Long Shadows
Long Shadows
| 24 October 2008 (USA)
Long Shadows Trailers

After two decades in prison Widmer, a former German RAF-terrorist, is released. He meets Valerie, his next door neighbour. The young woman tries to get her life back on track after she lost child custody for her little son. She shows some interest in Widmer, the two of them seem to have something in common. They discreetly enter into the secrets of their lives. Till the truth comes between them.

Reviews
AboveDeepBuggy Some things I liked some I did not.
Phonearl Good start, but then it gets ruined
Married Baby Just intense enough to provide a much-needed diversion, just lightweight enough to make you forget about it soon after it’s over. It’s not exactly “good,” per se, but it does what it sets out to do in terms of putting us on edge, which makes it … successful?
Bob This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.
Horst in Translation (filmreviews@web.de) "Schattenwelt" is a German movie from roughly seven years ago. The film's director (multiple Adolf Grimme award winner) has worked on several television projects before and also wrote the script for this one hear. Another screenwriter here was one of the producers behind Academy award nominee "Sophie Scholl" and, more recently, the script writer for "Night Train to Lisbon". The two protagonists are played by Ulrich Noethen and Nina Petri, who we get to see fully naked already in her very first scene. Noethen is usually an actor I appreciate and here he plays a former RAF terrorist who leaves prison after over 20 years. But what could have been a great story on re-integration into society becomes a tale on everything but this. The transformation of Petri's character was not really credible to me and I did not like the story of rediscovering fatherhood either. Uwe Kockisch, who just is not a great actor in my opinion, added nothing and same goes for Christoph Bach as the homosexual son. The movie is almost black-and-white, the colors used here are very insignificant, possibly a parallel to the movie's title "Shadow world". I actually liked this, but that was almost the only memorable thing about these 90 minutes. What also hurts the movie that it tries so hard to be significant, but really falls apart on several occasions. Especially, the background story to Noethen's character could have been so much more interesting. Not recommended.