Review of "Alles Wird Gut- Everything Will Be Fine"
By
toni_s

Alles Wird Gut- Everything Will Be Fine 1997 Director: Angelina -MaccaroneBook by: Fatina El-Tayeb, Angelina Maccarone

Starring: Kati Studemann as Nabou,
Chantal De Freitas as Kim Berber,
Isabella Parkinson as Guiseppa Minestrone,
Uwe Rohde as Deiter Lauer

Directed by Angelina Maccarone with screenplay by Fatima El-Tayeb "Alles Wird Gut" (Everything Will Be Fine) an internationally award winning film, and is one gem of a movie that worthy of accolades, yet for the most part is unheard of in the United States.

A German movie that follows the exploits of Nabou, an afro German free spirited lesbian who is unceremonously dumped by her lover, the beautiful blue haired "disco Barbie" Katja. Nabou is not about to give up so easily on the relationship though, and obsessively stakes out the building where her Katja lives.

One day while trying to avoid an untimely meeting with Katja and one of her many new paramous, Nabou ducks into the apartment downstairs of Kim Berber, a cool, chainsmoking ad executive and is subsequently hired as a housekeeper.

Kim is involved with her boss Deiter Lauer, and is unsure of her life decisions, including whether she likes Deiter, or is merely using him to advance her career. Either way she has Deiter wrapped around her little finger.

Both Nabou and Kim are discriminated against in Germany because of the color of their skin and this is brought up several times in the film but done so in a way that is realistic, sometimes humorous and adds to the development of the characters.

Chantal de Freitas, the beautiful German movie star and television actress on Polizeiruf 110 (Police Call 110), plays Kim whose character we've seen before, but never so mutli-dimensioned and thorough.

Kati Studemann is the lottery playing, chocolate bar eating Nabou, who increasingly gets caught up in Kim's life and finds her own romantic intentions changing.

The movie was filmed using a free hand camera style that lends frenetic energy to it's youthful premise, in a way that is reminiscient of ChungKing Express (another fav of mine), but the characters in Alles Wird Gut are more fully developed, to an extent that when Nabou and Kim finally give in to their desires and fall into bed together, we are glad that the two have given into pent up desires. The lovemaking scene is graphic, yet it is a beautifully choreograhed scene that is not gratuitous.

The soundtrack is peppered with American artists like Toni Braxton, to international artists like Fine Young Cannibals, Skunk Ananzi, and Everything But The Girl to mention but a few.

In an hilarious climax all characters involved must decide who to love where to work and Kim must decide whether to leap into unknown waters, and decide on.." a black lesbian in Germany'?.

Unfortunately the movie is not available on DVD or VHS in the U.S.A, and has proven costly if a copy is found and purchased, because the videotape playback system in Europe is different than in the U.S. and the tape must be converted to play on U.S. VCR's.
The Book Alles Wird Gut can be purchased from women book publisher's Orlanda Publishing in Berlin, Germany www.orlanda.de

reviewed by toni_s
Additional information may be available from the Internet Movie Database

[back to top]