SnoReptilePlenty
Memorable, crazy movie
CommentsXp
Best movie ever!
Gurlyndrobb
While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.
Horst in Translation (filmreviews@web.de)
"Gold" is a 2013 western film from Germany and with this title, it is certainly not a film you will find too easily a couple years from now. So if you get a hand on it now, go check it out. It is not half as known as the more recent German (actually Austrian) western film "Das finstere Tal", but I personally believe it is just as good, probably better. The writer and director is Thomas Arslan and I find it a bit sad to see he has no new upcoming projects since 2013 apparently. Anyway, this is certainly his most known work to date, so maybe new projects will follow soon. This film is about a group of Germans who are in North America and go on a journey that is supposed to lead them to finding gold as the film takes place during the days of the Gold Rush. It is a very bleak and atmospheric watch. This is no western film where people are constantly shooting each other, even if some shots are fired. Instead, Arslan focused on depicting how rough and devastating life must have been back in the day, not only for people who go on such strenuous journey. I avoid the term "adventure" on purpose.I think that this film's biggest strength is not only the atmospheric touch, but it is also the actors. Hoss (pretty famous in America now too) and Mandic are probably the ones you can consider lead in here and they are good, but I must say that it was mostly the supporting players who made this so watchable. They were all great casting decision and all make their characters look so authentic and realistic with their quirks and characteristics. It was all fitting well. And this also includes Arslan's script. The way he wrote the characters and events fits very well with what happens to them. One example would be we never find out what happened to the original leader of the group. In a bad western film, he would have appeared at the end again trying to take revenge. Or the two protagonists never find Lars Rudolph's character again after he went missing. In a bad horror film, they may have found his corpse. Conclusion: This is not a bad horror film. There were only a few moments that I did not like as much about this movie. The last 10 minutes are certainly a bit difficult. I have seen the film way back when it was new and came to theaters and I disliked the way Mandic's character gets killed out of nowhere at the end. I liked it more on rewatch now. It somehow fits. This could have happened to anybody anytime back then. However, I still believe the moment when Hoss' character cries for him is when the film should have ended. That strong female-focused ending with her continuing the journey did not work well for me. First of all, it puts too much focus on Hoss after this is an ensemble performance and secondly, like I already wrote, the emancipation theme (everybody dies/gives up except her) at the end did not work well with everything that happened before. Of course, it's just my subjective opinion and maybe other people will like it more. But it left a bit of a bad aftertaste for me. Nonetheless, this is just a minor criticism and I enjoyed the watch a lot. The performances made me think about giving this one a ****/***** occasionally even. In the end, I decided not too, but it does not change my recommendation at all. Watch this film if you like westerns. You will certainly not be disappointed.
fredcdobbs5
Italian cowboy movies are called spaghetti westerns, so maybe this German one should be called a schnitzel western, or a sauerbraten western, or some such thing, but it's definitely not a "western" western. This German-made film about a group of Germans traveling from the US through Canada to get to the Dawson gold-mining area in the late 1800s has some beautiful Canadian scenery, and a realistic look to it, but overall it's just too slow-moving and, frankly, depressing to qualify as a "western".It has the cold, gritty look of Clint Eastwood's "Pale Rider" and Kevin Costner's "Open Range"--not necessarily a bad thing--but I think it's too relentlessly downbeat and, to be honest, depressing for most viewers' tastes. The film is totally and completely humorless--I know the West of the time was not exactly a laugh riot, but so many bad things happen to so many people so often that you actually start getting depressed watching this. Just about the only "light-hearted" moment is when one of the group stops in a saloon while traveling through a town and asks the bartender for three bottles of whiskey and one glass, while the other customers just stare at him. That's pretty much it.The box cover says the film is 101 minutes long, but believe me--it seems a LOT longer than that. Unless you like dark, moody, somewhat self- indulgent westerns that move like molasses, I'd say skip this.
robindecker
Gold is a beautiful, intricate, sound movie. A movie that just depicts us humans, in our epic quest, without any concessions. Driven by some ungraspable idea, we need groups, leadership, moral standards, intimacy and love. Not all of us will stay, at least, not to the end of the movie, but though, the movie will go on somewhere else. A great canvas of WE as WE ARE. And then still willing to strive and look forward, still in the need to move ahead. Thus the depiction is better than the feeling you will get at the end of the movie.This might be because, we, as a species, are made to believe and hope.8/10
samkan
As the four COMMENTERS before me point out, GOLD is not a Hollywood western but a rather sincere attempt to depict fellow countrymen (The film is German-made about Germans) a century ago in a foreign land. Indeed many languages were wailed across the western prairies in the 1800's, a fact seldom seen in Westerns. Credit the maker with allowing his culture to have the same faults as the rest of us. But whether this "virtue" of GOLD may have been intended is unknown; e.g., we see a single Chinese, but no mix of trekking humankind. Such was surely financially prohibitive - GOLD was made on a shoestring budget using not sets but small historical parks in British Columbia and with contemporary German actors and limited extras. As much as I loved Nina Hoss in BARBARA I think a younger actress; e.g., Anjorka Strechel, would have been a better fit. The film's plot holds no legitimate twists or surprises and the ending may prove inconsequential to many. GOLD could have been greatly enhanced by superior camera work, vistas and imagination. Instead we appear to see the same locales and areas throughout. The group, at one point, appears reluctant to cross a river that appears ankle-deep. A ten yard splat of mud is likewise a major obstacle. But I found GOLD charming in it's simplicity and consideration of mundane hardships (bad food!). The characters were provided realistic and historical backgrounds. Hey, hard to make a film set in the 18th century North American West WITHOUT falling into the trappings of a "Western". In this GOLD succeeds. PS / I so agree with PlanktonRules observation that the trials of the GOLD crew parallel the 90's video game OREGON TRAIL, which I played dozens of times with my kids. Broken wagon wheels and disease are indeed catastrophes.
