When Nietzsche Wept

2007

Drama

5
Rotten Tomatoes Critics - Rotten 57% · 1 reviews
Rotten Tomatoes Audience - Spilled 57% · 1K ratings
IMDb Rating 6.4/10 10 5172 5.2K

Plot summary

Viennese doctor Josef Bruer meets with philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche to help him deal with his despair.

Director

Pinchas Perry Photo
Pinchas Perry

Top cast

Katheryn Winnick Photo
Katheryn Winnick as Lou Salome
Armand Assante Photo
Armand Assante as Nietzsche
Joanna Pacula Photo
Joanna Pacula as Mathilda
Ben Cross Photo
Ben Cross as Josef Breuer
480p.BluRay
926 MB
720*480
English 2.0
NR
Subtitles us  
23.976 fps
N/A
Seeds 9

Movie Reviews

Reviewed by rooprect 7 / 10

Wacky blend of history, philosophy & full-tilt comedy

This movie is surreal. Literally, it has a lot of surrealistic scenes to mess with your mind, but also the whole presentation is surreal because there are so many bizarre angles. At its heart, it's a sober portrayal of depression and humanity's discontent (so you'd think it would be slow & heavy). But mostly it's humorous, at times as silly as the movie "Airplane!". It also features historical references, but you can't help feeling that the writer is being deliberately playful, distorting facts right before our eyes with a wink and a smile. In all, I think it's an entertaining experience, especially if you don't take it too seriously.It definitely has the qualities of a period piece romp, like maybe "Casanova" (2005), "Molière" (2007) or one of my faves, "Impromptu" (1991) about Chopin. But "When Neitzsche Wept" has a more subtle tone which prevents me from saying it's intended to be a comedy like the others I mentioned. Also, don't expect a biopic because it's not really about any particular man so much as it's about everyman's internal struggle between passion (freedom) and logic (duty).This film takes a somewhat light-hearted approach to a very dark subject, and I think that's what makes it unusual and clever. It's entertaining and digestible, but also there are a few powerful monologues delivered by Neitzsche (Armand Assante) that I had to rewind and hear again because they seemed to appear out of nowhere. Then suddenly we're back to a crazy scene of a redhead woman in diapers jumping around a crib. Don't worry, it all makes sense; it's just... surreal!
Reviewed by agacyb 5 / 10

Disappointingly melodramatic interpretation

I read the book several years ago, and didn't remember much of it, beyond being fascinated by the psychological-philosophical explorations of the legendary characters and intrigued by the migraine issues that Nietszche and Breuer attempt to solve. But the book is deeply intellectual, and it was difficult to imagine it translated to the screen. Unfortunately, the director's interpretation falls very limp indeed, despite valiant attempts by a cast of worthy actors.Melodrama substitutes in most scenes for subtlety and quiet depth. Two-dimensional beauty in the female characters substitutes for the much harder to convey inner beauty. I found the heavy-handed artificial accents maintained by all to be especially distracting, if not constantly irritating -- the thick German/Austrian/Russian accents were like bad scenery pulling the focus from any authentic expression of the characters. The wisdom of Nietszche is disappointingly obscured in this mediocre effort."And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you."
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