana Altaras), is frightened off by her talk of children. Burying himself in semiscientific hobbies, first fish tanks, then a microscope, he finds himself drawn with increasing passivity back from science and into the world of amour. This is the initial entry in German writer-director Rudolf Thome's Forms of Love trilogy, and it sets a thematic pattern of men bamboozled by their own delusory interest in "male” pursuits - mostly science - into ignoring what they think of as their "female”, romantic sides. This reversal - making men as passionately, if reluctantly, in love with love as women are traditionally supposed to be - is more than merely a clever conceit with Thome; he uses it to upset a host of male assumptions. However, things have a way of working themselves out so that the man always gets the upper hand, perhaps the inevitable result of directorial prerogative. (HS)
(AFI European Fest, Sun at 3) RRR
The Philosopher. Rudolf Thome's second entry in his Forms of Love trilogy uses a brittle - sense of philosophical irony to gently undermine an old-time male fantasy. Unfortunately, the irony itself is a rather one-edged slash at the notion of any comprehensive philosophy that can encompass the vagaries of love, while the fantasy emerges gloriously triumphant. However, Thome tells his story of an unworldly young philosopher (Johannes Herrschmann) who has an impossibly rewarding, demandingly uncomplicated run-in with three sexy and affectionate women (Adriana Altaras, Friederike Tiefenbacher, Claudia Matschulla), with enough panache to make it palatable - no, make that downright enjoyable. (HS)
(AFI European Fest, Sun at 6:30) RRI/2
Los Angeles Reader, June 15, 1990