Narziss und Goldmund

An incredible film adaptation, with beautiful landscapes and extraordinary music. However, the story fails to captivate at all, so it becomes predictable moments. But overall it's a nice movie to watch, featuring great German performances by the young Jannis Niewöhner, Sabin Tambrea and Henriette Confurius, as well as extraordinary actors like Matthias Habich and André Hennicke.

A very nice try to adapt the novel of Hermann Hesse . The only small problem remains the novel itself.The work of Hesse remains only for its readers. The cinematography is contained by the pages , lines, phrases and words. Because the film is a decent one, with not small potential to be perceived as good , only if you ignore the book. The music has the desire to propose a sort of aura , the story itself becomes one of too many about forbitten feelings and new forms of comradery. But it is beautiful and a real nice try to give the essence of a splendid novel.

In the film, Goldmund's sculptor master tells him how he gave up the true heartfelt art for commercial success... Well, that just about sums up the character of this feature.

Hesse's original novel is not anyway an accurate representation of history, so the film version should be also free from the pressure of historical-accuracy. But the overall presentation, from costumes, make-up, production design, cinematography, and atmosphere, are too much closer to those popular quasi-fantasy costume TV serieses such as the Tudors or Merlin. It is the world viewed through the glamour filter. I mean, such an entertainment has its place, but if that was the aim of the film makers, why did they bother with Hermann Hesse? They could just opt for a fantasy story with magicians and dragon... or something like that.

It's not terrible by all means. A large scale production, OK actors, some beautiful views... But it's ultimately too kitsch to have any true impact.

I will disregard Hesse's book and concentrate only on this film. Historical events allow an assessment of when it is set, costumes and language do not match, but that does not bother me. Narcissus and Goldmund are two boys who could not be more opposite. Narcissus is clever and has to hide his gayness, Goldmund has what today would be called street smarts, is certainly more of a flesh and blood person than the spiritualised Narcissus, but who also repeatedly holds progressive views, for example in his understanding of the image of the Virgin Mary. The friendship that emanates from Goldmund and the secret love of Narcissus could have been much more intense and not remained so much on the surface, as if they were only the occasion for a completely different story, which loses itself more in putting Jannis Niewöhner, an irresistibly sexy Goldmund, in appropriate situations where he stands naked in front of the camera time and again. Sabin Tambrea's Narcissus is pitiful in all his shame and repression, but lacks a bit of the necessary chemistry between both actors. Absolute negative moments for me were the two performances by Johannes Krisch as Goldmund's father, who, as is his way, uses every scene to detach himself from the camera and pretend to be on a theatrical stage. The direction switches back and forth between several subplots and cannot really decide what it actually wants to tell. And that is exactly the problem of this film, which sometimes wants to be a bit decadent, then again has the story of a friendship as its theme, but does not expand it strongly enough. And last but not least, some of the special effects are pretty lousy.

Despite incredibly beautiful cinematography and a great story, the film is not able to transport the emotions of the original book. Some of the main cast is simply not convincing, perhaps there was not the right chemistry with the provenly talented director. Probably more enjoyable for people that don't know the book.