2/10
A horribly cliché-laden melodrama
2 August 2023
Warning: Spoilers
It is strange to see such scandalously bad movie from an established female director who is not green anymore and should not been wasted after a long career. But the movie has only one good element: the decent, even beautiful camerawork and nice set ups. Otherway the movie is so full of banal clichés that it is painful to watch.

Story is set to nice countryside somewhere in East Germany and the year should be 1990. The environment is a pretty large farm and its people. And their neighbour, a classic dark romantic hero, a wannabe poet and horse rider Henner.

Of course, the farmer's son Johannes, an aspiring artist and photographer, has something like a girlfriend Maria, a 18 years old fashion model like looking and acting woman. She, of course, according all the clichè-s, "falls in love" (if you wanna call it so) with the Henner. And they make "love" (if you must call it somehow), one time, second time, third time....

OK, the movie is about the cliché-s. East German people -- naive, stupid, dull, constantly whining losers full of ostalgia driving around with noisy Trabants. West German people -- smart, successful, handsome people driving around with Mercedes. And sure, the constant talking about STASI, brainwashing, prisoning etc is obvious.

The main characters. Henner is a stereotypical romantic hero. Dark, handsome, horse riding 40 years old macho with his badass cabrio VAZ Niva. Two barking dogs following him everywhere and he is living alone in some big country house. He is mumbling some minimalistic verses and is, of course, a heavy drinker. Maria, the 18 years old protagonist -- a fashion model looking and acting woman who wants to be with Henner. But Marlene Burow acts so emotionless and dumb that it is really hard to understand her motives at all. This kind of character belongs to big cities and push her career not to sit in the countryside and have some strange relationship with a peasant. 18 years old Johannes (Cedric Eich) is supposed to be like some classic beta male, a naive loser with his ridiculous moustaches, but somehow his self confidence, sheer ambition, strong mentality and pure love makes him the most positive hero in the movie. Although Henner is clearly supposed to be the "true" alpha male, it is only the surface -- his deep inner weakness and narcissistic traits makes the character finally laughable and tragic comical.

The dummie acting by Marlene Burow ruins the movie a lot and it is not saved by others efforts. The constructed script does not help much too. Dialogues are boring, repetitive. A lot of senseless and useless scenes which do not lead anywhere. The sex scenes are violent, rude, close to rape and not erotic or romantic at all. All the romance looks nasty, violent and worse for all, totally boring.

And then, suddenly the movie ends. With a really hardcore cliché scene which nails the coffin of the bad movie very well.
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