Amarillo Slim What happens when you are a denizen of the modern world and you are cast into the more primitive world? And alone? How do you cope? How do you survive? How do you tell the story, even though you have no idea whether others will hear the story? This is a walk through the human mind. An excellent story. Watch it.

dswouters A couple of days ago, quite by chance and without any idea as to what to expect, I watched this movie on TV. It blew my mind as no other has ever done at first viewing. A metaphor for a clinical depression, this film, after the 1960s novel by Marlen Haushofer, is so beautiful that for me, who have my entire life been hovering on the brink of one, it went a long way towards reconciling me not only to that condition, but even to the possibility that one day I may actually have to cross the border. The gradual dissolving of one's inner world into a glorious outer universe all reserved to oneself. The animals who are the only remaining link to life, but one by one fall away, and in particular are senselessly slaughtered at the first opportunity by any "other" human who somehow manages to intrude inside the wall. Soon, only the ostracized white crow will be left. But when it disappears in its turn, we can (or must) be sure there will be something else – smaller, remoter, and more insignificant still, yet that will take over the task of anchoring one fast to the world.Quoting Beckett - "That's how it is on this bitch of an earth." Except that there are books and movies like Die Wand, and the breathtaking natural world it reminds us of, to help keeping it bearable.

clewis2666 The best word to describe this film is "pretentious". That means that it is giving itself airs, claiming to say something important that we lesser mortals have not yet appreciated, and, in so doing, boring us to bits. (POSSIBILITY OF SPOILERS) I understood the film in the following way: the invisible wall is just a way of telling us that the woman had made the decision to cut herself off from the rest of humankind so that whenever she seemed to be wanting to approach someone her inner fear sprang up to restrain her. She has chosen to live alone, having marked out a large swathe of beautiful barely inhabited highland country wherein to live and have her being. She doesn't want to die. Even though she is intensely depressive, and very boring to watch and listen to her low-pitched whine, she gets to know the local animals and is pretty good at keeping herself alive. She bonds with a dog. She apparently has some isolationist experiences which may be valuable for her mental state, though they sound weird or trite to the ordinary viewer. But everything she offers is manna from heaven for art-house patrons and the superior sort of film critic, who would probably quite enjoy watching paint dry. This is similar to that, but it is better in that the countryside and the photography are lovely and worse than that in that there is the additional element of the miserably depressed woman. The couple who bring her to her cottage play ghastly pop music very loudly in their car, presumably a ham-fisted way of telling us, perhaps through her perception, how boorish they (or all other humans) are. Whether we see it as catharsis or denouement or, as I do, merely as confirmation of her hatred of mankind, we see in the final moments of the film that the one human who somehow manages to penetrate the wall is cruel and vicious and the woman, whose hatred of mankind may be seen as being responsible for creating this figure in her world, expresses that hatred and takes her revenge by being extremely nasty to him. End of story. Yawn yawn.

Simon Fairburn Stunning locations/cinematography, brilliant pace and performance from Martina Gedeck (and the dog) provide considerable suspense and fascination with each unfolding scenario and outcome. What this movie did for me was provoke thought about life in isolation without modernity to hand, which is a recommendation in itself. It does so with great style and sense of place and documentary quality. The original novel seems to have been served well as the journal narrative determines the steadiness of the story as a pattern of actions develops with the seasons. Spare in so many ways I think this is a great movie on many levels.