A film review: “Illusion” [2013 Germany]

Roland Reber, no stranger to controversy with his persistent recourse to eroticism, continues his exploration of human behaviour and their secret desires through his latest drama “Illusion”.

A scene from Roland Reber's IllusionThe film incorporates several of Reber’s pet themes like lust, nymphomania, greed, and entitlement, that lay lurking behind people’s respectable façades. The illusion they represent, and delusions that they harbour, are at the centre of the film’s concerns. But it also acknowledges people’s justification for the illusions that they create about themselves, before making a concerted argument against them.

Carolina Hoffmann in Roland Reber's IllusionThree conventional couples and two singletons are taken from their surroundings and placed inside a bar – to mingle, interact, and fantasise. The premise is vaguely reminiscent of Luis Buñuel’s ‘The Exterminating Angel’ in the way the director places his ‘subjects’ in a glass cage of their own making and observes them with amusement as they suffocate. The difference here however is the film’s quasi-prophetic tone, and the fact that one amongst the eight bar-guests is also doing the observing.

A scene from Roland Reber's IllusionHe captures images of guests with a mobile phone, ostensibly for his Facebook page – he, who himself lives in an illusionary world of ‘friends’ and ‘likes’, is also the most detached among the lot. The bar itself is intended as a metaphor, as a halfway place where mask-wearing illusionists are given a reality-check, just as the social networking site also represents imaginary social mobility. It’s plain to see that the couples have turned up at the bar looking for some excitement in their otherwise dull lives, but when they find it, they simply couldn’t enjoy it as much…

Roland Reber and Carolina Hoffmann in the film IllusionAppreciating Illusion, and director Reber who also plays God in the film, requires a disassociation from conventional narrative – while events take place linearly, individual fantasies and visual metaphors are also inserted in between, and it will not always be apparent as to whose fantasies they represent. As in his other films, the comedy drama liberally quotes from the Bible whilst simultaneously indulging in the erotic.

Marina Anna Eich and Antje Nikola Mönning in Roland Reber's IllusionApart from the usual cast who double-up as crew (or vice-versa in some cases), the film also introduces a new member of the WTP stable, cast in a stellar role – the fresh-faced, young, and a rather cute Carolina Hoffmann. Multi-faceted Antje Nikola Mönning, apart from playing a bored housewife with wanton desires, is the film’s music director, and whilst she shares production duties with Patricia Koch, Marina Anna Eich, and Roland Reber, is also credited as the assistant director. The film, as it stands, might have its little foibles – its overindulgence on special effects and a fixation with gaudy lighting being just two of them, but it is an altogether well rounded and presented feature along the lines of The Dark Side of Our Inner Space, with the exuberance of 24/7 The Passion of Life. It is Recommended Viewing..!

Amazon.de DVD Link [PAL] | Amazon.de Blu-ray Link | Official Trailer and Website

 

The Nudity: Marina Anna Eich, Antje Nikola Mönning, Carolina Hoffmann, Wolfgang Seidenberg, and others
The film contains intermittent nudity and sex – some explicit. A heady scene in particular, features a restrained Antje Nikola Mönning being groped and fingered by masked men who later form a queue to take turns with her character. Marina Anna Eich briefly appears nude in a couple of scenes – she plays a married woman with lesbian feelings, and newest member Carolina Hoffmann also appears nude in a number of scenes.

Marina Anna Eich, Antje Nikola Mönning, Carolina Hoffmann, Wolfgang Seidenberg, and others nude in Illusion

Marina Anna Eich, Antje Nikola Mönning, Carolina Hoffmann, Wolfgang Seidenberg, and others in
Roland Reber’s “Illusion”.

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Compilation: Marina Anna Eich, Antje Nikola Mönning, Carolina Hoffmann, Wolfgang Seidenberg, and others
The present compilation is made from a screener DVD that Ms. Eich had kindly sent for review. I intend to replace it with a better quality version, without the hard-coded subtitles and screener logo, after the DVD/Blu-ray is formally released at the end of August. Until then, members of this blog could perhaps at least enjoy an exclusive preview of the scenes that the site’s concerned about.

Marina Anna Eich, Antje Nikola Mönning, Carolina Hoffmann, Wolfgang Seidenberg, and others nude in Illusion

Marina Anna Eich, Antje Nikola Mönning, Carolina Hoffmann, Wolfgang Seidenberg, and others nude in
Roland Reber’s “Illusion”.

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LQ Download Link 142 MB

 

The same in the screener DVD’s resolution: 570MB
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3
(All parts required – unpack with Winrar)

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4 Responses to A film review: “Illusion” [2013 Germany]

  1. collecta says:

    thx again, well done
    not my favorite Reber film but once again a work completely different to most of the other german films released today…that makes his films interesting and worth to watch

    • TR says:

      You’re quite right – there’s not many making films in the spirit and tone as Reber in the world, not just Germany. He’s still a hippie and long may he keep making them.
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  2. hoochimama says:

    Been looking forward to this movie for so long, simply can’t get enough of Marina!

  3. Sachsen Paule says:

    great scences,thx

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