piratenbraten Review of The Night a Village Vanished

The Night a Village Vanished (2009 TV Movie)

Re-uses well known soundtracks from other films

[6/10 · 30 August 2014]

The film itself is okay except for the usual flaws of German cinema: the same range of actors that you see in every other film; occasional bad acting and bad dialogue script-wise. Other than that it's okay to watch if you're into that sort of thing. What's really annoying though is that it follows a recent and quite ugly trend to use soundtracks from well-known blockbuster movies, in this case 'Elizabeth - The Golden Age'. From a cinéaste point of view, it's both disturbing and annoying to see the pictures that originally belong to this music overlaid with something else. The music from the fight against the Spanish Armada was used for the final, dramatic scene when the villagers cross the green border, plus loving reunion scene between husband and wife - I see burning ships and Queen Elizabeth standing on a mountain summit with her hair free in the wind. I'm not even sure the proper fees were paid or permission asked for the using of this music. It's an annoying habit that I hope will stop.