Die geliebten Schwestern

Two cuts of the movie that is. There is the shorter cinema version and the Directors cut, which obviously is longer. And therefor more conclusive, which also makes more sense than. If you only watched the shorter version you probably won't get that. Not that this means it's a sure thing you will like the longer version.

One thing is for sure, there went a lot of thought into the design(s) of the movie. Again you might not like what you see, but the effort is there. Also our male lead has a way of speaking that fits more with a period piece like this than contemporary cinema. If you see it favorable you'll call it sophisticated. Acting in general is good, though not up to par with things Natalie Portman did of course. Still a refreshing look (with some artistic freedom/choices) back at time/history

Median. A novel based on the love triangle involving the German writer Friedrich Schiller. I found the film long (almost 3 hours long) and, at one point, tiring. It's worth as knowledge about this love affair of the writer I wasn't aware of. I believe that 6 perfectly reflects the rating of this film. I like films set in the classical period, specifically in the second half of the eighteenth century. Schiller is a contemporary of Mozart and Beethoven, and during the execution of the film, listening to the soundtrack, this detail reminded me of the two composers.

A failed love affair with an idea. Although the casting of the three principle parts was perfect, the personalities alone could not sustain this film. The writing was all over the place. The voice over narration had no identity and seemed a bad substitution for good editing and for writing scenes that would speak for themselves. The cinematography was beautiful, as were the venues which were chosen from Schiller's life. In my opinion, Dominik Graf feel in love with a fantasy, a faint impression (from one letter) of a relationship that is not supported by literary or historical facts, which he tried to conjure up from an illusion but which never really took form. I understand there is a shorter version of this (I watched the three hour director's cut on DVD) but it really was a long, hot mess. I give this film a 4 (poor) out of 10. {Period Romantic Drama}

Rushes along. Interesting times but doesn't settle into a rhythm. Don't like narration. Was the story based on fact? Didn't finish watching.

(note: I watched the short version, about 140 minutes, of this film)

Beautiful landscapes, beautiful interiors with subtle natural lighting, beautiful actors and some beautiful moments don't save this film from being a serious disappointment that may be tolerable on a TV screen, but certainly not on a cinema screen.

Allegedly this is a story about passion, and early on in the film there is a promising moment when Schiller, soaking wet and half-frozen after rescuing a child out of a stream, is warmed up by the sisters clinging to his body; this was quite erotic, but sadly it remained the only erotic moment in the whole film. The director's approach to sensuality and passion here is much too buttoned up; the result is bland and soporific. You can't have women like Herzsprung and Confurius in such a film and never have them undress; this is simply inexcusable.

I won't talk about the score here; the music is so irrelevant that it doesn't even affect the film negatively. I'd like to talk about scenes: Usually, a film, be it a Hollywood film or an art film, is made of scenes; a succession of scenes, with each individual scene having a beginning, an ending, a development in between, and a relation to the preceding and to the following scenes.

Dominik Graf obviously doesn't believe in scenes. Take, for example, the beginning of his film: First shot is a close-up of Confurius sitting in a coach. I expected that I would get to know this character now and that I would be guided into the world of the film. Well, I was wrong. Suddenly an ugly voice-over starts explaining who this girl is and what she is about to do. Then we cut to something else. So what about the opening scene? There simply is no opening scene! This is terrible. Imagine a writer writing a novel and not even getting his first sentence right. The editing is terrible throughout. I remember at one point there is a cut to a wide shot of a street, and about half a second later there is another cut away to something else before we even had time to appreciate what is going on in this street. Terrible. However, the general problem concerning the editing is not that it is too fast, but (and I don't know if the writer/director or the editor is to blame for it) that the editor was incapable of giving the story a compelling structure, a recognizable rhythm. Instead of a succession of meaningful scenes we get an erratic tapestry of meaningless pretty shots, and even if these shots group themselves to a kind of individual scene from time to time, there is no weight behind it, no sense that this scene had to start at exactly this point and had to end at exactly that point. In contrast to the sad mess that "Die geliebten Schwestern" is, you may want to have a look at Kubrick's "Lolita" (there may be many other good examples, but this film comes to my mind right now as a benchmark for masterful writing): Instead of trying to cram as many scenes of Nabokov's novel as possible into the screenplay, they wrote mainly long or very long unforgettable scenes, that give the actors time to breathe and to unfold.

Bottom line: If you love the art of filmmaking and wan't to spare yourself some serious frustration, I don't recommend this one.