Just watched this last night in a University classroom. My german is only fair, not good so I may have missed some nuances although I doubt there were any.
The actors were amature, the cinematography was stilted and artificial, the dialogue and action was just plain awful to watch.
As with many German productions, the costumes were flawless but this only served to detract from the lack of integrity in the film making. The story deals with the murder of a jew in 18th century Germany. Given the highly complex moral issues, one would think that the film would have been made with a high degree of sensitivity to the issues of anti-semitism. Instead we get cardboard depictions, with scenes of german peasants surrounding jewish moneylenders, chanting "Sau-Jude, Sau-Jude" (Jewish swine), with no attempt to interpret, condemn or otherwise comment on this.
