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 with
their 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 young
Bob Peck, from around the time of Edge of Darkness, and they're both of similar age in their
respective 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), a
world-weary cop who's heard about the good work Martens did in the case of a murdered girl back in his
hometown and thinks he can get the truth out of Engel. However, this means leaving his farm behind
and the forthcoming harvest. The alternative - sharing the work with the community means sharing what
they 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 within
the community, given the disdain his father-in-law has of him which has been the main cause of
his tarnished reputation, but first he needs the man to talk about his crimes. And, in a
Manhunter-style
situation, their relationship - for want of a better word - he hopes will help bring a resolution
to the murder of the girl.
Antibodies is a great tense drama and it's easy to see why it won a clutch of awards including
a Best Actor for Wotan Wilke Möhring (see
IMDB.com),
but what any critically-acclaimed foreign film can do well, Hollywood always thinks it can do better
and no doubt they'll try to remake this. If they do, the only one who'll do the evil role of Engel
justice, if they're going for a lookalike, will be Robert Knepper who plays T-Bag in Prison
Break.
There's an atmospheric use of the entire 2.35:1 frame (and note the back cover incorrectly states
the ratio is 1.85:1 which could put off some potential purchasers) which means there's no point watching
this film in anything less than its original ratio and here it looks fantastic. There's intriguing use of
the camera so things appear in the frame when you didn't expect them at first and the opening credits
brilliantly 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, but
it 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 key
scenes being filmed; then a Trailer (1:49) in letterbox 2.35:1 and, finally, some well-chaptered
Q&A Interviews with the director (17:51), who speaks in English, and shorter ones for the two lead
actors 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 English
subtitles available as an option so it's good that they're not burned into the print - although that's
a rarity on DVD these days, and the 16 chapters featured here is not enough for a 2-hour movie as the
first one, for example, lasts over 12 minutes and a later one lasts 13£minutes. Who does the
chaptering on some DVDs thesedays? It can't be the same guy who did them for the interviews on the extras
since they're on a per-question basis, so that person knows his onion. Surely, during a film, these should
be no longer than 5 minutes apiece.
As of April 2009, Blu-rays and DVDs reviewed by the editor are watched on a Panasonic TH-37PX80B
37" Plasma TV with a Sony BDP-1500 Blu-ray player and played through a Yamaha DSP-AX820 amplifier.
PC games reviewed by the editor are on:
Since Jan 2011: Intel Quad Core Dell XPS 8100, i7 CPU 860 @ 2.80Ghz, 8Gb RAM, nVidia GeForce GTS 240, Windows 7
Since Nov 2005: Intel Pentium D 830 3.0Ghz, 1Gb RAM, 128Mb nVidia GeForce 6700XL, Windows XP
Since Aug 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.66Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb GeForce4 MX440 graphics, Windows XP
Since May 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.6Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb ATI Radeon 9600TX graphics, Windows XP
Since Jun 2002: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, 64Mb ATI Radeon 8500LE
Since May 2000: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, Voodoo 3 3000 AGP
Gabriel Engel (André Hennicke) is multiple killer, and some of his victims were children.