Hagen - Im Tal der Nibelungen

A poetic homage to an immortal epic for ages retold.

Siegfried the Hero and Hagen the murderer (which is no spoilers, the story was known to us over 900 years).

The battle scenes are epic, the dialogue is a bit shakespearean, hence i can understand that the modern audience (i hate to use the word zoomers so i wont) will find it dull (i loved it: macbeth flashbacks).

I found it refreshing overall.

All classical characters of Nibelungenlied are in the movie and they are loyal to their characters in a range of extend

This one explores the psychological motives behind the characters, their endeavours and the tragic result. (or was is tragic?)

This film shows a modified version of the all too familiar NIBELUNGENLIED. No wonder, this time the original comes from the fantasy novel HAGEN VON TRONJE written by the German fantasy writer Wolfgang HOHLBEIN. A "German Game of Thrones" was not the result, but the directing duo, who have already made the German-Austrian quality series DER PASS with Julia JENTSCH and Nicholas OFCZAREK, are putting in a lot of effort.

The NIBELUNGENLIED was written around 1200 and is considered the high point of Medieval German literature. Unlike in the films by Fritz LANG (1924) and Harald REINL (1966), the story here is told from the perspective of Hagen von Tronje, who has previously been seen as the ruthless murderer of the shining hero Siegfried von Xanten.

In the current film, Hagen (Gijs NABER) is the benevolent protector of Kriemhild and her brothers, who are being challenged by the charismatic, radiant Siegfried (Jannis NIEWÖHNER) in a populist manner. This is an approach that tells the story of the Nibelungs in a less idealistic and more politically pragmatic way. There is intrigue and murder, almost like in Shakespeare's plays.

The German mini-major studio CONSTANTIN FILM has not been stingy and has delivered a real fantasy gem, which is unfortunately rather unusual for German-language cinema. Unfortunately, audiences in German-speaking countries have not quite gone along with it. So far (as of December 21, 2024), the film has only been able to attract 177,167 visitors to the cinemas, which corresponds to a box office of 1,912,444 EURO.

Hopefully the film will still be watched by many after its theatrical release! It's worth it!

I had low expectations to begin with, perhaps that made me a tad too grateful, but the film was a nice evening at the cinema - not something we get very often. Nice visuals, costumes and set are overall immersive, the music is good.

It has weak points and material was obviously cut down, giving us some loose ends and lacking a little substance at times.

On top of some scenes that just don't convince the viewer of characters' traits, making them feel rather shallow, there are a few awkward lines in some dialogues.

Keeping this in mind, provided you are able to separate this from the traditional story, Hagen is an interesting, even rare character - who is humble and loyal, despite being competent.

The anti-hero trope has been done to death, this isn't any such story, whatever the synopsis tries to tell you. I would have loved a longer, more in-depth character study, but Hagen himself was intriguing.

A good film, I would alter some things, but will definitely use the main character as inspiration for some project.

Germany has some pretty awesome folklore and mythology. Germans also developed and built some of the best film equipment in the world. Unfortunately, Germany doesn't seem to have any talented people to bring those two together.

HAGEN is a tremendous waste of crew talent and money, and it is even more sad when you occasionally see a glimpse of what this could have been in the hands of somewhat capable filmmakers. The script delivers a boring, incoherent story that fails to take its audience on any journey. The characters are astonishingly bland, and Hagen himself stumbles through this film in complete apathy.

It is a special gift to make the ancient German equivalent of Severus Snape be so terribly boring, but somehow the writers-directors accomplished this seemingly impossible feat. His actor is amongst the best of the entire film, but still fails to carry it, actively being stripped of any charisma and/or actual things to do in the scene. The rest of the actors are mostly embarrassing, especially Kriemhild and Siegfried. What a farce.

And so, this is another fine example of how millions of euros get burned to produce embarrassingly bad films and shows and keep a small elite of "filmmakers" on top of the game. It doesn't even matter how bad and ill-received these productions are - somehow, it's always still the same names, the same production companies, the same incompetence.

The film is said to have cost 40 million euros. (There will also be a TV series made of the movie, or it was filmed simultaneously. ). Anyway, the result is just sad and embarrassing.

First mistake. Boring as hell of screenplay.

Second mistake: Boring actors, or rather, what are they supposed to play given such a lousy script? The box office in Germany was a disaster. Not even 200,000 viewers in theaters. Not to be recommended at all. No TV series with X to Z episodes will fix that either.

Maybe the filmmakers should have just watched Game of Thrones or one of the really good Viking series to see how to entertain in an exciting way.