European Films

Barfuss (Barefoot) is the directorial debut of German actor Til Schweiger after having co-directed two other films. According to IMDB, the actor (who is more famous for his roles in American big budget films like King Arthur) rewrote his own script that was originally set in the United States, to make it suitable for production in Germany. The story may be set in Germany and the actors may be speaking German, the film itself still oozes an almost uncanny American atmosphere throughout. The use of exclusively English-language music on the soundtrack might have something to do with it, as well as the numerous feel-bad, feel-better and feel-good montage-pieces set to these musical interludes. Schweiger delivers a good performance as an actor and does a great job as a director, but as most American quirky feel-good films, this film’s charm is mostly due to the calculated manipulation of one’s emotions.

Schweiger stars as Nick, the broke black sheep of the rich Keller family, who live in a city far away from him. "Down on his luck" would be an understatement when talking about Nick, who has the habit of getting fired after a day or two on every job he tries. With the wedding of his brother approaching (and his need to pay for a lavish gift and tell his parents he is doing well), he tries his hand at the ostensibly simple job of cleaning the floors and toilets in an asylum, but even here he is thrown out before he has completed his first day. Just before leaving, he saves the life of sweet nutcase Leila (Johanna Wokalek) who tries to hang herself in the toilets. The girl who hates shoes and refuses to wear them (hence the title) sees in Nick a nameless saviour who must be followed at all costs; she sneaks out of the asylum and follows him home.

In the first of the film’s many suspension of disbelief moments, Nick decides to let Leila stay at his apartment, rather than phone the asylum to have her picked up, the most important reason for this probably being that if he had done what common sense dictates, Barfuss would have been a short film. What follows is essentially a road trip of Leila and Nick to the villa of Nick’s family, where the wedding will take place. During the trip, the loser will try to teach the sweet nutcase how to deal with the real world as if he were an expert. Obviously he will oftentimes contradict his own teachings and thus confuse the sweet nutcase even further. Leila has not been outside of the asylum since she was a child and much of the film’s humour derives from her first experiences with everyday things such as the need for a ticket on the bus, or her inability to drive a car. Wokalek makes her, well, sweet, and disarmingly naive; the humour is of the tender rather than the exploitative variety, at least until you start analysing it. 

Despite feeling like an American film you have probably seen countless times before, with a thunderstorm that rains on a wedding reception, a loving mother married to a stone cold stepfather, some very stereotypical tyrannical doctors at the asylum and an even more stereotypical feel-good ending, Barfuss is a lust for the eye and ear. The performances are strong across the board and the numerous cameo appearances in smaller roles spice things up for the German audience. The true revelation of Barfuss however is not any of the actors' work or even Schweiger in the director’s chair, but the work of cinematographer Christof Wahl. His unimpressive resumé of having been the cinematographer on two TV projects as well as the steadicam operator on a dozen of films (including several in which Schweiger starred) would not lead one to suspect Wahl would be capable of the most cured, exciting and visually satisfying cinematography of the last six months, if not last year. Barfuss is literally very enjoyable to look at, even if it neither as original nor as touching as it wants to make you believe it is.

Buy the DVD at amazon.de.

Browse: amazon.com, amazon.co.uk, amazon.fr, dvdGO.es, internetbookshop.it, nl.bol.com, allposters.com.