FOUR MINUTES (Vier Minuten)

Four Minutes is both a prison movie, and the story of an unusual friendship. This formula has been tried and true in many movies, but what makes this film different is that it takes place in a women's prison, and yet is almost entirely absent from any touchy-feely moments to warm the heart. This film is gritty and dark, and the two main characters may both benefit from their friendship, but they are both so internally broken, you can barely say that either of them walk off into the sunset at the end.

An elderly piano teacher doggedly continues to teach lessons to inmates in a modern women's prison. Traude Kruger (Monica Bleibtreu) has a hesitant friendship with a male guard (Sven Pippig) and a testy relationship with the warden (Richy Müller), but all in all, Traude has worked at the prison so long that it is not a matter of liking or disliking her work. It's just her job, and she has worked there for decades.

One day at the prison mass, she sees a potential new student for her attentions. Young Jenny (Hannah Herzsprung), a bruiser if you ever met one, with her cracked lip and scabby knuckles, is seen playing along to the organ on her own invisible piano. It is obvious that 20-year-old Jenny has had some previous training, but also a very violent past. Kruger decides to take her as her next student, whether Jenny wants it or not. In fact, Jenny turns out to be so talented, that Frau Kruger (with a new skip in her step) starts to enter Jenny in youth talent contests that could give Jenny a big break to a professional career—that is, if she ever decides for herself to clean up her life.

Four Minutes has a great story, but it is rich because it's also a fascinating character study that takes you to unexpected places. Kruger flashes back to her life as a young woman in World War II, where she, as a nurse, was in love with a young woman who was being held prisoner at that very same prison by the Nazis. She is haunted by her past, as well as her life's repression of her lesbianism, and has thrown what little passion she has into the piano. Jenny, on the other hand, was a child prodigy, but raised by an overpowering father that pushed her talent, but also raped her on the side. She fled, became a street kid, had a baby, and committed a violent crime. Just about any other movie would have Jenny slowly reform and see the light towards a new, clean life, but it is kind of refreshing to see a character like hers not only threaten to punch an old woman, but then actually do it. She is definitely no angel.

And you can't have a film about music without a rich soundtrack to back it up. Frau Kruger sticks to the classics, and her hackles rise whenever Jenny plays her wild, modern "negro music" (which is what Kruger disdainfully labels it). A film like this of course must culminate in a musical performance, and the one at the end of Four Minutes will blow you away. The music that Jenny has bottled up inside her may not be classical in any sense, but she sure plays the piano in ways completely unlike anything I have ever seen. Four Minutes is a satisfying drama, but also has something to offer fans of music as well as those who understand the creation and expression of art from the soul.