The Tower

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The Tower

2014

2h 0m

History

Drama

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Tomatometer

Popcornmeter

17%

Tomatometer

6 Reviews

Popcornmeter

50+ Ratings

In Communist East Germany, a surgeon (Jan Josef Liefers), his family and a community of privileged intellectuals go about their daily lives behind the Berlin Wall.

Stephen Holden

New York Times

11/06/2014

In its stunted theatrical version, the second half is a sketchy digest of events that leaves you feeling cheated.

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Wes Greene

Slant Magazine

11/03/2014

2/4

As the psychology of the characters hardly connects with their distinctive milieu, the film merely suggests a conventional family drama littered with empty pot-shots at governmental authority.

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Oktay Ege Kozak

The Playlist

12/04/2014

C

"The Tower" is a middle-of-the road kind of dramatic experience. It does a good job depicting the day-to-day struggles of life in The GDP while falling victim to obvious tricks of melodrama and a muddled execution.

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Andy Crump

Movie Mezzanine

11/14/2014

C

The Tower engages with its literary and historical bases without saying much about them.

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Louis Proyect

rec.arts.movies.reviews

11/08/2014

More interesting for its insights into East German society than as film art. Worth it for those trying to make sense of an end to the "End of History" nonsense defended by Francis Fukuyama.

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Doris Toumarkine

Film Journal International

11/06/2014

The Tower offers solid performances and stories that hold interest, but its look is more that of TV movie than atmospheric evocation of a dreary historic period.

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Alain E

@AlainE Apr 19

It provides an inside view of the dissolution of GDR. Of limited interest to the average American. If, on the other hand, you ever crossed in the good old days the Berin Wall at Checkpoint Charlie and you had to empty your pockets so the heavily armed guards could verify that you were not carrying any form of printed matter that would corrupt the comrades inside, it is of interest. There are a couple of substories involving personal relationships, some less successful than others. Overall, it is a decaying society far from enabling happiness. The irony is that about thirty years after the events dramatized in the movie, the population of the former East Germany embraced the Neonazis. From Karl Marx to Adolf Hitler in the span of a generation!

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Christian Schwochow

Director

Jan Josef Liefers

Richard Hoffmann

Sebastian Urzendowsky

Christian Hoffmann

Claudia Michelsen

Anne Hoffmann

Nadja Uhl

Josta Fischer

Lea Ruckpaul

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Synopsis

In Communist East Germany, a surgeon (Jan Josef Liefers), his family and a community of privileged intellectuals go about their daily lives behind the Berlin Wall.

Director: Christian Schwochow
Screenwriter: Thomas Kirchner
Distributor: Music Box Films
Genre: History, Drama
Original Language: German
Release Date (Theaters): Nov 7, 2014, Limited
Runtime: 2h 0m