Horst in Translation ([email protected]) "Böse Zellen" or "Free Radicals" (not a literal translation at all) is a co-production between the 3 German-speaking countries in Central Europe, but the one in the center of it all is Austria for sure because this is where writer and director Barbara Albert as well as most cast members are from. And it is also where it is set. This film received a solid deal of awards recognition and got also picked by Austria as the country's official Oscar submission back then when it came out almost 15 years today, probably more depending on when you read the review, but did not manage to score a nomination. The most known cast members as of today here are Strauss and Friedrich who managed strong careers until now. It is a really long film at almost 2 hours, but this is also needed as it focuses on many characters in here and also very much in depth about all of them. All of these characters are somehow linked to the protagonist that the film starts with and one crucial component here is that the circle of people linked to the main character and her fate closes eventually. I still think she is the main character, even if she disappears out of the movie relatively quickly, maybe also because there is no other character really at the very center of the story. It is an ensemble performance and writer's piece for sure. Anyway, you could also make a reference to the famous six degrees of separation concept here. All in all I enjoyed the watch. I believe there are some sequences that could have been left out, maybe 1 or 2 characters even, but it's never a film that really drags, even if there was potential for better focus that could have made the film strong from start to finish. The way Albert went for there are some good scenes, some bad scenes, but as a whole it is a relatively competent execution and the positive is more frequent than the negative and that's why I give the overall outcome a thumbs-up and recommend checking it out. Probably my favorite film from the director with what I have seen so far from her. I also think that one of the film's biggest strengths is that everybody in the audience will have another character that he ends up caring for the most and whose story interests him the most. Even if quite a huge coincidence involving the central character, this is a film that always feels authentic, which is something German filmmakers could learn from Austria, now as much as in 2003. Go check it out.

albertino13 An impressive and realistic view on austrian society. The film could have been a little more vivid. Some people might be shocked after seeing this film but i think Barbara Albert's intention was to keep it as realistic as possible even this way showing all cruelties of nowadays society.

jazzest Parallel stories about various people in recovering process from a car accident are interwoven into one picture. The director has craftsmanship to incorporate different styles of genre films, such as horror, coming-of-age, and arthouse-erotica. The influence from several European melodrama giants, namely Fassbinder and Almodovar, also permeates on the screen. The rare feeling, which only occurs when I witness the moment of a new talent's emergence, caught me while I was watching this film at New York Film Festival 2003.The screenplay is questionable; the plane crash at the beginning is barely related to the rest of the whole film. The director's explanation in Q&A session at the Festival, that the crash indicates chaos, irony and unpredictability of life in the relation to the entire story, doesn't convince me enough. Also, a bundle of absolutely separate stories, which don't interact with each other, may look dated in the future, though it is admittedly faddish at this moment.Several choices of music, such as Take On Me and San Francisco, are so personal that the director's feeling may not be conveyed to the audience.Overall, this is an unpolished but young and energetic film, which shows the director's promising future.

dean237 Barbara Albert's Altman-by-way-of-Austria was the least impressive movie I saw at the festival. Following the life of a woman named Manu, the only survivor of a plane crash in the Gulf of Mexico, Free Radicals branches off into the troubled lives of her satellites, her friends who fight off loneliness with the same fervor that she does. Their circumstances are no less tragic to them; one overweight woman is so despondent in her loneliness that she throws herself in front of a train (and survives, ridiculously). Another fights with an older, crippled lover who beats her if she comes in late. Manu's daughter dances briefly and sweetly with a guitarist who plays `San Francisco' for her in a subway station. The idea here is that we are all interconnected, but the movie plays this with embarrassing sentimentality. It has its moments-I love the scene where members of a church choir sing along with `Nights in White Satin' in a darkened pub-but overall, Free Radicals feels juvenile.