"Ottilie von Faber-Castell" is a German television movie from really not too long ago becaue this one was released in September 2019, so under half a year old now. The writer and director is Claudia Garde, a fairly prolific small screen filmmaker here in Germany, even if most of the time she worked rather on series than on movies. The one thing that is unusual here for a film from my country (especially if we focus on television) is that it runs for a massive three hours, minimally over even, and that is nothing we get too often here. You can see from the title already that they were clearly going for a biopic here about a character that actually existed and has a background linked to stationery, pens etc. Of course, as you can also see from the poster, this film is set way in the past because the protagonist lived in the 19th century already and also in the first half of the 20th century. Also it says "Eine mutige Frau", which means "A courageous woman", which shows you already the direction they were heading here and what they had in mind with the story, namely a movie that focuses on emancipation in a world/society/country that gives women a difficult time. A greateful subject of course that the mainstream media will already praise without even knowing how the film was. Unfortunately I must say it was not good enough and for me such a subject is not enough if they don't give proper elaboration. On the contrary, that makes the filmmakers look even lazier and a subject like this deserves better for sure. I can also not imagine that those related to the title character are too happy with the uninspired outcome here if they have seen the movie. I am sure there must be relatives looking at how many children she had. Anyway, the title character is played by Kristin Suckow and while I would not say that she sucked as her name could imply, she as also far from good enough to carry a 3-hour movie that has her in almost all the scenes. Admittedly the script did not help her really and it wasn't just her fault. As for supporting characters, the likes of Wuttke, Zirner, Weisgerber and a few others are exatly those you would expect in such a movie, Bukowski maybe not so much, and with Jasmin Schwiers in a film, it is almost always safe to say that this is not gonna be a high-quality picture. Luckily, she is not playing lead characters anymore like she did over a decade ago, but the fact that casting directors still pick her makes it obvious that there is no great creative ambition in a movie. Yes she is that bad.
Now as for the story, it all feels really for the sake of it and pseudo important most of the time. The best example is really the scene very early on with Bukowski's character and how he tells her that her clothes are not fitting for the occasion and she tells him not much later that she won't need him anymore to show her around and immediately afterwards her pompous dress ends up in one of these machines and there is a risk to her life, but Bukowski's character stops the machine with his bare hand and as a consequence loses his hand and also loses his promising career (of course he had such career as we found out a little earlier) because back then you could not have a great career as a cripple, especially not in a job that involves working with your hands. How can you direct a hundred workers if they can always say you cannot do the job yourself with your hand. So my guess there was a bit that perhaps this character still stays a love interest and she does not care about the injury because he saved her, but no the character is quickly gone and only appears briefly at the very end again, but no romance story for him, which is already obvious too because he is not one of the credits listed high up there. But teh rest of the film are the usual subjects, exactly those that I expected here and those that have been so many times on other films and handled way better there usually: Romantic relationships with several men. The fact that she has to pick one eventually. Power struggles with different characters in the company. (Of course she only got into power because all the male prospects died.) Relationships beteen mother and children. Now that was probably the shoddiest area of them all. We see her hold her dead baby (yep kids died much more frequently back then) and not much later she is running and joking around with like almost half a dozen kids or so. It's amazing (in a negative sense) how this film runs for so long, yet leaves out so many crucial moments that could have made for solid entertainment at least, while depicting the most pointless stuff constantly. There were so many scenes that could have been left out completely to be honest. In a perfect scenario they would have been replaced with sequences that actually engage the audience, or at least they should have excluded those scenes and kept the film at 2 hours max (90 minutes would have been fine too), but they did the exact opposite. The outcome is a really overlong movie that is as pompous as it is empty. Admittedly, the costumes and sets (and some of the acting) were good enough for me to say this film is just boring, but not a total failure, and without a doubt there are constantly much worse films being shown here on german television, so two stars out of five seems accurate, but it is definitely much closer to one star for me. I was tempted to give it one only when they included this sequence about her getting raped by the drunk fella, certainly not because of how shocking it was, but becaue of how shocking for the sake of cheap entertainment it was. Disgusting choice really. There is nothing like that found in official biographies about Ottilie von Faber-Castell, but the director read something like that during her preparation for this movie. Truly embarrassing and it shows that they never cared about the facts. All they wanted as to entertain the dumb and as they even emphasized the importance of this scene in intervies (the lead actress most of all) is just the negative icing on the cake. The one made out of rotten milk you could say. Not that the entire cake under the icing is something anybody with a taste in quality cake/movies want want to take a bite from. Pretty repulsive how the television stations who made this film force every citizen basically to pay them money (GEZ) and this is what we get back for said money. Close to an abomination. Not recommended, no matter how desperately they try with the children being taken from her secretly at the end with more pseudo drama. Oh well, by then you have fallen asleep most likely anyway. So best decision you can make here is simply just don't even begin atching these 180 minutes. Go for something else instead!
Now as for the story, it all feels really for the sake of it and pseudo important most of the time. The best example is really the scene very early on with Bukowski's character and how he tells her that her clothes are not fitting for the occasion and she tells him not much later that she won't need him anymore to show her around and immediately afterwards her pompous dress ends up in one of these machines and there is a risk to her life, but Bukowski's character stops the machine with his bare hand and as a consequence loses his hand and also loses his promising career (of course he had such career as we found out a little earlier) because back then you could not have a great career as a cripple, especially not in a job that involves working with your hands. How can you direct a hundred workers if they can always say you cannot do the job yourself with your hand. So my guess there was a bit that perhaps this character still stays a love interest and she does not care about the injury because he saved her, but no the character is quickly gone and only appears briefly at the very end again, but no romance story for him, which is already obvious too because he is not one of the credits listed high up there. But teh rest of the film are the usual subjects, exactly those that I expected here and those that have been so many times on other films and handled way better there usually: Romantic relationships with several men. The fact that she has to pick one eventually. Power struggles with different characters in the company. (Of course she only got into power because all the male prospects died.) Relationships beteen mother and children. Now that was probably the shoddiest area of them all. We see her hold her dead baby (yep kids died much more frequently back then) and not much later she is running and joking around with like almost half a dozen kids or so. It's amazing (in a negative sense) how this film runs for so long, yet leaves out so many crucial moments that could have made for solid entertainment at least, while depicting the most pointless stuff constantly. There were so many scenes that could have been left out completely to be honest. In a perfect scenario they would have been replaced with sequences that actually engage the audience, or at least they should have excluded those scenes and kept the film at 2 hours max (90 minutes would have been fine too), but they did the exact opposite. The outcome is a really overlong movie that is as pompous as it is empty. Admittedly, the costumes and sets (and some of the acting) were good enough for me to say this film is just boring, but not a total failure, and without a doubt there are constantly much worse films being shown here on german television, so two stars out of five seems accurate, but it is definitely much closer to one star for me. I was tempted to give it one only when they included this sequence about her getting raped by the drunk fella, certainly not because of how shocking it was, but becaue of how shocking for the sake of cheap entertainment it was. Disgusting choice really. There is nothing like that found in official biographies about Ottilie von Faber-Castell, but the director read something like that during her preparation for this movie. Truly embarrassing and it shows that they never cared about the facts. All they wanted as to entertain the dumb and as they even emphasized the importance of this scene in intervies (the lead actress most of all) is just the negative icing on the cake. The one made out of rotten milk you could say. Not that the entire cake under the icing is something anybody with a taste in quality cake/movies want want to take a bite from. Pretty repulsive how the television stations who made this film force every citizen basically to pay them money (GEZ) and this is what we get back for said money. Close to an abomination. Not recommended, no matter how desperately they try with the children being taken from her secretly at the end with more pseudo drama. Oh well, by then you have fallen asleep most likely anyway. So best decision you can make here is simply just don't even begin atching these 180 minutes. Go for something else instead!
