Breathing

Beautiful, touching, powerful, lovely and deeply satisfying
I fought hard not to fall in love with this movie, but I lost that battle. Words seem inadequate to describe a movie that communicates so effectively with very few words, words that only hold the story together but never carry the full weight of its power. But all I have here is words, so I must try.

Breathing is the story of Roman Kogler, a 19-year-old inmate of a juvenile detention center where he has lived since he was 14 and killed a boy who had been bullying him. Roman was given up by his overwhelmed teenage mother soon after his birth (she had almost killed him to stop his crying) and has spent his whole life in orphanages and group homes, where the bullying incident occurred.

He is almost catatonic, with no idea how to relate to other human beings. He's like a wounded wild animal held in a cage, never looking anyone in the eye and almost never speaking; I didn't count, but I'd be surprised if he said more than 50 words in the whole movie. Inside the...

great movie
quite, deep movie that goes to the root of who we are as human beings and what we yearn for in life.

satisfying
It reminds me of two other german films Antares and Everyone Else for sinking like a stone in terms of no frills perceptivenes; clear and profound in it's own way.
A german word : gestalt, meaning a comparison , wherein the one makes the other so obvious side by side ( ie black v. white.
In Breathing, a young juvenille offender discovers being around corpes brings out how poignant and lucky it is to still be alive and throws a fresh perspective on his life. ( It actually gives the viewer the same sense which is illuminating) Then he can ask the right questions to find accountability .Breathing illustrates the positive aspect of detachment in terms of being in a deeper space than people and places at the time.
I really liked this films intelligent neatness with just the correct amount of words and screenplay to carry its ideas across and an unavoidable gallows humour in places.
Great little film.

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