Homo Faber (1991)

User Rating:

6.9/10   

Director:

Volker Schlöndorff

Writers:

Max Frisch (novel)
Rudy Wurlitzer (writer)

Release Date:

31 January 1992 (USA)

Genre:

Drama

Tagline:

Even the darkest secret couldn't keep them apart.

Plot:

Walter Faber (Sam Shepard) has survived a crash with an airplane. His next trip is by ship. On board...

Plot Keywords:

Boat | Snake Bite | Incest | Human Relationship | 1950s

Awards:

3 wins & 4 nominations

Cast

Sam Shepard	...	Walter Faber
Julie Delpy	...	Sabeth
Barbara Sukowa	...	Hannah
Dieter Kirchlechner	...	Herbert Hencke
Traci Lind	...	Charlene
Deborra-Lee Furness	...	Ivy
August Zirner	...	Joachim
Thomas Heinze	...	Kurt
Bill Dunn	...	Lewin
Peter Berling	...	Baptist
Lorna Farrar	...	Arlette
Kathleen Matiezen	...	Lady Stenographer
Lou Cutell	...	New York Doorman
Charley Hayward	...	Joe
Irwin Wynn	...	Dick

Also Known As:

O taxidiotis (Greece)
The Voyager (France)
Voyager (USA)

Runtime:

117 min

Country:

France | Germany | Greece | UK

Language:

German | English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby

Certification:

Iceland:L | Australia:M | Finland:K-12 | Germany:12 (bw) | Spain:13 | USA:PG-13

Filming Locations:

Germany

Company:

Action Films

Movie Connections:

Featured in The Air I Breathe (2007)

Not faithful to the book

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.