I saw this movie soon after it first appeared on TV in 1998, I think. I liked it then, and now after a second viewing just recently, I still admire it as a visually stunning drama set mostly in the snowfields of Bavaria.And the snow is no mere prop: it's absolutely crucial to the construction of the plot and to the delicious irony of the denouement.The story traces the interaction of four people in a wintry town: Laura (Marie-Lou Stellem), a nurse at the local hospital; Rebecca (Floriane Daniel), a translator of pulp fiction and Laura's house mate; Rebecca's boyfriend, Marco (Heino Ferch), a narcissistic local sky instructor and seducer of women; and Rene (Ulrich Matthes), an introverted cinema projectionist who eventually begins a serious relationship with Laura.Outside the four people, there is Theo (Josef Bierbichler), a local villager on the verge of bankruptcy who must transport his sick horse to the vet, using his horse trailer. On the morning that Theo decides to do that, however, Rene – still trying to clear his head after last night's binge – decides it would be fun to have a drive of a parked car he finds with the keys still in the ignition. By that time, we know it is Marco's car parked there when he came to stay with Rebecca the night before.Unhappily for Rene and Theo, they are traveling in opposing directions towards each other and, during the snow storm, they only just miss each – but with tragic results: Theo's car and trailer swerves and skids all over the road to finally overturn, while Rene shoots off the road, down a slope to stop in a large snow drift. Bewildered and dazed, Rene extricates himself from the car and staggers off to walk home, leaving Theo, trapped in his car, to dimly see just the back of Rene's head. And, in the fog of alcohol and snow, Rene almost erases the whole incident from his memory.Theo reports the incident of course and begins a quest to find the driver but the police can't even find the car. In fact, they don't believe Theo's account, thinking he simply lost control on the icy road and crashed. Marco reports his car as stolen but, of course, there is nothing to link his car to Theo's situation.It is only when Rene and Laura get together that, slowly but inexorably, Theo's search for the driver ultimately reaches what he thinks is a satisfactory and violent resolution. And slow is an operative word here because Tykwer takes his time to let the story unfold with all its irony; the slow pacing, though, might turn off some viewers.Not this one, however, because the various twists to the plot allow for a suspense build-up that kept me entertained. Happily for me, I couldn't recall the ending. What made it all the more entertaining is the pulsating and moody sound track which beautifully accompanies the unfolding tragedy; which, now that I think about it, is partly reminiscent of the tragedy of Jean de Florette (1986).Like his other movies I've seen – Run, Lola, Run (1998) and Heaven (2002) – Tykwer has again demonstrated how good a director he is. One can only hope for more like them. There's nothing fancy or outrageous about the movie (a la von Triers whom I much admire also): just solid story-telling. Best of all, the characters and plot are so ordinary, the story is all the more believable. In truth, I can certainly imagine something like it happening in real life – even down to the irony of the final scene which I think is a Tykwer nod to the closing scene in From Here to Eternity (1953).The movie contains some explicit sex scenes, so it's not a movie for children or even impressionable teens, I'd suggest.Not enough for nine but give it a well-deserved eight stars.January 25, 2012.

This movie pictures the life of five characters connect by a car accident in a snowing road, provoked by the projectionist Rene (Ulrich Matthes) and the broken farmer Theo (Josef Bierbichler). Rene is a kind of melancholic intellectual, who has amnesia problem and takes picture of the most important events of his life to recall them. One night he drinks too much and steals the car of the ski trainer Marco (Heino Ferch) just for fun. Due to a lack of attention of Theo on the road, there is a dreadful accident, when his young daughter is seriously hurt in the head. She is sent to a hospital without the necessary resources for such a case, but she is unable to be transferred to another suitable place due to the bad weather and her conditions. The nurse in charge of the young girl is Laura (Marie-Lou Sellen), an anorexic woman full of problems and inferiority complex due to her body, who lives in a house inherited from her grandmother with her friend Rebecca (the delicious and sexy Floriane Daniel). Rebecca works in translation, usually wears red colored clothes and has a kind of engagement (indeed their relationship is limited to sex) with Marco. He is a typical unfaithful male man, sexually chasing the women trained by him and being an empty person. The story is a kind of metaphor with the cycle of life, through the lives of five persons with different attitudes and behavior, who are linked by an incident, having death and birth but with life going on. The direction and the performance of the cast are excellent and the photography is wonderful. My vote is eight.Title (Brazil): `Winter Sleepers – Inverno Quente' (`Winter Sleepers – Hot Winter')

I definitely enjoyed this film, and found it pleasantly unpredictable throughout. That really has become a huge criterion for me, if you are the same, you might save reading this and other reviews until after you've seen the film. Thus...SPOILERS of sorts...While the film launches with hyperkinetic momentum, a la "Lola," by about halfway through the pace of the action, and even the camera itself stops to freeze. Tykwer's early tracking of the camera by hand to weave in on various actors helps to inject tension to this film, even when the scenes themselves may be no more tense than a typical soap opera. Then for awhile, the camera becomes stationary, and we wait as the earlier motions and emotions play themselves out, and finally we get an, explosive exhillirating ending.I see the tag line for this film refers to it as a "Liebesthriller" and when I watched the trailer for the film *after* seeing it properly, in English they referred to it as a "Romantic Thriller" That is a fine encapsulation of it...and not really a genre that I place too many films under its rubric.While this film ride well upon surprises, it also uses one more familiar and frequently deployed device these days. there seems to be more movies where multiple characters are brought together with only say one degree of separation, but their connections are unbeknownst to them. I admit it, I enjoy this cheap omniscient thrill...and it works well here.Here certain secrets are known to us and the "criminals" who have committed various acts (all men, sigh...), they often seek out retribution for the very crime they are responsible for. We have the philanderer as jealous boyfriend, and the father whose own mistake led to the loss of his daughter seeking vengeance. Then there's a peculiar character who rather than being hypocritical, suffers from a peculiar form of short-term memory loss.This latter character, rather than charging blindly over the cliffs of ration, seems to be struggling with recalling his acts, and reclaiming his responsibility. There is a haunting scene on New Year's eve where you can see the fireworks in his fragile, shrapnel-shattered mind, reflected on his very forehead.And the film is beautiful in other aspects...the two female leads carry their theme colors with them wherever they go. Their connection as caring roommates helps to hinge much of this film, and feels right for that sort of relationship. And both are crucial in helping transform the villain in this film, past anti-hero into a hero as he rescues both. He plucks the ultra-cynical "green" girl from the clutches of her despair, while he consoles the "red" girl in the wake of a death in her family, and in the wake of her absent boyfriend.So whether we buy into this "conservation of guilt" and karmic come-uppance is one trick to this film. Even while watching it I felt a bit manipulated towards Rene, and in hindsight now moreso. The photography is flashy throughout. The ski-diving at the end, shots of the anti-hero though a diamond lattice work at his hovel, the camera in the lair of the lovers starts early on tight and intimate, but eventually gets as much distance as it can, spying on them from a corner in the ceiling. Wide-angle to catch them as they drift apart. That bathroom fireworks shot is really a tremendous one as well, and any of winter wonderland shots were great. Especially the skating ones...On one level this could be the "soap opera" of the future, romantic rollercoasting along with nice dabs of mystery and of course duplicitous if not just plain dumb men. We are missing the catty female, and honestly the film is far more savvy than that. I suspect reducing down the novel for this film was probably a challenge, but well worth it. I wonder if the title has any idiomatic sense in German, like the notion that when winter thaws out, we can see what has happened. I think we see all of the characters actually asleep at one point (or comatose even) and they all lurch awake. I know the film starts with the idea that they are all running away, or leaving, with a sense of urgency.The film questions whether you can run away from your actions, and to me it covered a lot more movie mileage than "Rennt, Lola, Rennt." Indeed the two female here live rent-free and the men, well they run into trouble...but not necessarily their own.7/10

An absolutely stylish movie! If style is what counts for you, go watch it and start praising Tom Tykwer for his wonderful way of making movies. Tykwer has a respectable sense of colours and he is a master of conveying moods and a notion of drama to his audience. The reason why I do not like his movies is that there is nothing about them which gives them the right to be stylishly dramatic. The stories are simple and not particularly interesting but Tykwer makes us believe they are something special. The moment you realize this is not true marks a rather big disappointment. Winterschläfer has some greatly filmed scenes and pictures, particularly when it comes to combining the beautiful white snow with the very full colours of the characters' cars or clothes. But it's a real pity that these scenes and pictures appear in such a third-rate, meaningless film. The background bears no relation to the magnitude of the pictures. It's the same as with Tykwer's next movie, the world-wide blockbuster Run Lola Run.Admittedly, Tykwer has chosen good actors for this film. Some of them, like Josef Bierbichler, struggle with the terrible screenplay but others, especially Marie-Lou Sellem interprete it in a convincing and fascinating way.