Audience Member
Michael (Christian Ulmen) and Bruno (Moritz Bleibtreu) are half-brothers and very different from each other. They both had an unusual childhood because their mother was a hippie, and they grew up with their grandmothers and in boarding schools. Michael grows up to become a molecular biologist and in doing so becomes more fascinated with genetics and separating reproduction and sexuality by cloning rather than having actual sexual relationships. He is frustrated by his current job in Berlin and decides to continue his research on cloning at an institution in Ireland. Bruno, a secondary school teacher and unsuccessful author, on the other hand, is obsessed with his own sexual desires and systematically drowns himself in failed attempts with women and nights with prostitutes. He voluntarily checks himself into a mental institution after having sexually harassed one of his students. Before his departure to Ireland, Michael visits the village of his childhood for the first time in years. To his surprise, he meets his childhood friend Annabelle (Franka Potente) there and finds that she is still single and they start a sexual relationship. Bruno leaves the mental institution and goes on holiday to a hippie camp after being faced with divorce by his wife. At the camp he meets Christiane, who is also sexually open. Although they have an open relationship, he falls in love with her. During a sex orgy at one of their visits to a swing club, Christiane collapses and Bruno is faced in hospital with the news that Christiane is paralysed forever because of a chronic illness. Nonetheless Bruno wants to live with her until the end. However Christiane insists that he should take some time for consideration. Michael moves to Ireland and learns that, despite his doubts, his old research on cloning was a revolutionary breakthrough. However he misses Annabelle but does not manage to get her on the phone. Annabelle is informed that she is pregnant but must have an abortion and her womb removed due to life-threatening abnormalities. Bruno calls Christiane but always replaces the receiver after just one ring. He finally drives to her apartment only to learn that she has committed suicide shortly before. Subsequently he re-enters mental institution totally devastated. Michael is told by Annabelle's mother that Annabelle had an abortion and a severe surgery. He immediately leaves Ireland for Annabelle and finally openly admits his deep love to her...
"Elementarteichlen" (The Elementary Particles) is a strange tale based on Michel Houellebecq's controversial novel about two halfbrothers and their life development based on their disturbed sexuality. It´s not really a dark comedy and it´s not really a drama. I am not really sure what it is. It´s weird and unpleasant at times. I feel a bit lost for words in a way. "Elementarteichlen" is more of a tragic drama to my mind, not really a black comedy. Moritz Bleibtreu is solid as Bruno and I do like Franka Potente. However, it seems that one should read Michel Houellebecq's novel instead judging from other reviewers.
Rated 3/5 Stars •
Rated 3 out of 5 stars
02/21/23
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Audience Member
Dark, gives goosebumbs and shows every inch of the aliniated enviroment we're surrounded by. It's not a happy movie but makes you feel good
Rated 5/5 Stars •
Rated 5 out of 5 stars
02/04/23
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Audience Member
Great book, awful film adaptation!
Rated 0.5/5 Stars •
Rated 0.5 out of 5 stars
02/25/23
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Audience Member
An intriguing drama telling the story of two polar opposite half-brothers. Good performances, especially Moritz Bleibtreu (Run Lola Run, The Baader Meinhoff Complex). While at times a bit overly dramatic it does have some interesting ideas and character development.
Rated 3.5/5 Stars •
Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars
02/21/23
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Audience Member
This raw, disturbing, yet poignant and captivating film caught me by surprise and kept me hooked right through to the bitter-sweet end. Set fifty years in the future, but mostly told through vignettes of the past, one could easily be forgiven for failing to see that it is, in part, a work of science fiction. The Elementary Particles (also known as Atomised) is the film adaption of a novel by French author Michel Houellebecq. The storyline revolves around the bleak, day to day lives of two brothers: Bruno Klement, (an anguished, depressed sex addicted and dysfunctional teacher, played by Moritz Bleibtreu), and Michel Djerzinski , (a painfully shy, introverted scientist played by Christian Ulmen ). Both men's awkward inability to function like 'normal' human beings is palpably exposed as each struggles and stumbles his way through life; the aftermath, it appears, of a chaotic childhood with a mostly absent hippy Mother, Jane, played by Nina Hoss. Bruno is moved from one abusive boarding school to another, eventually finding himself in a loveless marriage while Michel is raised by his paternal grandmother, and determinedly eschews all physical female contact while immersing himself in academia - aptly as a molecular biologist desperate to 'remove love' from the reproduction process through his life's work. Bruno's frantic, uncontrolled need for sex and female company has him lunging into disturbing, unsatisfactory, loveless and often perverted sexual encounters but never finding the 'connection' he so desperately seeks. The boys are unaware of each other's existence until their teens when Jane casually introduces them and they find they are complete opposites in every way; except the most important one - their inability to form healthy, satisfying human relationships - and that's where this movie excels; sensitively and cleverly portraying unvarnished hopelessness, despair and loneliness. Both Bruno and Michel are clearly 'empty of love'; Bruno, crass, sad, isolated, sexually deviant and emotionally broken, Michel painfully shy and scared of human contact. The intelligent script, screenplay and skillful acting allow the viewer a seamless transition between the lives of the two men. Touching, embarrassing, forceful and unforgettable, many scenes depicting the pathos of their existence are simply unforgettable . Bruno's pursuit of sex and the awkward realism of his sordid encounters are both entrancing and repellant; Michel's self-imposed isolation, palpably painful. When the brothers eventually stumble onto the one thing they have been seeking or avoiding all their lives, cruel and random events do not lead to the inevitable ending one might expect. It is enough, it seems, to have finally experienced the one thing that has always eluded them. Although The Elementary Particles is by no means an uplifting movie, its ingenious realism and its utter refusal to portray life as anything other than random, cruel, joyous and challenging is what makes it such a great work of art.
Rated 5/5 Stars •
Rated 5 out of 5 stars
02/03/23
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Audience Member
'Atomised' almost completely misses the main themes of Michel Houellebecq's novel at the same time as following the main elements of the story. Frankly I'm pretty glad of that as those were the reasons that I'd not watched the movie earlier. Oskar Roehler's version waters down Houellebecq's polemic against the values of 1968 to the point where one might actually miss them. Perhaps that what comes of a German re-working a French novel of this type (mmm... did I say 'of this type'?). For the premise of the book, revealed in the prologue (written in the future), is that a new and better race of people has been created and part of the tale which unfolds (in the present) tells of how this came about.
OK, Houellebecq's hippy mum abandoned him when he was a young'un. So she went off to do hippy things. Well, that's in the book, and in the film. (During the tour promoting her own book, written in retaliation, she asked, "Who hasn't called their son a sorry little prick?".) But it's nicer in the film. And lots of the bad things don't happen. Houellebecq's belief in the "absolute irreversibility of all processes of decay once they have begun" is not apparent here.
So was the film worth making? Not if the purpose of a film is to reflect at least the spirit of a book it was based on, because that's what missing. It's a pleasant film with a decent plot which entirely misses the novelist's point. Thank God.
Rated 2.5/5 Stars •
Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars
02/13/23
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