Continuing our countdown of the year´s finest films, Catherine Shoard celebrates an audacious German comedy packed with flabbergasting set piecesSee the US cut of this listMore on the best culture of 2017Few people settle in for a three-hour German comedy about an uptight woman and her farty father expecting a masterpiece. Yet that´s what Maren Ade´s extraordinary, genre-bending revolution of a movie is. It tells of Ines (Sandra Hüller), an efficient, humourless, whippet-thin businesswoman in her mid-30s. She´s focused on success with no apparent aim but for its own sake (`You´re an animal,` someone tells her - there are a lot of beasties in this film). To this end, she sacrifices her free time, much of her social life, and many of her ethics.`I´m not a feminist,` she witheringly tells one of her less capable colleagues, `or I wouldn´t tolerate guys like you.` We pity brittle Ines. We don´t necessarily like her. Continue reading...
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