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The Collini Case

Here's a tingling law-based cracker from The German Film Festival just finished here in Perth. It's peppered with European acting royalty - Rainer Bock, Heiner Lauterbach, Alexandra Maria Lara, even Franco Nero, whose imdb list of credits is so long I had to forgo the mouse wheel for the scroll bar. The lead though, is Elyas M'Barek who holds his own in this rarified air, some of his scenes with Lauterbach's Professor Mattinger are electric.

M'Barek plays a novice lawyer (Caspar Leinen) tasked with defending a geezer, Collini (Nero), who has killed a famous businessman. Coincidentally, dead bloke raised Caspar after his parents split and he tries to extract himself from the case. Mattinger, his old college prof, (more coincidence or Berlin is smaller than I remember) convinces him to tough it out and rely on the law to do its thing.

What follows starts out as a simple law case procedural, with childhood romances and nervy, early career stumblings, and soon becomes something a bit grimmer. The Collini Case picks up steam around halfway through and doesn't really pause for corners until the slightly clumsy final scene. But that didn't remove any gloss, as the moments of tension were extremely well set up, kind of rewarding the viewer for putting in the time at the start. The fact that Caspar is half Turkish, an 'other', is no coincidence (fancy that!) and the director, Marco Kreuzpaintner has turned out a film that admirably shines a light on Germany's past while reminding volk that the horrors of history aren't too far removed and maybe not everyone wants to forgive and forget.

See also:

Alexandra Maria Lara was in the fantastic Control (2007), directed by Anton Corbijn, and for a similar feel of creaky, malevolent influence, you can't do much better than Tell No One (2006), directed by Guillaume Canet.

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