"Pingpong" is a German movie from 10 years ago and was written and directed by Matthias Luthardt. There is a reason why he never wrote anything else again and also never directed another theatrical release. This film is a failure. The script is a complete mess and the two younger actors are horrible. Urzendowsky really only has a career and is somewhat known because of his very feminine and sensitive physicality. He is a not a talented actor at all. The two older actors in here are slightly better, but Mitterhammer has weak moments as well and Rockstroh's role is just too small to make an impact. There was not a single scene in here that felt realistic or authentic to me. But there were many bad scenes. The worst is possibly the crying scene from Urzendowsky's character. Admittedly the writing was still way worse than his performance. Let me mention a few scenes and moments that were especially cringeworthy. The sex scene was really out of nowhere. The table-tennis scenes seemed only included to justify the title. The dead dog scene at the end did not make any sense at all. The pillow scene was so random and only there for shock value. The comment by Rockstroh's character about "Doktorspiele" was the weakest moment in terms of dialogue. The raging piano player scenes did nothing for me either. This movie is packed with content that is intended to be oh so shocking and controversial and yet there is zero substance in this film. None at all. It tries so hard to make an impact that it forgets completely to deliver a compelling or realistic story. I read what Luthardt studied and it does not impress me at all. He definitely needs another lesson in subtlety. This film does not make a single artistic impact during its luckily very short under 90 minutes. A complete failure and the Cannes Film Festival loses all credibility to me for the attention and awards they gave this one. Do not watch. Highly not recommended.

An emotionally disturbed teenager turns up at the home of some repressed relatives. This simple substrate economically combines a surprising number of subtle issues: grief, boredom, alcoholism, stress, lust, and homosexuality, amounting to quite a timebomb in a deceptively domestic situation. It has a dusky, brooding quality - feeling almost like a mild version of Funny Games or Visitor Q.The boy is dealing with his father's recent suicide and an evident sense of abandonment resulting in various behavioural phenomena that sociologists will have terms for. His cousin's family has its own emotional issues, a neurotic, artistic mother and son, the latter on the booze while practising Berg's piano sonata (providing a sophisticated tone) for an audition; his mother a bored housewife of impulsive passion. Sounds of mastication are used frequently - repulsive, but it lends a surreal, intimate effect.With so many issues at play though, the meaning is muddled. Frustration, disillusionment, nihilism, betrayal and revenge blur any over-riding theme, which most likely is the new preoccupation of the age: insecurity. Sensitisation of society is on the upcreep. Having set up their lives of suburban serenity, they have too much to lose - everything becomes unbearably precious and the effort of keeping together what was so laboriously acquired causes mild derangement in the most ordinary people. Mild derangement is very much the order of the day here.It wends its way slowly and interestingly enough, but the somewhat degenerate ending undermines much of what the film was surely trying to achieve along the way. If the boy was merely sociopathic, then much of the useful meaning is eroded. Still, it's worthwhile art-house fair that will stay in the mind on account of its hermetic, drifting, almost dreamlike quality.

There were a few moments in this film that I didn't buy (I won't say what--no spoilers here), but that's what happens when you take risks on screen. Tone-wise, I'd say this film was like American Beauty, but done much better. There were still some over-the-top moments, but unlike the Alan Ball/Sam Mendes mega-hit, parts of this film feel genuine. The script was juggling many nuanced through-lines, and did so surprisingly well.Solid acting. Nice control of the camera--and the HD-to-35mm blowup looked pretty darn nice.I'd like to see more from this director.

This warmed-over bit of German suburban angst is one of those films where you wonder why you bothered to sit through the whole thing. I did at the Palm Springs International Film Festival, where the screening ended with one person clapping for two seconds and several people voicing support when I yelled, "that was pointless b#!!$%*t" as the credits rolled.The claustrophobic setting looks more like a project as a final film-school thesis (which, I'm guessing, is exactly what this film is) than any real symbolic statement about this way-too-uptight family and the goofy kid nephew who comes to stay for a bit. I suppose it's a coming-of-age film, albeit one with virtually no soundtrack or any other cultural milepost of teen-aged youth, save for an inane video game. There are no other characters, except for two silent piano movers (who are either moving a fake baby grand by just picking it up without a piano dolly, or are from the planet Krypton).My real beef isn't the tedious, pedantic textbook-style writing, acting and directing, which delivers characters you don't care about doing virtually nothing. (Even the sex scene is just, well, boring by-the-numbers stuff.) It's that, to prove some point about the lifeless nature of it all, the main character kills the family dog in a manner that is a combination of inhumanity and just plain laziness.Now, the family dog probably gets too much attention from the mother of the family, but she's got a workaholic husband, a moody kid who keeps getting stinko drunk and this oddball nephew, and I'd probably side with dog in that situation. But there's no reason to dump the dog in a swimming pool and then walk away (even closing a window to its tired panting), leaving the poor pet to exhaust itself and drown. And, then have the mother discover the death as the final scene in the picture.So this is where we end up after 90 minutes? Pointless.