Keepers of Memory - The Giver
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | Keepers of Memory - The Giver |
| Original title | The Giver |
| Country of production | United States |
| original language | English |
| Publishing year | 2014 |
| length | 97 minutes |
| Age rating |
FSK 12 JMK 12 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Phillip Noyce |
| script |
Michael Mitnick , Robert B. Weide |
| production |
Nikki Silver , Jeff Bridges , Neil Koenigsberg |
| music | Marco Beltrami |
| camera | Ross Emery |
| cut | Barry Alexander Brown |
| occupation | |
| |
Guardian of Memory - The Giver (original title: The Giver - translated: the Giver ) is an American science fiction film based on the novel by Lois Lowry . Directed by Phillip Noyce . The script was written by Michael Mitnick and Robert B. Weide . The German theatrical release was on October 2, 2014.
action
16-year-old Jonas lives in a future, apparently ideal world: There are no wars, no poverty and no violence. In return, the community does not want anyone in the community to be different. People do not feel any deeper feelings or see any colors because of a drug given to them every morning. Scientists also control the environment so that it does not disturb the balance in the community. All people live in complete equality: they have identical “accommodations” and wear identical clothing.
The council of elders, chaired by the "chief elders", controls all life. Each family can only have two children. But the mothers and fathers are not the birth parents: sons and daughters are carried by surrogate mothers and assigned to a couple on request. As soon as they come of age, the family is dissolved and the young people are given a predetermined task in society.
Jonas is an extraordinary boy: he is intelligent, righteous and is the only one in the community with bright eyes, with which he can sometimes see colors despite the drug. As part of the ceremony, at which the young men and women of his age group find out their future destiny, the chief of the boss, to his surprise, names Jonas the new “Keeper of Memory”. The aim of this honorable office is to administer the entire knowledge of mankind on a representative basis. Only the “keeper of memory” knows what the world looked like before the introduction of equality: a world of imperfection and aggression, but also of love and solidarity among people.
Jonas begins his training with the previous guardian of memory, who thereby becomes a "giver". The old man is kind but tired because the burden of the past rests on his shoulders alone. Through touch he transfers memories in the form of visions to his pupil. The more time Jonas spends with his mentor, the more he isolates himself from his friends and stops taking the daily drug. Addicted to ever new information from the old world, which nobody else is allowed to know, he gets to know fun and joy, sadness, pain and also love: unexpectedly he feels drawn to Fiona, a nurse in the newborn department with whom he has been Childhood friends.
The giver and his inquisitive student realize that the world in which they live was built on lies and crime. Because all people are deprived of their memory, no one can feel real joy or real love. The two decide to overthrow the system. But the hurdles are higher than expected. The Council of Elders incites drone pilot Asher against him, Jonas' best friend since childhood. In order to be able to save the people he loves, Jonas has to escape from the community. But before him nobody has managed to leave this alive.
When he escapes, the council of elders arrests the giver and Fiona, who helped Jonas and has already begun to reciprocate his feelings. Asher manages to find Jonas with a drone, but he lets him escape because Fiona has previously reminded him of their friendship. With his last strength, Jonas can cross the boundaries of memories that surround the community's settlement, whereupon all memories of the past return and tear people from their equality.
reception
The Rotten Tomatoes review collection got just 35% positive reviews based on 139 professional reviews, and formulates the consensus as follows: “Phillip Noyce gives Keepers of Memory visual grace, but the film doesn't go far enough on the thought-provoking ideas of the classic Template. "
Franz Everschor from film-dienst judged that director Noyce could “do nothing, absolutely nothing” with the “contemplative” story. Compared to other dystopian films, “Noyce could only think of clichés that lagged behind similar sequences in ' Snowpiercer ' and ' The Hunger Games '”. Furthermore, the figures “do not produce any living impulses”. Everschor concludes: "Among the utopian films of recent times, there has been no one who gambled away the little substance that keeps their fantastic concepts alive as ingeniously as 'The Giver'."
Rudolf Worschech from epd Film awarded three out of five possible stars and above all highlighted the change between black and white and color images (a “simple but all the more effective trick”) as well as the memories shown during Jonas' training (“[d] his brief moments from human history ... are among the strongest in the film ”). Like the original, the film sees itself as “a vehement plea for the freedom of the individual” and tells “of the self-assertion of an individual that will change an entire society”. Worschech also praised the acting performances of Jeff Bridges, Meryl Streep, Katie Holmes and Alexander Skarsgård.
In the Standard, Isabella Reicher came to the conclusion that the director had "left it with rather simple staging ideas"; Jonas' visions and learning experiences would look "like commercials for the Discovery Channel ". So in the end "[s] self-calibrated actors like Streep or Bridges" looked "quite lost".
Manohla Dargis described the film in the New York Times as "an unnerving mixture of dystopian horror, spongy religiosity and advertising-like pathos" that is "just dull". Director Noyce worked with a “pathetic script”, “burdened with cheap special effects and sets that would have required more money, more ingenuity or more of both” and “couldn't do much more” himself, although he “couldn't to strive "seems.
Web links
- Keepers of Memory - The Giver in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Scientific review on KinderundJugendmedien.de
Individual evidence
- ^ Certificate of Release for Keepers of Memory - The Giver . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry , September 2014 (PDF; test number: 146 953 K).
- ↑ Age rating for Keepers of Memory - The Giver . Youth Media Commission .
- ^ The Giver (2014). Rotten Tomatoes, accessed October 7, 2014 : "Phillip Noyce directs The Giver with visual grace, but the movie doesn't dig deep enough into the classic source material's thought-provoking ideas."
- ↑ Franz Everschor: Guardian of Memory - The Giver . In: Filmdienst . No. 21 , 2014 ( online [accessed October 7, 2014]).
- ↑ Rudolf Worschech: Guardian of Memory - The Giver . In: epd film . No. 10 , 2014 ( online [accessed October 7, 2014]).
- ↑ Isabella Reicher: New in the cinema: "Keepers of Memory" with Jeff Bridges and Meryl Streep . In: The Standard . September 30, 2014 ( online [accessed October 7, 2014]).
- ↑ Manohla Dargis: If You Want to Remember, You Have to Ask the Old Guy . In: The New York Times . August 15, 2014, p. C12 ( online [accessed October 7, 2014] "In truth, the enervating hash of dystopian dread, vague religiosity and commercial advertising-style uplift is nothing if not stale. ... The director Phillip Noyce - working with a lamentable script credited to Michael Mitnick and Robert B. Weide, and saddled with cheap digital effects and sets that needed more money or imagination or both - can't do much here, but doesn't seem to be trying hard, either. ").