GAY
FILM REVIEWS BY MICHAEL D. KLEMM
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GAY
FILM REVIEWS BY MICHAEL D. KLEMM
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Four
Minutes Wolfe Video, Director/Screenplay:
Starring: Unrated, 112 minutes |
Deutschland
Prison Blues
Four Minutes is an odd but compelling film that manages to breathe new life into the old, hoary chestnut about the elderly music teacher and the young and gifted, but free-willed and undisclipined, pupil. In this case, the student is actually sociopathic; she is a young inmate in a woman's penitentiary. Her teacher is an aged lesbian who has taught piano at the prison since the second World War; she is haunted by memories of the woman she once loved and by her failure to save her from being executed by the Nazis. This recent German film won national trophies for best picture and best actress and, according to imdb.com, has racked up a lot of other awards at festivals all over the world. |
 Hannah
Herzsprung plays Jenny Von Loeben, a young and deranged punk rebel who is
doing time for murder. Jenny is a former child piano prodigy; she is sullen,
she bites her hands, she has a bad habit of beating up cellmates and the
occasional guard. The old pianist, Traude Krueger (Monica Bleibtreu), is
a lonely old spinster who expects perfection from everyone around her. She
has been unable, for decades, to move past the trauma she suffered during
the war. She continues to work in the same prison where she toiled as a
wartime nurse, and she still plays the same music that she once taught to
her lost beloved. |
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 When
Traude initially refuses to take Jenny as a student because of the condition
of her hands, Jenny loses her temper and beats Mutze, the attending guard,
almost to death. She then assaults the piano and the prison echoes with
the sounds of the young woman's frenzied jazz improvisations. There is blood
on the keys when she is dragged away by the Sort Team. While fleeing the
scene, Traude is stunned by the girl's performance and recognizes her prodigious
talent. She convinces the Warden to allow Jenny to participate in a national
piano competition and he agrees because of the positive media this will
generate for the prison. |
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Traude lays down a number of rules. One of them is obedience. Jenny refuses to be her "whimpering slave" but then gives in and, upon command, eats the letter of apology that she had written. Will Jenny eventually thaw the old woman's icy demeanor? To be honest, not really. If this was a big Hollywood release, Traude would probably turn into Mrs. Doubtfire by the film's end. Or why not Mary Poppins? I'll take edgy over saccharine anyday. The power struggle between them is interesting and it doesn't follow any of the standard movie formulas. |
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 There
are also, of course, the underlying lesbian vibes. Brief flashbacks establish
almost immediately Traude's wartime love affair, leading the audience to
believe that she might be attracted to her student. But if she is
- aside from the occasional sidelong glance - she sure isn't showing it
unless she's channeling her feelings as a dominatrix. It's difficult to
read Jenny, she seems almost asexual while simultaneously amoral. Yet there
is a tender, and unexpected, moment when a handcuffed Jenny throws her arms
over her teacher to dance with her. There will be fireworks between the
two, even violence but, despite all this, their musical bond appears unshakable. |
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 Four
Minutes
is, at times, an intense drama but there is a touch of the quirky and the
offbeat to the way the story is told. Scenes that should be serious are
often quietly funny instead - look for the unexpected, the understated and
the grimly wry. For example, there is a subplot involving the hapless prison
guard named Mutze who was beaten senseless by Jenny in the piano classroom.
When he returns to work, he abuses his power and makes Jenny's life miserable
but, instead of coming off like one of the guards on HBO's
OZ, he's more like a 40-something Sergeant Schultz from TV's Hogan's
Heroes. These broad strokes prevent the tale from getting melodramatic
and the clashing storytelling styles almost create a new genre onto itself.
Look for an odd touch from Hal Ashby's classic 1971 Harold and Maude's
opening sequence made manifest at the film's beginning when Jenny awakes
in her bunk to discover that her cellmate hanged herself - right behind
her - while she slept through it. Unfazed, she fishes through the dead woman's
pockets and lights a cigarette that she finds there. |
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 Friction
between Jenny and her fellow inmates adds to the tension but, thankfully,
Four Minutes never turns into
a dykesploitation prison melodrama and there are no gratuitous catfights
or butch, overweight, predatory matrons lording it over her plebes. A subplot
involving Jenny's adoptive, and abusive, father adds more third act drama
but it's a bit forced and distracts from the central dynamic. The film's
best scenes focus on the interplay between the two ladies and writer/director
Chris Kraus finds subtle humor in the strangest places. The discomfort on
Traude's face when she is forced to swap clothes with Jenny, and reluctantly
dons her student's punkish attire, is priceless. It is a foregone conclusion
that Jenny will make it to the musical finals and her exhibition at the
piano in the film's final four minutes is nothing short of electric. It's
Schumann meets Emerson, Lake and Palmer and the movie is worth watching
just for this one scene alone! |
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Jasmin
Tabatabai also appears in
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 CLICK THE ABOVE BANNER TO PURCHASE THIS WOLFE VIDEO TITLE |
Traude
is a bit of a rebel herself. When we first see her, she is a passenger
in a truck with two biker types who are delivering her new grand piano
to the prison. She gets herself into hot water for bringing unauthorized
criminals into the stockade (her deliverymen have prison records) and
because she borrowed a few guards to help push the piano to her classroom.
As a result of the guards' absence, the prisoners cleaning the Warden's
office decided to dump his fish tank out the window. (The water - and
the fish - hit the piano as it is being pushed through the courtyard.)
Needless to say, relations between Traude and her boss are a bit strained.
The
traditional teacher-student relationship in movies like this is given
an extreme makeover. Their first heart-to-heart takes place in Solitary
where Jenny is restrained with leather straps to a wooden bed. Traude
is not interested in rehabilitating her student (which she views as an
exercise in futility), she just wants the girl to win the contest for
her own personal triumph. "That negro music is worthless," Traude tells
Jenny and orders her to stop playing it. "I think you're despicable...
but you have a gift. And you have an obligation to preserve that gift."
The
brief flashbacks wherein Traude remembers love during wartime are beautifully
rendered. Many of them are quite scary but there is also tender lyricism
when Traude and the nurse whom she loved share what stolen moments they
can together. The cinematography throughout Four
Minutes is superb and the acting is first rate. A blurb
on the DVD box compares Herzsprung (Jenny) to Hillary Swank in Million
Dollar Baby. Unlike most American films, no effort is made to make
these characters lovable or cute. The friendship between Traude and Jenny
is anything but predictable and that is a good thing. Even the "feel-good"
concert finale gets an unconventional facelift. This film comes highly
recommended.