"Die Geschichte von der Gänseprinzessin und ihrem treuen Pferd Falada" is a really long title for this relatively short film as it clocks in at under 80 minutes and of course this one is based on a tale by the Brothers Grimm. This film was made in 1989 in the GDR and it is among the final DEFA production who are actually known for quite a few fairytale films. Maybe this is the film genre that East Germany was most famous for. And many times they collaborated in one way or the other with Czechoslovakia. Here it is really an East German production in the German language, but if you take a look at the names of the two lead actresses, you can see the parallel too. Anyway, the director here is Konrad Petzold (not related to Christian) and this was his final career effort. He was a truly prolific filmmaker in the GDR, but he did not manage a successful transition to reunited Germany. According to imdb, he lived for another decade afterwards, but did not work on any other films, although age-wise he certainly could have. His cast members here were luckier for the most part. There are no big stars involved here, but still for most of them the Fall of the Berlin Wall did not mean the end of their careers. Nonetheless, this film is still a contender for most known and most successful work for pretty much everybody in this film. This also has to do with the fact that it is still shown occasionally on television, especially with the holiday season moving closer and that maybe one reason why it was on TV today as well. So yeah, even as a German native I can't say too much about the cast, so I won't even try.
Instead lets focus on other aspects. The Grimm tale is just called "Die Gänsemagd" and it is known, but definitely not among their most famous, so maybe that is why there aren't too many adaptations into movies. This is perhaps the most known we have here. But I was not too impressed. I do think it starts solid and also at the end it gets better again, but in-between there were simply too many lengths and for such a rather short film that means something crucial in the negative sense. Many characters were introduced, too many, that added almost nothing to the movie, at least for me. One example would be the boy who is relatively close with the title character. I don't think I have read the Brothers Grimm tale for this one or it has been decades ago, so I cannot say if the problem here is the original or the adaptation. But I can see why people do not usually think of it immediately when mentioning their favorites from the legendary writers. Anyway, lets focus a bit more on the film here. Costumes and sets are really good, there is nothing to criticize here. East German films always deliver in these fields you can say. What I found a bit unusual is that the main antagonist here was the sister of the protagonist. Or I should say the "sister" because I think they grew up like sisters, but weren't really relatives genetically. This chocie does not happen too often in Brother Grimm fairytales. And even when there is a sister involved like in "Frau Holle" for example, she is frequently just lazy and useless and not necessarily really evil and obsessed with power. At the end, however, it backfires for her when she tells the people and us what should happen with those criminals and then is exposed as a faker herself. Honestly, this revelation did feel a bit too easy. And the very end (of course a happy one) is also kinda rushed with how they all run to the meadow and quickly afterward the closing credits roll in. Maybe one thing why I also did not like this one too mich was because honestly the good girl (i.e. the title character) did feel really forgettable. I am not sure if it was the actress or a mix of her and the writing, but there was literally nothing interesting to her where I would say I get it why the prince is falling for her. Let alone me falling for her myself. I was far away from that. So yeah, story-wise this left me hoping for more. The horse mentioned in the title is not a revelation either, at least during the scenes when the head is on the wall and it still talks. This looked really cheap and honestly not worthy special-effects-wise for almost the 90s. Overall verdict: Only worth seeing for the very biggest old fairy tale fans. I give it a thumbs-down, also because (for me as an animal lover) the geese did not get half as much screen time as I wanted them to.
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