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Otomo

Otomo (2000)

tomatometer

100

Average Rating: 7.3/10
Critic Reviews: 6
Fresh: 6 | Rotten: 0

No consensus yet.

audience

83

liked it
Average Rating: 3.3/5
User Ratings: 49

My Rating

Movie Info

Frieder Schlaich directs this horrific look at racism in modern Germany. Loosely based on a real-life incident that scandalized Stuttgart in 1989, the film recounts the final day of a Liberian political refugee. Otomo (Isaach de Bankole) cannot find even the most modest of jobs because of his race. Everyone from his fellow boarding house patrons to his fellow churchgoers treat him with contempt and disdain. His long-simmering rage boils over when he finds himself involved in a scuffle with a

Unrated,

Art House & International, Drama

Klaus Pohl

Nov 28, 2006

- Official Site External Icon

Cast

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All Critics (11) | Top Critics (6) | Fresh (10) | Rotten (0) | DVD (1)

The film doesn't believe the police deserved to die (or that the ticket inspector should have been assaulted), but then again it doesn't believe a society should so treat a man that this is what he comes to do.

December 14, 2001 Full Review Source: Chicago Sun-Times
Chicago Sun-Times
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Much of the sense of size in this account of an immigrant worker, who is only one among many thousands in Germany, comes from the performance by Isaach de Bankole.

November 14, 2001
The New Republic
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The messages about racism get a bit ham-handed, but the acting and sense of dread are powerful.

November 8, 2001 Full Review Source: Newsday
Newsday
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You do get a sense of a German society that is still amazingly bureaucratic and authoritarian.

November 8, 2001
New York Post
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A bleak and powerful work, one we probably need more than ever these days.

November 7, 2001 Full Review Source: New York Times
New York Times
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Documents the institutionalized racism and xenophobia that painted one man into a corner, while never excusing the terrible means by which he took his final escape.

November 6, 2001 Full Review Source: Village Voice
Village Voice
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Although Otomo is clearly intended for German audiences, the film nevertheless raises issues confronted by every Westernized nation.

December 9, 2001 Full Review Source: Film Journal International
Film Journal International

Racial profiling is alive and well, not just in real life, but more and more at the movies.

December 8, 2001 Full Review
WBAI Web Radio

A riveting German film about the dehumanized treatment of refugees.

November 23, 2001 Full Review Source: Spirituality and Practice
Spirituality and Practice

I was impressed by the decision to make Otomo a bit of an anti-hero, seeming aware that in desperate times, good people may say or do things outside the norm.

May 15, 2001 Full Review Source: Greg's Previews at Yahoo! Movies
Greg's Previews at Yahoo! Movies

Audience Reviews for Otomo

Another one from Germany and immigration. This one is apparently based in a true story of a african man of Camerun who was running away from his country because his family had been supportive of the german military during their rule. The central point of the movie is the human factor and the value of the human singularity, the respect of the other and the criticism of the world made about bureocratic papers. It is a well made movie, and a brilliant film but one with substance, message and content...
February 27, 2009
Ivonne Koehler
Ivonne Koehler
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