Antares (2004)

There is comedy and tragedy, and I enjoyed it. There are beautiful women, and the men are true enough to real life. Cynicism is the theme. Coincidence is the necessary gimmick for tying the three soapers. It is a deep portrayal of modern folkways and mores. Because I as an American had to read subtitles, I missed many nuances. Deceit is certainly omnipresent. Human beings are imperfect, because nothing that I know is without a downside.It's a jungle out here.Human wrecks and car wrecks aren't rare.If you are happy, you ought not fool with cynically minded reviewers a la me, but thanks.It has been an awful 2016, and our new president will soon take power--rots of ruck.. This film is not happy ever after.This film isn't consoling nor redemptive.This film captures some of the absurdity of life, and that's why I like European portrayals of reality.This film is not warm and fuzzy nor phony, and does deserve the recognition it achieved.I am sure it bothers folks because it is so harsh.Unfortunately life is not a fairy tale.Warning, Hollywood corniness it ain't.They want ten lines, so I have to be redundant, and such finagling is about our reality too.

"Antares" is not only a term from astronomy, it is also a Götz Spielmann movie from over 10 years ago. It rose a bit more to prominence lately again because Susanne Wuest plays one of the main characters and she also stars in the pretty popular recent Austrian horror film "Ich seh, Ich seh" by Ulrich Seidl. Anyway, Spielmann is known for this film here, but also for "Revanche", a 2008 drama movie that scored an Oscar nomination and turned Spielmann into one of the most important German-language movie makers if the 21st century."Antares" runs for almost 2 hours and is set in Austria as well. Almost all the actors are from this country and we watch stories about violence, lust, disappointment etc. The focus is really strong on love relationships as the lives of the protagonists are intertwined by (un)happy coincidence. I have to say I don't know any of the other actors, but I thought they all did a solid job, even if there were no real standouts and this description also fits the film as a whole. I never really felt for any of the characters, but maybe that's the idea that they have weaknesses and strengths and yet a truly unique personality and flaws. All in all, I would say that this is inferior to "Revanche", but it is still worth the watch. It is as bleak as most Austrian films these days, but this is by no means a negative characterization, just a description of style. A style that works. I recommend "Antares".

The interlocking sexual relationships here find their unifying metaphor in a minor incident shown in long shot, without emphasis. A man trains his dog to fetch, to heel, to leap up and wrestle for a stick. The man's relationship with his dog replays the issues of control in the three human stories. But the human relationships are all complicated by the power of sexuality. That's why — as the old man with a mysterious disease remarks — people make fools of themselves.The nurse's husband finds his passion in classical music. So she's ripe for a wild affair with a traveling salesman, where they experiment with blindfolding, exhibitionism and an increasingly daring pleasure. Both lovers are overwhelmed by heir sexual connection; they hardly speak. The lover's pleasure in his erotic photos of her contrasts to her husband's walls of classical CDs. They are symptomatically different collectors. His control threatened, the husband erupts when her ostensible night duty interrupts their planned concert, then when a real estate agent stands them up. Their young teen daughter has her own music, to which she practices sultry dancing, exploring her approaching womanhood. The young blonde cashier exercises a different power, faking pregnancy to win her Yugoslavian boyfriend's commitment to marry her. Her fits of anger and jealousy appear to bring him to heel. In fact, he walks her dog as a way to meet his more amenable mistress. But the girl is more damaged and controlled by her moods than her fiancé is, even if he does return after her suicide attempt. His mistress is herself struggling to remain free from her violent, obsessive ex. Swaggering, boastful, pleading love and claiming superior understanding, the real estate agent forces himself on her and punches out his rival. Mercifully, he kills himself in the traffic accident that pulls the separate stories together. He's destroyed by his delusions of manly power, as the blonde is by her manipulative moods that damage her more than her guy. Only the nurse succeeds because — as a healer — she has found what she needs to live fully and follows her prescription. Like her dancing daughter, the nurse uses her sexuality to fulfil herself. The stories are set in an ugly dense housing complex in Vienna. All the stories of animal vitality and the struggle for control play against that dehumanizing setting. Indeed the classical music fan wants to move out, perturbed by the genital graffiti on the elevator walls. His wife finds at least an emotional escape. The violence in all three stories is limned in the title, which suggests the anti-Ares, the opposition to the god of war, the passion of sex and love, which can be as destructive yet more fulfilling. Beats having an obedient dog.

The events here take place in an ugly apartment complex in Vienna. But the exterior ugliness is nothing compared to the rotten people living there. We get to know three couples: a husband and his cheating wife, a very light skinned jealous blonde and her dark-skinned foreign boyfriend whom she makes believe she's pregnant, and a woman trying to break up with her violent husband. If this sounds like it would make for exciting drama, you'd disappointed. This is not a French or Italian movie. Instead we get to watch as these people go about being jerks and they do so rather silently. There isn't all that much dialogue here as the couples clearly don't understand each other and barely understand themselves. And the viewer quickly realizes that this movie will not go anywhere, hence, my reluctance to call them 3 "stories" as nothing really happens. Yes, there's a car crash that frames the entire movies at the beginning and end and given that someone dies in the crash, that opens up the possibility for things unraveling, settling. But that story isn't told here. We don't get to see the motivation for their actions either. The cheating wife, for instance, is engaging in what amounts a series of one night stands with the same man and even though their entire relationship centers on sex, their relationship is presented as if it is fulfilling some deep emotional need for her and yet the two rarely talk to each other. The lying girl, on the other hand, is surely willing to please her boyfriend, yet he cheats on her with an older woman for some reason, even though he seems to be thrilled to become a father. It will turn out that her jealousy is well founded because he is in fact cheating on her. The violent husband, who is also the funniest and most colorful character, is in such denial about their breakup, that episode is somewhat comical, as nothing the woman says can shake his conviction that they are supposed to be together because he loves her. The connections between the characters are somewhat forced and artificial. The cheater is a nurse, the liar is a clerk at a market where the nurse shops and runs into her often while smoking outside somewhere. The foreigner is cheating with the wife of the violent husband and will meet the nurse when his girl tries to commit suicide. Perhaps the one virtue of such a nihilistic movie is that it forces to viewer to seek meaning to fill the void and as such makes you ponder and try to get to the bottom of things or contemplate the possibilities. The DVD includes a great behind-the-scenes feature which is just that and nothing more. Unlike American movies where 10 minutes of behind the scenes is mixed with 20 minutes of movie scenes- as if watching the movie once weren't enough, this one is nothing but behind the scenes. Here you get to meet the director. And things become clearer. An ugly movie about ugly people can only be the product of an ugly man. And the writer/director is one ugly creepy little man. Surprisingly, there's even behind the scenes footage of the sex scenes. It's here of course that we learn all the little details and the meaning of each and what the director is up to. But that doesn't make the movie itself any more watchable. While these are all bad people doing bad things, it would seem that there are no victims, but there are children involved in 2 episodes and that does little to modify the people's behavior. The husband of the cheating wife also seems like an innocent victim here, although there's a scene of him watching his teen daughter for a long time as she dances in her room. That scene could be disturbing depending on how you interpret it, but fortunately, that is not developed.