11/02/2006

The Elementary Particles [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Franka Potente & Moritz Ble…
interview: Oskar Roehler
film profile] (Elementarteilchen) by German director Oskar Roehler was today´s official competition film, an event per se because it is a film version of French novelist Michel Houellebecq´s best-selling novel, one of the most controversial pieces of literature of recent years and an event for German media in particular because of its all German stars cast including Moritz Bleibtreu, Christian Ulmer, Martina Gereck, Franka Potente and Nina Hoss.

If the actors as a whole were acclaimed for their performances, the new film by the director of the previous Berlin competition title Angst (2003) left the media somewhat puzzled. But book adaptations are generally disappointing once put on the big screen and here the challenge to translate into images a philosophical pornographic story was even greater. The film describes the lives of two half brothers who are both in search of the meaning of life. One is an introverted molecular biologist, concerned with ending sexual desire, while his brother a teacher, pursues his hunt for happiness through sex with prostitutes. At the end, both find the love of their lives but happiness remains brief.

Questioned about major changes to the original story, the German producer and film mogul Bernd Eichinger said that he and the director had to be more conciliatory in the film version because of the very dark and pessimistic view of the French novelist. But as stressed by Eichinger, "adapting a novel is always tricky and although you have to stay as closely as possible to the original material, a filmmaker should not film page by page but give an overall inpression and then change where necessary. Oskar and I worked hard together for four years on the screenplay", he said. So Eichinger and Roehler never met Houellebecq and the French novelist himself –supposedly impossible to reach- has not seen the film yet. The Elementary Particles was produced by Bernd Eichinger and Oliver Berben for Constantin Film in co-production with GFP and in collaboration with Moovie, the art of Entertainment and ARD Degeto. International sales are handled by Celluloïd Dreams.