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Dom Robinson reviews
Tartan Video
- Cert:
- Cat.no: TVD 3664
- Running time: 123 minutes
- Year: 2005
- Pressing: 2007
- Region(s): 0, PAL
- Chapters: 16 plus extras
- Sound: DTS 5.1, Dolby Digital 5.1, Dolby Surround
- Languages: German
- Subtitles: English
- Widescreen: 2.35:1 (Hawk Scope)
- 16:9-Enhanced: Yes
- Macrovision: No
- Disc Format: DVD 9
- Price: £19.99
- Extras: Trailer, Interviews, Alan Jones’ Film Notes, Making Of
Director:
- Christian Alvart
(Antibodies, Case 39, Curiosity & The Cat, Killer Queen)
Producers:
- Theo Baltz and Boris Schönfelder
Screenplay:
- Christian Alvart
Original Score :
- Michi Britsch
Cast :
- Michael Martens: Wotan Wilke Möhring
Gabriel Engel: André Hennicke
Seiler: Heinz Hoenig
Rosa Martens: Ulrike Krumbiegel
Christan Martens: Hauke Diekamp
Sucharzewski: Jürgen Schornagel
Bosowski: Klaus Zmorek
Lucy: Nina Proll
Lucia Flieder: Isabel Bongard
Gabriel Engel (André Hennicke) is multiple killer, and some of his victims were children.
He seems to think nothing of his acts and even fills his days as an artist who paints in his apartment withtheir blood, leading to a blood-stained art collection that would make even Damien Hirst blush.Capturing him will not be a piece of cake, but once it’s done that’s far from the end of the story.
Back in a remote village, cop Michael Martens (Wotan Wilke Möhring – left in picture with Hennicke, who looks like a youngBob Peck, from around the time of Edge of Darkness, and they’re both of similar age in theirrespective roles) is a man not much liked much by the locals.
He’s tasked with going to the city to help interview the suspect with Seiler (Heinz Hoenig), aworld-weary cop who’s heard about the good work Martens did in the case of a murdered girl back in hishometown and thinks he can get the truth out of Engel. However, this means leaving his farm behindand the forthcoming harvest. The alternative – sharing the work with the community means sharing whatthey reap, and they can’t afford to give any of it away.
However, helping convict the self-confessed child killer will help him regain his respect withinthe community, given the disdain his father-in-law has of him which has been the main cause ofhis tarnished reputation, but first he needs the man to talk about his crimes. And, in a Manhunter-stylesituation, their relationship – for want of a better word – he hopes will help bring a resolutionto the murder of the girl.
Antibodies is a great tense drama and it’s easy to see why it won a clutch of awards includinga Best Actor for Wotan Wilke Möhring (seeIMDB.com),but what any critically-acclaimed foreign film can do well, Hollywood always thinks it can do betterand no doubt they’ll try to remake this. If they do, the only one who’ll do the evil role of Engeljustice, if they’re going for a lookalike, will be Robert Knepper who plays T-Bag in PrisonBreak.
There’s an atmospheric use of the entire 2.35:1 frame (and note the back cover incorrectly statesthe ratio is 1.85:1 which could put off some potential purchasers) which means there’s no point watchingthis film in anything less than its original ratio and here it looks fantastic. There’s intriguing use ofthe camera so things appear in the frame when you didn’t expect them at first and the opening creditsbrilliantly appear behind and in front of certain aspects of the titles. It’s very clever.
The DTS 5.1 sound is good and suitably haunting in terms of the atmosphere it creates when required, butit doesn’t give your system any kind of a workout.
The extras are brief, sadly. First up is a B-roll (3:56), which is just 4:3 footage of some keyscenes being filmed; then a Trailer (1:49) in letterbox 2.35:1 and, finally, some well-chapteredQ&A Interviews with the director (17:51), who speaks in English, and shorter ones for the two leadactors who play Gabriel Engel (4:14) and Michael Martens (2:18).
The main menu features a small, repetitive piece of the haunting theme from the film, there are Englishsubtitles available as an option so it’s good that they’re not burned into the print – although that’sa rarity on DVD these days, and the 16 chapters featured here is not enough for a 2-hour movie as thefirst one, for example, lasts over 12 minutes and a later one lasts 13£minutes. Who does thechaptering on some DVDs thesedays? It can’t be the same guy who did them for the interviews on the extrassince they’re on a per-question basis, so that person knows his onion. Surely, during a film, these shouldbe no longer than 5 minutes apiece.
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Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.