That's likely a critical point - that about 45 minutes of the original film are missing from Arte's version that I saw. It might explain much of the narrative incoherence here: what happened to Old Mrs. Hartmann after the mill burned? Why does nobody seem to care about that afterwards? Kowal-Samborsky is a fine actor, but why does he strike us as so unsympathetic? Why does Ilse Stobrawa (who sure has a resemblance to Renee Stobrawa - are they sisters?) get herself blown up? Her character is very unconvincing, although she seems like a good actress: her part is poorly developed. The one-dimensional Viola Garden, who gives no dramatic interest whatsoever to her character, simply appears to be untalented. And what is the point of this film anyway, what position is it taking in the modernization / tradition battle? The Russian-style editing (ie, super fast cuts with shots often repeated to raise tension) seems botched here. In Russian films, the "message" we are presented with is always unambiguous; Sprengbagger takes no apparent position. One can neither be instructed nor moved by this film. I suspect that if we had the complete film, we would perhaps be able to make better sense of the narrative, but I'm afraid we would also criticize it for being too long.
Review of Sprengbagger 1010
