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[Short Reviews]

ENLIGHTENMENT GUARANTEED

When Doris Dörrie directs, it’s more like amusement than enlightenment guaranteed. Since making a name for herself in 1985 with her sprightly Men, Dörrie has advanced the woeful cause of German film comedy with a number of jaundiced but genial looks at the human condition, showing an especially acute and sympathetic insight into the male half of it. Here two brothers — boorish family man Uwe (Uwe Ochsenknecht) and finicky new-ager Gustav (Gustav Peter Wöhler) — head off to a Zen monastery in Japan after the former’s wife dumps him. There they learn detachment the hard way, getting lost in Tokyo and losing all their money; by the time they make it to the harsh rituals and regimens of their final destination, their experience is almost anticlimactic. Dörrie shoots it all on digital video; the effect ranges from coy to poignant. But this tactic wasn’t necessary — the low-key comic performances of the leads and her bittersweet irony guarantee the film’s humanity.

By Peter Keough

Issue Date: May 31- June 7, 2001