Michael Neumann A laconic engineer/adventurer, with a fear of chance and coincidence, courts both when he meets a young waif half his age who reminds him of his lost love, and not without good reason. The final surprise plot twist is telegraphed well in advance, but after a clumsy introduction, with too many flashbacks within flashbacks and odd, impulsive changes in scenery (Europe to South America to New York City), the globetrotting story settles down into a haunting parable of memory and fate, showing how one can be forgotten but the other never avoided. The only other flaw to the film is Sam Shepard's annoying and unnecessary voice-over confession, which sounds as if it were added for the benefit of slow thinking American audiences. The narration spoils what could have been a minor romantic masterpiece; notice how much more enigmatic and involving the story becomes without it.

minasant In comparison with the book, the film is in a scale from 1 to 10 a 3. On a good day a 5. In my opinion, for someone who has read the book and analysed it, it will be easy to see all the awful flaws in the characters interpretation and actions. The hole set is nicely developed and explored, but a few details (in Hanna's apartment for example) don't actually match with the characters personality. The book has a high quantity of symbols and metaphors and they are almost not shown in the film at all. The importance of small details like Walter constantly shaving in the book is superficially explored in the movie. Walter's disgust to Nature isn't shown at all! I think the movie could be more exciting. The plot has every spice it needed to be really great. Maybe if the actresses could have been better chosen, since Ivy is just to old, Hanna at the end just too young.. Only Sabeth fits perfectly into her role. Congratulations to Julie Delpy, for once again performing so beautifully. About Walter: Walter's interpretation of the role is unreal and unfaithful to the book. In the film Walter is a man full of charm, seductive and caring. Where is all the distance, cold-heartiness of the book's character..? The control-freak, the workaholic character? While having sex with Ivy, Walter usually thinks about planes and turbines, but in the movie he is an amazing lover. Hanna's importance in Walter's love life is also not given enough importance. In the book walter says that only with Hanna wasn't sex absurd. She was afterall, the true love of his life. The End of the film is an open ending, in the book Walter eventually dies with Cancer, after a huge change in his vision of the world. His relation towards nature totally mutates. He becomes a different man. Important details such as symbols that warn Walter about Sabeth's death (and his own death as well) are inexistent in the film.But in an overall, and ignoring the fact that i've read the book by Max Frisch.. I've rated the film with 6 points, knowing how old it is, and how the budget might have been, it's a nice Sunday-afternoon film, that let's you reflect about destiny.

David Books and movies have a strange relationship. It seems somehow necessary to turn every half-popular book into a movie, no matter if it works or not. The strangest thing about it is, that most of the time it is not a genuine idea which gives the reason for making the movie, but simply that a lot of people read the book.Consider "Homo Faber" based on the popular book by Max Frisch. Well, it is mainly popular in German literature classes where students are forced to read and interpret it until every word is turned around and every meaning is squeezed out (as it happens with all literature in school). Personally, I thought "Homo Faber" was a rather unneccessary book, boring, dull, complicated, the meaning squattered all over the pages with abstract metaphors. The last 40 pages are simply a dread.So, how could I possibly like the movie? Well, I couldn't but at least I could stand it, because it is easier to watch this strange story than to read it. The story is, let's face it, really absurd. A man crashes with a plane, meets someone who is the brother of an old friend and finds together with him the friend, who killed himself. Then he goes on a journey with a ship meets a beautiful woman, falls in love, travels with her through Europe and finds out she is his daughter. She has an accident, he meets the mother/his ex-lover, they argue, the daughter dies, the end. If this sounds like I gave away the ending, I'm sorry, but Faber, the title character, doesn't hesitate to say it himself quite early in the movie and the book.The story is full of implausible coincidences which aren't so obvious in the book with its complicated narration, but in the straight-told movie it becomes very obvious how ridiculous this is. The movie is a typical checklist movie, checking everything in the book and bringing it to the screen without any new ideas or innovation. It just straightens out the storytelling, leaves away the awful last 40 pages and remains to be quite boring anyway.Schlöndorff doesn't try anything new he just films the pages, or maybe at least the surface of the pages. Technically the film is well-okay, although the music gets quite annoying in the end and far too dramatic in the "dramatic" scenes. The black-white effect could have made sense if it would have been used constantly and with some kind of logic. The flashbacks are hurried away and leave the viewer confused.The acting is quite okay, Sam Shepard does the best he can (and he can be really good). Julie Delpy is another case for the "Love or Hate"-file, while I have to admit I don't love her. Barbara Sukowa as Hanna leaves us with no emotions for her character and August Zirner as Joachim is nothing more than a silhouette.So, if you liked the book it is pretty likely that you will like the film. If you didn't like the book or haven't read it, it is more unlikely that you will like it.

len18g Voyager is to be enjoyed for the characters and the actors' performances and not for the plot which is rather obvious, unsurprising, and which requires extensive suspension of disbelief. Sam Shepard is very effective but it is the ethereal luminescence of Julie Delpy that kept me riveted. She is a special presence onscreen. In addition, although the story is contrived, the relationships and issues are thought provoking and lingering.