the first reviewer raised great questions - about whether such true life disasters should be turned into drama - i suppose that in some ways we want to witness these things so they won't be forgotten - not that it is something to treasure in some ways, but that the deaths and the awful event should be recalled for all time - such an arbitrary accident: we have to remember how to behave, how to think about what matters most to us. drama can achieve this, and i am convinced it's a good idea to have done it. courage under great horror is gratifying to witness and helps us in our own times of tragedy. but i completely appreciate his point of view. film production values and characters are well drawn.
3 Reviews
At times the film is the bigger tragedy
Horst_In_Translation21 September 2017
Warning: Spoilers
"Tarragona - Ein Paradies in Flammen" or "Day of Disaster" is a German film from 2007, so this one has its 10th anniversary this year and it was written by Timo Berndt and directed by Peter Keglevic and if you take a look at some of their other works then you will see that they may be experienced in the film industry, but also that their efforts are not always very high on the quality perimeter. So you should not be expecting too much here as you certainly aren't getting too much. This one consists of two episodes of roughly 90 minutes each, so you could call it a mini-series, even if it is more than possible to watch it in one sitting. The cast includes some solid names like Knaup, Tonke and Zischler, but also the likes of Bergmann and Fehlow, even if the latter has almost zero screen time and impact on the story, so guys with very little range that you find frequently in these many German catastrophe films made for the small screen.
The story here is based on real events actually and without wanting to go much into detail there I must say that they owed the victims and their relatives a better film than we have here. Actually, there were many many moments in here when I was tempted to give it an even lower rating, like the clumsy ways in which they rushed in assisted suicide near the end or the actually almost offensive moments in which an official mixed up the list of the dead with the list of the living (hospital) during more than one occasion. So yes authenticity and realism are almost non-existent in here. I have also absolutely no idea why they made the entire first 90 minutes about the character presentation and we find out about a lot more than we want to. It's almost soap opera level there with who cheats on whom etc. Cringeworthy stuff really. Still, I went for a slightly higher rating for 3 reasons maybe. The first would be that it brings the actual events to people and makes sure to some extent the tragedy isn't forgotten. I personally never would have heard about it without this film. Secondly, they are not scared to go at least partially for an unhappy ending and do not sacrifice even more realism for everybody being happy which would not have fit the events and all and would have been a mockery. And thirdly, as a direct consequence of what I just mentioned I can also say that the film had a moment here and there in the last half hour where it made an emotional impact on me. It is not all tragic for the sake of it. But I still believe with better focus and without many pointless scenes, this could have been a way better film at 2 hours (and 15 minutes). The way it actually turned out instead, it is close to complete failure territory. I don't recommend checking it out and I give it a thumbs-down.
The story here is based on real events actually and without wanting to go much into detail there I must say that they owed the victims and their relatives a better film than we have here. Actually, there were many many moments in here when I was tempted to give it an even lower rating, like the clumsy ways in which they rushed in assisted suicide near the end or the actually almost offensive moments in which an official mixed up the list of the dead with the list of the living (hospital) during more than one occasion. So yes authenticity and realism are almost non-existent in here. I have also absolutely no idea why they made the entire first 90 minutes about the character presentation and we find out about a lot more than we want to. It's almost soap opera level there with who cheats on whom etc. Cringeworthy stuff really. Still, I went for a slightly higher rating for 3 reasons maybe. The first would be that it brings the actual events to people and makes sure to some extent the tragedy isn't forgotten. I personally never would have heard about it without this film. Secondly, they are not scared to go at least partially for an unhappy ending and do not sacrifice even more realism for everybody being happy which would not have fit the events and all and would have been a mockery. And thirdly, as a direct consequence of what I just mentioned I can also say that the film had a moment here and there in the last half hour where it made an emotional impact on me. It is not all tragic for the sake of it. But I still believe with better focus and without many pointless scenes, this could have been a way better film at 2 hours (and 15 minutes). The way it actually turned out instead, it is close to complete failure territory. I don't recommend checking it out and I give it a thumbs-down.
Tragic true-life as TV-fodder
khatcher-225 January 2008
I missed the first 10-15 minutes of this film, such that it was a while before I cottoned on to what the film was about; when I did catch on I was utterly disheartened.
The film is loosely based on real facts: one dreadfully fateful day, just thirty years ago, a large tanker truck laden with highly combustible fuel went out of control, charged off the road and ploughed into the middle of a packed camping-site called "Los Alfaques" near Tarragona, Spain. The result was a couple of hundred killed and a couple of hundred others injured, mostly from burns, from the ensuing frightful explosion.
That such a horrendous subject matter should become the attention of some TV-film company near 30 years later is evidently open to very heavy criticism, to say the least. It is an appalling affront to anyone's sensibilities who can clearly remember that inferno on our TV screens at news-time, especially as it happened not very long after that terrible aviation accident at "Los Rodeos" Airport, Tenerife, Canary Islands, when two planes collided on the ground - and remains to this day the worst aviation disaster in history. Anybody want to make a film about that, too? Or do we need films about the attacks on the World Trade Center, New York, or on the public transit systems in Madrid and London?
I sincerely hope not: dramatised little stories trashed up and served for sensationalist tremendist appetites is more than somewhat unsavoury. This TV film is fairly well made in certain aspects, and rather weak in others. Acting and interpretation is too stereotyped into classical TV formulas, despite it being a German production (very many of the victims were indeed German people).
However, the scene-setting was more or less right, with just a few big faults. Firstly, there are only dead and injured bodies lying around in specific scenes, but not any can be seen in the more general shots of the camp-site burning hell. Secondly, the well-chosen vehicles of 30 years ago were using number plates which could only have appeared years later than this terrible tragedy.
It should be obvious that I do not like anything or anybody capitalising on true-story human tragedies.
The film is loosely based on real facts: one dreadfully fateful day, just thirty years ago, a large tanker truck laden with highly combustible fuel went out of control, charged off the road and ploughed into the middle of a packed camping-site called "Los Alfaques" near Tarragona, Spain. The result was a couple of hundred killed and a couple of hundred others injured, mostly from burns, from the ensuing frightful explosion.
That such a horrendous subject matter should become the attention of some TV-film company near 30 years later is evidently open to very heavy criticism, to say the least. It is an appalling affront to anyone's sensibilities who can clearly remember that inferno on our TV screens at news-time, especially as it happened not very long after that terrible aviation accident at "Los Rodeos" Airport, Tenerife, Canary Islands, when two planes collided on the ground - and remains to this day the worst aviation disaster in history. Anybody want to make a film about that, too? Or do we need films about the attacks on the World Trade Center, New York, or on the public transit systems in Madrid and London?
I sincerely hope not: dramatised little stories trashed up and served for sensationalist tremendist appetites is more than somewhat unsavoury. This TV film is fairly well made in certain aspects, and rather weak in others. Acting and interpretation is too stereotyped into classical TV formulas, despite it being a German production (very many of the victims were indeed German people).
However, the scene-setting was more or less right, with just a few big faults. Firstly, there are only dead and injured bodies lying around in specific scenes, but not any can be seen in the more general shots of the camp-site burning hell. Secondly, the well-chosen vehicles of 30 years ago were using number plates which could only have appeared years later than this terrible tragedy.
It should be obvious that I do not like anything or anybody capitalising on true-story human tragedies.
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