"Mein Name ist Bach" is a co-production between France, Germany and Switzerland from 2003. The country I mentioned last is probably crucial here as this is probably the career-defining work by director Dominique de Rivaz, who is also one of the writers here, because the film received strong awards recognition in Switzerland was eventually also chosen to represent the country at the Oscars back then where the film did not even get close to a nomination though. Not unexpected in my opinion, but I'll get to that later. Most German filmmakers would really be intrigued by the prospect of Glowna, Vogel, Herfurth, Taubman, Buck and the very recently deceased Rehberg as part of their project, but they definitely did not manage to use the strong cast list to an extent here where this could (and should) have become a strong period piece. As the title gives away, this film centers around the life of famous composer Johann Sebastian Bach (in his later years) and especially on his conflict with Friedrich II. I must say that I didn't like the title too much. It says nothing sounding like a Bollywood movie set in Germany while actually trying to say a lot. It also sounds a bit like a biopic in my opinion, which it absolutely is not.
Anyway, the big problem here is not the name, but it is the script. It lacks subtlety entirely and goes over the top in a cringeworthy fashion on quite a few occasions. One would be when Vogel's character starts singing randomly and the singing component was generally a big weakness. Another, even worse situation was the table scene where everybody except Bach had sheets over their heads. Meh... The worst is that some of these scenes were intended as the most poignant and most memorable of the movie and that is just not working out. So the actors were given weak material on Vogel's occasion especially, even if what he did with it was not really tolerable either, or they were simply not given enough material and screen time quantity-wise, so that an otherwise solid actress like Herfurth was pretty much wasted. I guess visually you cannot say really anything negative as costumes and sets were okay and the ending / last shot wasn't too bad either. However, the tiny pros cannot make up for the big cons here. I give "My Name Is Bach" a thumbs-down as it is nothing but a very poor man's version of Amadeus as we depict the fall of a genius in the face of an oh too powerful rival. It was rightfully not nominated for an Oscar and I suggest you skip these 1.5 hours.
Anyway, the big problem here is not the name, but it is the script. It lacks subtlety entirely and goes over the top in a cringeworthy fashion on quite a few occasions. One would be when Vogel's character starts singing randomly and the singing component was generally a big weakness. Another, even worse situation was the table scene where everybody except Bach had sheets over their heads. Meh... The worst is that some of these scenes were intended as the most poignant and most memorable of the movie and that is just not working out. So the actors were given weak material on Vogel's occasion especially, even if what he did with it was not really tolerable either, or they were simply not given enough material and screen time quantity-wise, so that an otherwise solid actress like Herfurth was pretty much wasted. I guess visually you cannot say really anything negative as costumes and sets were okay and the ending / last shot wasn't too bad either. However, the tiny pros cannot make up for the big cons here. I give "My Name Is Bach" a thumbs-down as it is nothing but a very poor man's version of Amadeus as we depict the fall of a genius in the face of an oh too powerful rival. It was rightfully not nominated for an Oscar and I suggest you skip these 1.5 hours.