Heart of Stone (2016) User Reviews

Nice movie to watch but not good for a younger audience /children/

[boriana-45074 · 7/10 · 28 June 2017]

Review without spoilers

I rate it 7 out of 10. At first I was skeptical because I didn't think that the actors would portray it good, but overall I felt the acting was nice. It is based on a more darker fairy tale and that is why almost every part of the movie brings the feeling of that heavy drama, which I liked a lot. The music, for me, was coordinated excellent and brought some good feelings. I think that the movie is not suitable for children and younger audience because I doubt that they would get it and there are many things that aren't explained and you deduce them, therefore it would be too heavy for a child. I would recommend watching it for people who read the tale.

Review with SPOILERS down below

The "Glasmännchen" was a little bit strange and I think that it needed one or two more explanation about their role in the end. The ending felt a little bit rushed, it could've taken a little bit more time to explore the story about "Holländer-Michel" and to emphasize more on the feelings of the people who go to him. It would've been a nice touch if they showed why Löbl and Etzel decided to go to "Holländer-Michel" and I felt that their role was almost needless in the plot. There were some holes in the plot that could have been explored definitely and by holes I mean more stories to be told. I really expected in the end when Lisbeth was resurrected Peter to beg her for forgiveness, to kneel and just to express a little bit more the feelings he had, but I guess they decided to emphasize on their expressions more. Also I didn't get the roles of the supporting characters, it was like they should have some kind of meaning but you have to literally read their faces in order to understand something. As a person who loves to read, the lack of words on some places in the movie honestly annoyed me, but even with all of its flaws the movie is worth watching. The make up artists did a good job, honestly that transformation of Frederick Lau is worth mentioning. For some reason after he returned from Holland he reminded me of Ralph Fiennes. Felt that Voldemort vibe and made a big difference. The movie is ambitious in a way because it makes you read people's faces and emotions, rather than just hearing/reading lines/subtitles.

Successful modern adaptation of a very old story

[Horst_In_Translation · 6/10 · 30 October 2016]

"Das kalte Herz" or "The Cold Heart" is the newest work by successful German filmmaker Johannes Naber. He directed this film that runs for almost two hours and also wrote it together with a handful of other writers. The original is of course based on the fairy tale of notable German 19th century writer Wilhelm Hauff, who was very successful (or is seen so today) despite dying from typhus before his 25th birthday. He created the base material for a handful of German films, some even many decades old. This one here is certainly a contender for his most known work. And fittingly, the film includes some of the people who are considered among Germany's best (or at least most successful) actors working right now. This includes Frederick Lau (fresh off from the "Victoria" success) playing the main character as well as supporting performances from Moritz Bleibtreu, Milan Peschel, André Hennicke, Sebastian Blomberg (also appeared in Naber's "Zeit der Kannibalen") and Henriette Confurius, who plays the biggest female part as the main character's love interest.

This is the story of a man who wins a lot through positive magic, but makes the wrong decisions and ends up losing everything because of that eventually getting involved with dark magic even which hurts him even more. There is a GDR movie about the same story from 1950 and it is even somewhat known. People who have seen that one should not complain about this new one we have here being an unworthy remake because first of all, it isn't even a remake. And it is also not unworthy. Those who say so are just the ones that mistake tradition for quality as, in my opinion, this new version here is clearly superior. Most of the actors do a fairly decent job with their characters (and this is pretty impressive coming from me as there aren't really any personal favorites for me in the cast) and still the acting is by far not the film's biggest strength. It is the visual side and of course with the medieval touch to it, I am not talking about great special effects or anything, but about the costumes, art direction and cinematography that are sometimes downright stunning. The story is okay overall too, even if the ending with the protagonist killing the bad guy felt a bit rushed in my opinion and also a bit unrealistic the way it was depicted. But other than that, the film has almost no lengths and that's a solid achievement for a fairly long fairy tale movie. But then again, it is also (as other works by Hauff too) not as light and positive as the works by the Brothers Grimm. This is a story that adults will probably find more interesting than children and it's probably not worth checking out for very young audiences. Still, without any hesitation at all, I call it a strong achievement and recommend the watch. Thumbs up.

Old cool story

[holysneakers · 10/10 · 21 February 2021]

Old cool mystery story in a new format, played in good old germany. Henriette Confurios is a good actress.