Das Blaue vom Himmel (2011) User Reviews

entertaining

[germanguyfrankfurt · 6/10 · 17 June 2011]

One of the better German movies of this season. A story about a German reporter whose mother escapes from a nursing home struggling with her past and trying to find peace. Hannelore Elsner did an amazing job! I only know her from German TV but her acting was convincing and never over the top. Well, the Alzheimer story is something we already know from Julie Christie's "Away from her", which gave her an Oscar nod and Hannelore Elsner should at least win one of those German film prices. Juliane Koehler with a new hairdo wasn't bad either. We know her from excellent movies such as "Aimee and Jaguar", "Nowhere in Africa" or "Downfall". This one is definitely not one of her best but her acting was still good and she is one of my favorite German actresses. I wish I could see her in more international productions in the future. On the whole a very good cast and a convincing film.

Less is more

[alexandermangoldt · 6/10 · 30 May 2011]

Just came home from the premiere, for which I managed to get some tickets. To be honest, I felt like I've been sitting through two hours of endless boredom. The story had no surprising twists, the plot was conventional as well as the narrative structure (flashbacks alternating/ overlapping with the events of 1991). The whole cast was overacting, as if the director had been standing behind the camera and in each scene shouting: "More, more, I want this scene to be intense". Hence, every actor overdid it and many scenes seem as if they were intended for a theater play, not a movie. Many of the scenes seemed to me overly theatrical and melodramatic. One example: The young Marga stands in the field, chopping wood, when suddenly her ex-husband Juris appears . In his arms he is holding the baby of his lover, Ieva. Every facial expression of the two actors seems so exaggerated, desperately trying to convey the message: "Oh, it's all so incredibly tragic, we can hardly stand it". And Karoline Herfurths position to the camera is completely unnatural and just for effect.

The plot was predictable, twenty minutes into the film I knew that Marga wasn't Sofia's real mother, but that, in the end, the Sofia character would grow to accept it and reconcile with her oddly behaving mother. The Alzheimer scenes were far too many, one scene and we know, OK, old Marga is losing it, no need to rub it in by showing scenes in which she talks gibberish. If we just look at the craftsmanship of this film, I believe we have found the one positive aspect. Pictures and music were well paced although the music was a little too much at times as well. I guess in the end I'm looking and hoping for a German cinema that is a little more controversial, disturbing. A cinema that is obnoxious, confusing and gut-wrenching. This film isn't any of that.

Winterreise was better.

Ambition won't match execution

[Horst_In_Translation · 4/10 · 9 February 2019]

"Das Blaue vom Himmel" is a German 100-minute movie from 2011. This one was directed by Hans Steinbichler and ritten by spouses Robert and Josephin Thayenthal. Steinbichler is probably the most known from the trio and he has been active in German film for quite a while now. There is one recent film by him about Anne Frank that I thought was really good, but there is also at least one film I found horrible (the one starring the very overrated Rosalie Thomass). His work here is somewhere in-between I would say. If you look at the cast, it is easy to see that he had some really well-known and successful German actors at his hands and taking that into account, the film ended up especially disappointing. Kross Vogler and Brandt are the three male stars, but all of them really don't have a lot of screen time. It is a very female-centered movie. Herfurth, Elsner and Kähler can be seen far more frequently. This is the story of a mother-daughter relationship that has been struggling for quite a while and a journey to a former lover takes things into new dimensions. Elsner really has truly baity material in this film, but it says it all that she received no awards recognition for her portrayal. I can see why. Her whhining and screaming felt much more annoying than heartbreaking to me and the final revelation does not change anything about that. Yes it is much easier to dislike her then, maybe even hate her, but it feels very much for the sake of it, so that the movie at least has something memorable, some relevance. But it does from another perspective. I thought Karoline Herfurth was very good here most of the time during the many flashback sequences, so good that I found it a pity the film does not play entirely several decades back. It also shows how Herfurth makes much more with little than Elsner makes with a lot. I always thought the latter was a bit on the overrated side. Anyway, as for Herfurth, there is one heartbreaking sequence near the end that stayed especially memorable, namely when she is crying and holding the equally (but much louder) crying baby and realizes she will make it her own now. Completely away from her, the film also left me unimpressed in terms of sets and cinematography. I think the Latvian background could have made for a far better film from that perspective. A final word on the cast: Won't go into detail about the male actors here as Kross and Brandt have almost nothing to work with, but it was nice to see Vogler decades after being a Wenders regular. Köhler also has a character that is really not anything you could make memorable, no matter how talented you may be. Most of the time, it felt as if she was only there to make Elsner's character more significant. I think Köhler is a better actress than she shows us here, especially in that Norwegian/German movie that was submitted to the Oscars a few years ago. But back to this one here: I am not convinced, let alone impressed. My suggestion really is that you skip the watch here and go for something else instead. Nowhere near the best Germany has to offer in terms of films from 2011.