gavin6942 Danzig in the 1920s/1930s. Oskar Matzerath, son of a local dealer, is a most unusual boy. Equipped with full intellect right from his birth he decides at his third birthday not to grow up as he sees the crazy world around him at the eve of World War II.This is very much a fantasy film. IMDb says it is a war drama, which is true enough, being set in the place and time that it is. But this is less about the war and more about Oskar, which I think makes it a fantasy film. His imagination is incredible, or perhaps more incredible is the idea that none of this is his imagination at all. His ability to alter the world around him is quite interesting.The idea of a tin drum as a symbol of protest makes sense. It becomes even more interesting when put in the hands of a small child, protesting against life itself. Such an action is unheard of.

Tom Dooley Made in 1979 this award winning German film is an adaptation of the book of the same name by Günter Grass. It is the story of Oskar who is born to a mother who loves two men and a grandmother with a past and very accommodating skirts. On his third birthday he sees how the adults around him are behaving and is less than pleased. So he makes up his mind that he will stop growing up.He is also inseparable from his tin drum – which he bangs at all occasions and needs to regularly replace. He also has a gift of having such a high powered scream that it will shatter glass – this he uses when ever he is displeased. His rejection of his family and their middle class attitudes is set against the rise of Nazism and Der Fuhrer. Even though his body will not grow his mind certainly does and that will bring its own problems.This is a truly memorable film, with acting, direction and camera work that is as close to flawless that I have seen. It is 136 minutes long but seems much shorter which is always the sign of a quality film. There are scenes that come close to bizarre but that too is used to show the absurdist nature of what was taking place at the time and beneath the pomp of the rallies, and the like, lay the very real dangers that Hitler and co would bring down on Germany. This is one of those films that all serious cinephiles need to see, I am glad I finally have.

tieman64 "The innocent are so few that two of them seldom meet. When they do meet, their victims lie strewn all round." - Elizabeth Bowen Volker Schlondorff's "The Tin Drum" stars David Bennent as Oskar Matzerath, a young boy growing up in 1920s Danzig (a city which once straddled the border between Germany and Poland). Because he's possessed an adult's (somewhat pessimistic) awareness since birth, Oskar begins to develop a deep hatred of humanity. Oskar thus decides to not advance beyond the age of three. He will not grow up in this world, and instead spends his days banging loudly on a tin drum as a show of protest.Oskar is initially painted as history's moral objector. He sees what others don't and protests what others keenly follow. Quickly, however, Oskar's drumming becomes Schlondorff's blunt metaphor for ineffectual artisans. Oskar drums and screams, but no one listens. Nazisim gathers steam, Poland is invaded, Germany's "economic miracle" occurs, and he becomes a witness to much adultery, cruelty and horror.Oskar himself becomes increasingly amoral. His body may preserve an outward innocence, but inside he grows self absorbed and cruel. And so though Oskar interrupts Nazy rallies and sympathises with the Jewish man who sold him a tin drum (and who is later killed during "Kristallnacht", the "Night of the Broken Glass", upon which the Nazis destroyed Jewish stores and synagogues), he is nevertheless quick to don a Nazi uniform and play his drum for Nazi officials.By the film's end, Oskar epitomises every man infantalized by, or made an obedient child to, the tides of history. "I prefer to be a spectator, not an artist," Oskar says. He's adopted a tone of total futility, and comes to believe that imagination, action and conviction are all inadequate in the fight against place, time and political currents. But while this is Oskar's belief – he later throws his drum away altogether – it is not something Schlondorff necessarily affirms. Oskar's drumming is shown to have the power to destabilise. In one of his more successful protests, an entire Nazi band is led into confusion by his boisterous percussion.Like the works of Wojciech Has, Schlondorff's tone here is a strange blend of surrealism, fantasy, farce, tragedy and much queasy imagery. Oskar himself has the face of a gnome, and his antics are frequently nauseating. The film also makes heavy use of symbolism, many of its major points conveyed obliquely. For example, Oskar is shown to be born in 1924, the year when Germany's economy began its post WW1 climb. On Oskar's third birthday the country's economic stability is then aligned with the child's own refusal to progress, a stagnation which echoes Germany's suspension of democratic and liberal freedoms. Oskar's drum is even shown to be threatened with a "silencing" on his sixth birthday, which occurs in 1933, the year the Nazis came into power, symbolising Nazism's quest to silence all dissenters.Other issues are raised almost imperceptibly. A throwaway line, in which one character states that he was not present for "Kristallnacht", highlights a stance which was common in Germany after the war: "it happened but I was not there; I did not participate". Meanwhile, Oskar's own uncle is quick to replace a picture of Beethoven with Hitler when the Nazi Party comes into power, and replaces it just as quickly when the Nazi's are defeated. He is the "everyday" Nazi, his allegiances blowing with the winds of change.One of the most disturbing passages in the film revolves around fishermen plucking eels from a dead horse's head, a sequence which mirrors the eating habits of other characters in the film, all of whom are shown to be always munching on seafood. This food is later aligned to the corpses of English sailors sunk in naval battles off the coast of Germany. While Oskar protests, Germany eats her foes (while the country rots from the head down?).Anti-semitism is touched upon openly – Jewish shop-keepers are bullied and driven to suicide – but briefly. More interesting are several sequences in which Oskar damns the Catholic Church for not resisting Hitler (see Costa Gavras' "Amen"). In one of the film's more overt moments, Oskar slaps a statue of Christ and accuses him of not helping. Meanwhile, religion is mirrored to Germany's frenzied, quasi religious adulation for Hitler, whom Oskar calls "the Gas Man", a warped version of Father Christmas. Mirrored to these two national fathers (Christ and Hitler) are Oskar's own two fathers (a Polish and German father), both of whom are condemned to death by Oskar's behaviour. Schlondorff would revisit similar material with his 2004 film, "The Ninth Day".8/10 – See "The Garden of the Finzi Continis", "The Damned", "Seven Beauties", "Special Section" and "Protector".

lastliberal Do you dismiss a movie because it is strange? Some do, and rate this film as a story about an obnoxious little boy who goes around banging a drum and breaking glass.Firstly, the performance of David Bennent as Oskar was phenomenal. As an 11 or 12 year old, he played a part from infancy to 21. Maybe he was obnoxious, but I choose to believe that he was making a powerful statement about the undesirability of growing up in a world where adults do not act very adult.Set against the backdrop of WWII, it can also be viewed as rebellion against war and fascism.Strange, sometimes evil, but nevertheless a powerful film that should be seen by all.