The Edukators

I took note of this film because it featured Julia Jentsch, whom I found remarkable in Sophie Scholl: The Final Days. Her co-star here, Daniel Bruhl, also looked familiar, though I had to look it up to recall him from Good Bye, Lenin! They’re part of a triangle of wannabe radicals who wish to make the bourgeoisie uncomfortable, by breaking into wealthy houses and rearranging all the belongings, then leaving a note that says, “You have too much money” or “Your days of plenty are numbered.” When a homeowner returns in the middle of their antics, the trio find themselves with a hostage, to whom they in effect become hostages. They retreat to a mountain hideaway, where it turns out their kidnappee is a veteran of ’68 --namedropping the best-known student rebels of the time -- who went corporate and made a mint, but still asks for the joint when it's going around. While the triangle goes clanging through their conflicting emotions, the old radical keeps a canny eye out, expresses selective sympathy and plays for power in a way the innocents hardly register. Who is the real Edukator here? It’s a question that’s kept tantalizingly open to the final scene, and maybe beyond. Director Hans Weingatner neatly balances elements of youthful romance and misadventure with serio-comic considerations of idealism and radicalism. (2004, IFC/T, n.) *7* (MC-68.)