Nackt (Naked) (2002): review: 7.5/10

Three discontented young German couples meet at a dinner party where they engage in a peculiar bet.

Imaginatively shot and fast-scripted film about romantic, sexual, and occasionally financial tensions between young Germans, who treat each other with gratuitous unkindness, behaving with distinct shrillness, in accordance with cultural stereotypes.

Cherry Blossoms (2008): review: 9.5/10

An elderly German couple travel to visit their children, from whom they have grown distant.

The  film starts off satirically, with scenes illustrating quite starkly the generational gap, and the resentments of their children who respond gracelessly to their parents' presence. It also wittily illustrates the barreness of the husband's life attitudes.

From this point, the film takes a surprising turn, taking us to Japan.

It is impossible for me to describe much more without spoiling enjoyment of the film: let me conclude simply that the director and actors succeed in transforming the tone of the film from a social satire into something altogether more sophisticated: a meditation on grief and death and Japan.