Der Traum vom Süden (2004 TV Movie) User Reviews

Remember how you forget your dreams so quickly? Same applies to this film.

[Horst_In_Translation · 4/10 · 6 December 2019]

"Der Traum vom Süden" is a German television film from 2004, so this one has its 15th anniversary this year and like most other small screen releases it runs for 15 minutes. The director here is Christine Kabisch, already a fairly prolific filmmaker back then and while nothing really stands out about her, she is also not among the worst the film has to offer. That would be the script by Katrin Ammon and it shows that according to imdb this is only her second writing effort for a movie. There is almost nothing interesting in here. Attention to detail is not existent at all either. It is neither the key story and central characters that stay in the mind here nor the minor plots. But let's take a look at the basics. We have an elderly couple, pretty well-off and successful and they decide to leave Germany and move to Granada in spain to enjoy their retirement years. The son gets the business, the daughter gets the house, so at home all is taken care of. However, in Spain things turn out far more challenging. There are crucial problems immediately like there i no water during the place where they live and that is not just because of some misfunction, but it seems to be an accepted state for a little while because it is really hot there. The neighbors accept it at least as apparently they know this happens every year once or twice. But it sure makes for a change compared to Germany here, so I can see why the duo at the center of the film is not amused at all. Add to that that their furniture just won't arrive for days because the carrier's car had a breakdown, so there they are without water and without furniture in a foreign country. They still try to make the most of it and spend a romantic night outside with candles and fresh air, but this also does not turn out as expected with mosquitoes getting in the way. And as if thes logistic challenges weren't enough already, their relationship also gets a negative tendency because their neighbors express more than just a neighborly interest in them, although they are couple too. There are two of them and while the female neighbor is not excited at all that her husband spends a lot of time with the German woman, there is no trouble for the other neighbors at all because they are leading an open marriage. Still, obviously it causes many tensions and the result of all this is finally that the female protagonist returns back hope, but the guy stays there for a while still until he realizes that there is no point without his wife because she is where he belongs. The cast is pretty decent I'd say. von Weitershausen and (especially) Elmar wepper are known here in Germany for sure. Hollinderbäumer, Schubert, Schöne, Mues and Bodenbender are actors that I as a German film buff also recognize. I guess this expertise in acting is what kept the film from becoming a total failure because honestly it does not feel particularly realistic most of the time because of the script, but yearh you cannot really blame the cast. Especially Wepper is always nice to watch and I personally prefer him over his brothers. Despite the film's struggles, however, I guess enough people watched it on television, so they made a sequel not much later. I shall get to that one in a minute. There are moments in this film here that already point at said sequel like it's not a perfect ending with the two not (yet) living together and the second film starts with the wedding between the daughter and the guy she falls for, although it needs to be said that it is a bit unrealistic. I mean either they married super fast or the parents had their own apartment for a really long time. I don't know which it is of the two, but once again credibility, realism and authenticity here were sacrificed for shallow entertainment purpose. I give this film a thumbs-down. Not recommended, even if luckily this film is not the nightmare I thought it could be.