The fifth Element

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Movie
German title The fifth Element
Original title Le Cinquième Élément
The Fifth Element
Country of production France
original language English
Publishing year 1997
length 121 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
Rod
Director Luc Besson
script Luc Besson,
Robert Mark Kamen
production Gaumont ,
Patrice Ledoux
music Eric Serra
camera Thierry Arbogast
cut Sylvie Landra
occupation
synchronization

The fifth element (original title: Le Cinquième Élément ) is a science fiction film by Luc Besson with Bruce Willis and Milla Jovovich from 1997 . The fifth element is one of the most commercially successful European films to date due to gross grossing over $ 260 million.

action

The film begins in 1914 in Egypt , in a ruined temple, where the archaeologist Professor Pacoli, accompanied by reporter Billy and a priest, finds inscriptions about the inconceivable evil that recurs every 5000 years and tries to destroy all life. There is also something of a weapon against evil - the five elements, whereby the four elements fire, water, earth and air are represented by four stones. A fifth element is buried in a sarcophagus. If the elements were placed in the temple, the evil could be stopped.

One of the four stones, here in the "activated" state

The priest, who is the guardian of the mystery of the fifth element and the temple, tries in vain to poison the professor and Billy. Finally, a spaceship with aliens from a foreign civilization, the Mondoshawan (pronounced: Mondoschiwan), lands in front of the temple. They take the stones and the sarcophagus out of concern that they will not be safe in the upcoming war on earth. The priest is commissioned by the Mondoshawan to observe the temple and to pass this task on to the priests of the following generations in order to prepare for the next appearance of the inconceivable evil and the return of the Mondoshawan with the five elements.

In 2263 the mythical battle between good and evil finally begins. Evil, a giant bullet that races towards the earth, has allied itself with Jean-Baptiste Emanuel Zorg, the head of a large economic empire that deals in weapons, among other things. Zorg uses alien warriors named Mangalores as a mercenary. The alien warriors are the last survivors of a militant race defeated by humans. Zorg is supposed to get the four stones, hand them over to the unbelievable evil (who occasionally calls Zorg under the name "Mr. Shadow") and thus disarm the earth. In addition, the weapon against evil can even be transformed into an annihilator of the world by replacing the fifth element with evil in the center of the weapon.

The fifth element, a woman named Leeloo Minai Lekatariba-Lamina-Tchai Ekbat De Sebat, is sent to earth by the Mondoshawan to defend the earth against the inconceivable evil together with the other four elements. Her spaceship is attacked and destroyed by the Mangalores en route, but Leeloo is cloned back with the help of some remaining living cells by scientists on Earth, who call her genome that of the perfect human . At first confused and disoriented, she escapes from the laboratory and ends up in a taxi from Korben Dallas, a former officer in a special unit. Despite the very adverse circumstances and the fact that Leeloo can hardly communicate with him, he takes her in and takes her to the priest Vito Cornelius, who, as the successor of the Egyptian priest, is the keeper of secrets and liaison with Leeloo and the Mondoshawan. As soon as Leeloo's identity has been revealed, Korben is unceremoniously put outside the door again, and Cornelius and his pupil David set about teaching Leeloo everything about the earth, as well as finding out from her where the stones are. Meanwhile, Zorg and the Mangalores quarrel over the failure of the interception mission. The four stones had not been on board because the Mondoshawan had mistrusted the people and arranged the transport differently. Zorg and the Mangalores begin to hunt the stones independently of each other.

Meanwhile, the military commissioned Korben with the help of a bogus competition with the mission of meeting a singer who is in possession of the four stones on a cruise spaceship on Fhloston Paradise. Using the "profit", Cornelius, Zorg and the Mangalores also try to get on board independently of each other and thus to get the stones, but in the end Korben flies to the ship with Leeloo and becomes the guest of honor of the eccentric show master Ruby Rhod. Cornelius also gets on the spaceship as a stowaway. This is also attacked by Zorg and the Mangalores (again separately). The singer is killed, but Korben saves the four stones and Leeloo. Korben, Leeloo, Cornelius and Ruby leave the spaceship in a small space glider from Zorg, while Leeloo is severely traumatized by the word "war" and the associated images while studying the earth language. Zorg, who planted a bomb to clear his tracks, is forced to return to the ship and defuse his explosive device when he finds that he has only captured an empty suitcase instead of the stones. But immediately afterwards the defeated Mangalores detonate their own bomb, which Zorg and the ship destroyed.

Evil continues to fly towards Earth and is about to collide with it. Korben and his companions reach the Egyptian temple just in time and solve the puzzle about the activation of the stones. With these, however, the defense weapon is only partially activated; the fifth element - Leeloo - is still missing. She is close to dying through the violence of the previous fights and doubts that such a violent species as human beings would be worthy of rescue. Desperate, she asks Korben to give her a reason why humanity deserves to be saved. When Korben declares his love for her and they kiss, she is activated as the fifth element and the evil is stopped a few seconds before the impact by a beam of light that is generated by the four stones, bundled by them and shot through the open temple roof into space becomes. Korben and Leeloo hug each other passionately.

In a final scene, the President of the United Continents wants to thank everyone involved on behalf of humanity for saving the planet.

Awards

  • The film was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Sound Editing in 1998 . He was nominated for the Saturn Award in 1998 in the categories of Best Science Fiction Film , Best Special Effects , Best Costumes and Best Supporting Actress (Milla Jovovich) . In 1998 he won the BAFTA Award for special effects .
  • Luc Besson for directing, Thierry Arbogast for cinematography and Dan Weil for Best Production Design won the César in 1998 . The film was nominated for the same award in the categories of Best Film , Best Costumes , Best Editing , Best Film Music and Best Sound .
  • Milla Jovovich was nominated for the Blockbuster Entertainment Award and (for Best Fight Scene ) the MTV Movie Award in 1998 .
  • The film won the 1997 Golden Screen , the Silver Bogey Award and was nominated for the European Film Prize. The film won the Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Viewing in 1998 and was nominated for the Golden Reel Award in 1998 for sound editing . Luc Besson won the French Lumiere Award in 1998 for his directing .
  • Milla Jovovich was nominated for the Golden Raspberry ridiculous award as worst supporting actress and Chris Tucker for the Golden Raspberry as worst newcomer (along with his performance in Money Talks - Money doesn't stink ).

background

Screenwriter Luc Besson had the idea for such a story at the age of 16. He was writing the first novel on The Fifth Element at this time . In 1990 work on the script began. Production was to begin in 1991 with Gaumont and Warner Bros. as production companies, but Warner stopped shooting at short notice due to the immense estimated production costs of over 100 million US dollars. After Luc Besson's success with Léon - The Professional , work on the project The Fifth Element began in 1996 . The film was released in 1997. In Germany, the film opened in cinemas on August 28, 1997.

synchronization

The film was dubbed in the Babelsberg studio . Joachim Kunzendorf wrote the dialogue book and directed the dialogue.

role actor Voice actor
Korben Dallas Bruce Willis Manfred Lehmann
Leeloo Milla Jovovich Claudia Lehmann
Zorg Gary Oldman Udo Schenk
Vito Cornelius Ian Holm Klaus Jepsen
Ruby Rhod Chris Tucker Torsten Michaelis
Billy Luke Perry Sebastian Christoph Jacob
General Munro Brion James Michael Telloke
Professor Mactilburgh Christopher Fairbank Rainer Doering
President Lindberg Thomas Lister junior Tilo Schmitz
Fog Lee Evans David Nathan
David Charlie Creed-Miles Asad Black
Right arm Tricky Reinhard Scheunemann
diva Maywenn Beate Gerlach
General Staedert John Neville Jochen Schröder
Professor Pacoli John Bluthal Michael Narloch

Reviews

James Berardinelli compared the film on ReelViews to the science fiction films Stargate , Independence Day and Judge Dredd . He wrote that the film was one of those science fiction films that "attack" viewers with special effects and make them forget logic and "intelligence". A film budget of around 100 million US dollars does not guarantee a good film. It "would have been good if someone had spent a few extra dollars on a better script".

Martin Soyka, on the other hand, draws the conclusion on film releases: “Overall, 'The fifth element' has become something very special. Easily consumable, not unintelligent, funny, told quickly and with tremendous chutzpah . "

“A virtuoso work that ensures great fun with a future backdrop that has been lovingly designed down to the last detail and breathtaking effects. The fifth element is fast-paced sci-fi fun, with a wonderfully comical Bruce Willis and a charming Milla Jovovich. "

- Gong No. 40/2007

“A virtuoso film peppered with film quotes, in which the décor and effects are everything, whereas the plot and logic are purely secondary. Loud, colorful and often at the level of a freak show, the film knows how to entertain its audience better than the majority of its uniform Hollywood competitors. "

- Lexicon of international film

20 years after the film was released, Lars-Olav Beier wrote a review of Valerian - The City of a Thousand Planets on The Fifth Element and wrote that director Besson was ridiculed for his film, in which a bleached Bruce Willis is the chauffeur Space taxis played. Beier: "Today the film is cult."

Miscellaneous

Leeloo is a popular cosplay motif, and the multipass is an important accessory.
  • The protagonist Korben Dallas and the antagonist Zorg do not meet each other once in the film.
  • The costumes and accessories were designed by the French fashion designer Jean-Paul Gaultier .
  • When the archaeologist suddenly faces huge Mondoshawan aliens at the beginning of the film, he asks in the German version: “Are you from Earth?”, While the original says: “Are you German?” (Eng. “Are you German)?").
  • The first part of the diva's aria is from the opera Lucia di Lammermoor by Gaetano Donizetti and is sung by Inva Mula . As the actress of the diva, however , acted Maïwenn , with whom the director Besson was living at the time of the shooting and who stepped in as a replacement, since an originally intended model for the role was canceled. Maïwenn spent several months preparing for the performance and practicing the technique of singing to make the playback convincing. The daily transformation into an alien diva took three hours. The character was not shown to the other cast like Bruce Willis before the concert in order to achieve an authentic surprise.
  • As a comic fan, Luc Besson worked with two of the most important French cartoonists: Jean Giraud (artist pseudonym: Moebius) and Jean-Claude Mézières . Both had caused a stir in France in the early 1970s with popular comic series. Moebius was known from Blueberry and the (French) magazine Métal hurlant , which appeared in German under the name Schwermetall . Mézières became known through the Valerian series. Moebius and Mézières both attended the same academy ( École des Arts Appliqués ), but it was the first time they worked together on an artwork on this project . Together they created the look of the film - including the vehicles, spaceships, cityscapes, as well as the human and extraterrestrial figures.
  • The fifth element was until 2014 ( Lucy ) the most commercially successful film by director Luc Besson.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Box Office Mojo
  2. ↑ The fifth element Moviepilot . Retrieved March 19, 2018.
  3. ↑ German synchronous index: German synchronous index | Movies | The fifth Element. Retrieved May 28, 2018 .
  4. ^ Review by James Berardinelli
  5. ↑ Filmstarts.de
  6. ↑ The fifth element. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed April 24, 2017 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used 
  7. ^ Lars-Olav Beier : Bonbonniere in space . In: Der Spiegel 29/2017. July 15, 2017, p. 130.

Web links

Commons : The fifth element  - collection of images, videos and audio files