Load of rubbish!!

Great Film overall

Am I Missing Something?

The movie really just wants to entertain people.

It is amazing that these days there are still movie makers capable of creating true gems. Each scene, each minute of this movie is a little masterpiece: Beautiful cinematography, magnificent locations, a thrilling and engaging story, and - perhaps on the top of it all - a superb acting team with Moritz Bleibtreu as its leader. It is even more amazing and sad that this great piece of art has been so badly underappreciated and misunderstood - a brief look at the negative reviews on this website just confirms the trend. The annotation attached to all materials about this movie is partly responsible for this misunderstanding: "A psychedelic mushroom trip turns a successful lawyer into a wanted man." Mushrooms had nothing to do with the transformation the lawyer went through; rather, the inner and unknown side of his soul, which had been dormant for his entire life, suddenly revealed itself, took over his whole self and ultimately destroyed him.

Or maybe I should say on the bright side of the moon. "Die dunkle Seite des Mondes" is a German movie that premiered last year already, but the wide release was this year (2016) in pretty much all countries, including Germany as well. The director is Stephan Rick and he is also one of the writers who adapted Swiss author Martin Suter's novel. Suter has written the base material for quite a few somewhat known German movies in this new millennium. This fairly recent film here may be Suter's and Rick's most known work until this point. One reason is probably that Moritz Bleibtreu plays the main character in this 95-minute film, even if it's not him who is first-credited, but legendary German actor Jürgen Prochnow. However, Prochnow is really only supporting. Austrian actress Nora von Waldstätten plays the biggest female part. I myself would say that I like Prochnow and don't mind Bleibtreu and von Waldstätten. Another actor known to German audiences is André Hennicke ("Downfall"). In my opinion, however, this film is a bit of a missed opportunity. It lives through the acting and also through the atmospheric setting, but I never really got too interested in the story or the characters and what happened to them or may happen to them in the future. I guess this is maybe not even the filmmakers' fault, but maybe even the original writer's fault that I did not find the base material and core story too appealing. I have seen some other films based on Suter's work and I certainly preferred "Giulias Verschwinden", maybe some more as well.The story here is about a successful lawyer who goes on a mushroom trip with a woman he meets and dives deeper into her works. This trip the lawyer does not return from (I heard that in a Daniel Brühl film already) and it becomes a story about police investigation, but much more about crime and murder. Bleibtreu is decent for the main part. Could have been better. Could have been worse. But overall, I still must say I am a bit surprised how popular this film has become. You can probably say that almost two decades after "Lola rennt", Bleibtreu (unlike Potente) is still a major crowd magnet. In my opinion, the film does not deserve its popularity, even if I would not blame Bleibtreu for it (or not majorly blame him). There are many superior German films that have not attracted 10% of the attention this film attracted. I guess sometimes cheap thrills, like pointless animal killing on several occasions that add almost nothing to the story, are still what wide audiences want to see. Or should I say "fall for"? I myself give "The Dark Side of the Moon" a thumbs-down and I do not recommend the watch as it has very little to offer beyond a solid take on atmosphere.

I haven't read the novel this is based on, but judging from what I saw in this movie, it should be pretty good. Moritz Bleibtreu is not the only one who is glad that thrillers are made. It's tough because of the expectations and the cinemas not getting the revenue getting anything back (never mind the distributors or investors).This gets pretty dark and you get kind of in the head of our main character and how he is feeling. It's about a dark side that gets awakened, which is never a good thing of course. The movie does suggest a lot of things and the ending may seem a bit far stretched, but overall it does work ...

I saw Die Dunkle Seite des Mondes at the premiere in Berlin and was positively surprised! The story about a successful lawyer whose life spins out of control and races towards a showdown delivers a great atmosphere. Especially the camera-work is amazing delivering very atmospheric and moody shots of nature and the forest which is an integral part of the story. The director really has a great eye for setting up a mood. Also the actors do a real great job. Moritz Bleibtreu is exceptionally good at portraying the different mental states of his character and how he slowly loses his control. Very well done. The movie strays quite a bit from the book but it would probably not have been possible to put everything from the book into a 90 minute film. If you can accept the movie as more of a focused and condensed version of the book you may find it quite entertaining.Especially loved the end which leaves a lot of room for interpretation.