 | MOVIE DETAILS • Name: O Beautiful Night • Year: 2019 • Country: Germany • Director: Xaver Böhm (aka Xaver Xylophon) • Main cast: Noah Saavedra, Marko Mandic, Vanessa Loibl • Runtime: 89 minutes • Production company: Komplizen Film, Das Kleine Fernsehspiel (ZDF), ARTE • TRAILER
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Events like Sitges Film Festival are the best platform to see a collection of movies that due to their bizarre, experimental or alternative tone might probably have a big international distribution. Some of them are good surprises, but some of them are tedious experiences. And O Beautiful Night (2019), without being by far the most spectacular movie of the year, stays in the first group.
With a very clear influence of another Berlin-based film, the timeless classic Wings of Desire (1987) masterfully constructed by Wim Wenders, O Beautiful Night (2019) tells the tale of a young hypochondriac guy, with a deadly apprehension of ravens, who is constantly dreaming of his own decease. One day, young Yuri leaves his comfort zone, his apartment, in order to get some entertainment. And, to his surprise, he faces The Death. But he also finds love, being instantly infatuated with the sweet but troubled Nina.
O Beautiful Night (2019) is concieved by the filmmakers as a suburban fairy tale, a modern times fable, the grandchildren of the classic 1980s gothic stories. Co-written and directed by the debutant in a feature film Xaver Böhm (credited in the movie as Xaver Xylophon), for one night the three characters explore the possibilities of the nightlife, in a trip of sex, drugs, alcohol, theft and eventually, love and death. It is the kind of movie where the line between reality and fantasy is very thin. What is real and what is imagination? What is actually happening and what is the product of substances consumption?
The movie aims high, but the final result doesn’t accomplish the expectations. At moments, the crazy night of the star trio gets bland, drifted and boring. I won’t enter in the terms of depicting more or less plausible facts since the entire movie is conceived as some sort of dreaminess, but as an entertainment piece it flinches.
The big consumption of O Beautiful Night (2019) are, conceived, the amazing treatment of the images, surrounding the night with bright colors and cozy shadows. The acting trio formed by Noah Saavedra, Marko Mandic, and Vanessa Loibl accomplish with their duties without shining but with efficiency. And music embraces the story accompanying the characters through their wacky night.
Besides being part of the Sitges Film Festival, O Beautiful Night (2019) had its world premi0065re this year at the Berlin International Film Festival and even achieved the Méliès d’Argent award at Imagine Film Festival in the Netherlands. The movie has potential, and it has quite enjoyable moments. But it lacks the craft to become something special.
RATE: 6/10
IMDB URL: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt7603636
