ZDF literary film adaptation with EUROPEAN FILM AWARD nominee Marie Bäumer and EMMY INTERNATIONAL AWARD nominee Florian Stetten
When the Göttingen-based Steidl Verlag republished the almost forgotten novel "Wellen (Waves)" (1911) by Eduard von Keyserling in 1995, it scored a major coup and re-launched a great author who can confidently be compared with Theodor Fontane. Ten years later, the busy Regina Ziegler, who almost won the Oscar in 1994 with the erotic short film "The Flemish Master" (directed by Susan Seidelman / with the soon-to-be Oscar winner Mira Sorvino in the leading role), produced this film adaptation for the German television station ZDF.
Baron and Baroness von Buttlär (Matthias Habich and Sunnyi Melles) are on the Baltic Sea with their family for a summer vacation. There they meet the fallen Countess (Dor)alice (Marie Bäumer), who is now married to a middle-class painter (Sebastian Blomberg). There is already a huge crisis in the marriage of the beautiful noblewoman. The hands-on painter prefers to go out with the fishermen on the not always pleasant Baltic Sea. The ethereal beauty gets involved in a love affair with a strapping young boy (Florian Stetten), who is actually supposed to marry one of the Buttlärs' daughters and whose demanding persona already refers to the coming horrors of the First and Second World Wars. The tragedy unfolds...
Beautiful literary adaptation that celebrates the fading blossom of the fin de siecle in the Wilhelmine form. The wonderful Monica Bleibtreu can also be seen as the general. Directed by Vivian Naefe. With a little more directorial courage, such material could have become a German-language counterpart to the James Ivory film adaptations.
