"1/2 Mensch" or "1/2 Man" is a Japanese German movie from 1986, so this one had its 30th anniversary last year. The director and also one of the writers is Gakuryû Ishii and he was not even 30 when he made this one collaborating with the German underground band Einstürzende Neubauten. The version I watched was not as short as it says here on IMDb, but it still stayed comfortably under the 1-hour mark. Not a long work by any means, even if it may feel long. The band I mentioned is still known very well here in Germany these days over 3 decades later. Eventually it will all come down to how much you like Einstürzende Neubauten (which means "Collapsing new buildings") in determining how much you will like this concert. I guess you can call it that. If you enjoy the music, you will enjoy the setting and atmospheric take. If not, you will find it all very annoying and amateurish. And sadly, the latter is true for me here as I never made a connection with anything I saw or heard in here. I would still call it very raw, brutal and authentic, it's just not to my liking. So I can see why people love the band and also see an artistic impact here somehow. I don't think it is really necessary for me to give a recommendation here. Those who love EN (the older, but still rebellious generation), can go for it as it may bring back some nice memories too, but everybody else makes the best decision when skipping the watch here. I for once was glad it was a relatively short film as honestly it bored me pretty quickly. So from my very personal subjective perspective, I give this one a thumbs-down here as you can obviously see from my rating too. A bit baffled by the high rating here on IMDb to be honest.
Review of 1/2 Mensch
