"Wink des Himmels" is a German television film from 2005, so this one has its 15th anniversary this year, which is normally an occasion to celebrate, but with how low the quality here is, it is more on the opposite end of the scale and pretty embarrassing that this film is still shown on national television, even if it is only a smaller channel and not exactly prime time. Nonetheless, the fewer people watch this, the better. The director is Karola Hattop and as she already worked on movies back in the 1970s, she was already a highly prolific filmmaker by 2005. But also this means that in my opinion she is a definite contender for worst German filmmaker from the last 50 years because her body of work is all about quantity and not one bit about quality. Truly pathetic. The writer is Natalie Scharf. She has not been active for that long, but also since the late 1990s, and her body of work is nothing to be proud of either. Still, the pretty good "Dschungelkind", maybe her defining career movie, is better than everything Hattop has been a part of. These 1.5 hours, slightly under as usual, we have here, however, do not bring quality to anybody's body of work here. That includes all the people who were part of this project, not only the aforementioned behind the camera, but also thoe in front of it. The ones audiences usually recognize. Well, this is only partially true because the cast is not spectacular at all, even for a small screen release from my country here and these are never star-studded. Anyway, the only supporting cast member I am familiar with here is Bürger and maybe Wussow too, but only because of his name and father. The two leads are by far more known, but not necesarily for good reasons. Both are fairly limited actors I'm sure. Admittedly, it must be said that Helmut Zierl is by no means as bad as hhis female counterpart Elisabeth Lanz. Both have been in many bad films, however. There is no denying there at all. I have seen some of their stuff and it is pretty abysmal here almost all the time. Maybe Lanz' inclusion int he cast for a lead character is also one reason why this movie here is an Austrian co-production, but also the bigger reason obviouly is ORF being a part of it.
Now in the second paragraph, let me talk a bit about specific scenes and moments from this film that made it extremely obvious how this is a film that is still bad in its better moments. It already starts fairly weak as we see the male protagonist sitting there in the nature all on his own like a desirable lone cowboy. But things do get way worse. The best (or worst) example of that is for example the dove scene early on when the boy wants a mother again and a woman for his father at the same time lets the dove fly away and she flies to Lanz' character at a construction site and while the two men there are annoyed by it, want it to leave, even try to catch it, the woman is somewhat amused and even sees the romantic component immediately and tries all she can to find the owner of the dove or pigeon. Never really know what the difference is. Not important anyway. What matters more is that really everything involving the dove was utterly ridiculous in a bad way. There is one more, namely when the female protagonist talks to the male protagonist on one occasion about how the pigeon was lost, wanted to land, but did not know where and clearly this was meant in a (not exactly) subtle manner in a metaphoric way as if she was talking about herself. In order for us to understand how desirable the two lovebirds (no pun intended!) are, we also find out that the man has a suitor himself and the woman is in a relationship, close to marriage in fact. But her man does not treat her like a goddess the way she (and every other woman) deserves, so it is absolutely nothing bad that she cheats on him with the male character. Imagines how condescending the film would be if her fiancé cheated on her during his business trip. He'd be personified evil honestly. Only women get away with stuff like that in these sexist ARD afternoon movies. This one here is no exception. But hey, he puts career over her, does not wwant a kid, fly away instead of staying with his love, so he deserves it coming his way that she is falling for somebody else. There are many other scenes and aspects wrong with this movie, but I just wanna forget about them as soon as possible. Okay, one more: the entire conflict story in the second half when the man's employee lies about his love becausse she still wwants him to become an item with her daughter. This is so messed-up. Pseudo drama of the worst kind. Also how he slaps her. Okay, that was so bad that it was almost funny honestly. But there are no evil characters in here, no antagonists really and even the elderly lady realizes what a mistake she made and of course the happy ending is inevitable eventually and the two protagonists are together, not much longer after the female's original lover begs his woman to stay with him, even if she cheated on him. Charming. She gets away with everything. But hey, it is true love. Just like it was with the male protagonist's deceased former wife. Yep, more sob story here. I feel kinda bad for everybody who falls for this scam of a movie. Honestly, the ending, when they are united, with the help of the dove is also as cheesy and schmaltzy as it gets. Like I wrote in the title of my review. But then again, this description fits the entire film really. So many other scenes and moments I could mention. Okay one more to sum it all up: the boy's phone calls early on when his dad is on a date with a woman he does not like. And another: the boy running away. Kids running away always happens for "dramatic" reasons in these films. Or Zierl's character being on a date again with the other woman from early on when the "love of his life" seems one. or when he mistakes another couple about to get married for the woman of his dreams and her man. And so on and so forth. There is much more. In short, this is a terrible movie. One where you should not be hesittant for a minute to realize they are trying to evoke the biggest of emotions while offering the smalles of talent. Not gonna work like that. A dafinite contender for worst German film of 2005. As shallow as it gets and the very worst about it is actually that they were utterly serious with it. Unreal. Fat thumbs-down.
Now in the second paragraph, let me talk a bit about specific scenes and moments from this film that made it extremely obvious how this is a film that is still bad in its better moments. It already starts fairly weak as we see the male protagonist sitting there in the nature all on his own like a desirable lone cowboy. But things do get way worse. The best (or worst) example of that is for example the dove scene early on when the boy wants a mother again and a woman for his father at the same time lets the dove fly away and she flies to Lanz' character at a construction site and while the two men there are annoyed by it, want it to leave, even try to catch it, the woman is somewhat amused and even sees the romantic component immediately and tries all she can to find the owner of the dove or pigeon. Never really know what the difference is. Not important anyway. What matters more is that really everything involving the dove was utterly ridiculous in a bad way. There is one more, namely when the female protagonist talks to the male protagonist on one occasion about how the pigeon was lost, wanted to land, but did not know where and clearly this was meant in a (not exactly) subtle manner in a metaphoric way as if she was talking about herself. In order for us to understand how desirable the two lovebirds (no pun intended!) are, we also find out that the man has a suitor himself and the woman is in a relationship, close to marriage in fact. But her man does not treat her like a goddess the way she (and every other woman) deserves, so it is absolutely nothing bad that she cheats on him with the male character. Imagines how condescending the film would be if her fiancé cheated on her during his business trip. He'd be personified evil honestly. Only women get away with stuff like that in these sexist ARD afternoon movies. This one here is no exception. But hey, he puts career over her, does not wwant a kid, fly away instead of staying with his love, so he deserves it coming his way that she is falling for somebody else. There are many other scenes and aspects wrong with this movie, but I just wanna forget about them as soon as possible. Okay, one more: the entire conflict story in the second half when the man's employee lies about his love becausse she still wwants him to become an item with her daughter. This is so messed-up. Pseudo drama of the worst kind. Also how he slaps her. Okay, that was so bad that it was almost funny honestly. But there are no evil characters in here, no antagonists really and even the elderly lady realizes what a mistake she made and of course the happy ending is inevitable eventually and the two protagonists are together, not much longer after the female's original lover begs his woman to stay with him, even if she cheated on him. Charming. She gets away with everything. But hey, it is true love. Just like it was with the male protagonist's deceased former wife. Yep, more sob story here. I feel kinda bad for everybody who falls for this scam of a movie. Honestly, the ending, when they are united, with the help of the dove is also as cheesy and schmaltzy as it gets. Like I wrote in the title of my review. But then again, this description fits the entire film really. So many other scenes and moments I could mention. Okay one more to sum it all up: the boy's phone calls early on when his dad is on a date with a woman he does not like. And another: the boy running away. Kids running away always happens for "dramatic" reasons in these films. Or Zierl's character being on a date again with the other woman from early on when the "love of his life" seems one. or when he mistakes another couple about to get married for the woman of his dreams and her man. And so on and so forth. There is much more. In short, this is a terrible movie. One where you should not be hesittant for a minute to realize they are trying to evoke the biggest of emotions while offering the smalles of talent. Not gonna work like that. A dafinite contender for worst German film of 2005. As shallow as it gets and the very worst about it is actually that they were utterly serious with it. Unreal. Fat thumbs-down.
