User Reviews

Classic German Cinema - Usually Pointless. Despite the movie being good and the whole acting is pretty much alike , the whole movie leads to a dead end, makes you realise it was pointless watching it. While the movie pretends to be focusing on the Krupp Grandfather's Biography you get to learn nothing about him at all. Instead you get to watch 1:30 hours movie of Mister Beitz's inside demons if I am allowed to call them so and Mister Mann trying to face these demons in the whole movie as well. What is the point of making a movie about someone that tried to advertise-save his company by creating the Biography of his company's founder and in the end not even achieving to do that properly (concerning both the real life try that fell short and the movie that was lacking of everything that has to do with company information) , peaked with a "cold" ending and also accompanied by 0 additional knowledge about anything that has to do with the Krupp Founders except than a few names or the Krupp industry itself? The funny thing is that if you don't know anything about the company I can almost guarantee that you will not even notice what products the company even sells or merchandises ... 😅😅

"Berthold Beitz - ein unruhiges Leben" or "Das Geheimnis der Freiheit" is a German television movie from 2019 according to imdb, but as far as I know today, less than three hours ago, was the official premiere here in Germany on television, although I don't know if it played at some festivals or so. Anyway, these under 90 minutes are the newest filmmaking effort by director Dror Zahavi, who has been in the industry for almost 3 decades now and this includes many many works, some of them not so good, others okay. His writer is Sebastian Orlac, who is really not that prolific, even if he certainly isn't a rookie either. Looking at his works, however, I must admit that in contrast to Zahavi's selection I am a bit surprised he was picked as the man in charge for the script here. And after seeing the film I cannot say I was wrong. I don't think it was a really good or even memorable story or at least not as good as it could have been given the subject. Berthold Beitz is despite his historic impact really not a name that is even close to being known here in my country except maybe to historians or people really old enough to witness him in his most signifant days, but the new generation not really and mine neither as I probably do not count among the latter anymore in my mid-30s. However, there were some decisions made in terms of the very basic production that weren't among the most satisfying. I already mentioned the screenplay, but it deserves to be mentioned again because it is really the one most important category for every film. And I want to add to that the casting decision for Sven-Eric Bechtolf, who looked like an elderly Sebastian Koch to me. If I hadn't known it wasn't him, I probably would have guessed they picked him and used aging make-up. But what I really wanted to say here is that Bechtolf is an actor, who was not even known before this film to a hardcore German film buff like myself. That says it all I guess. Looking at his body of work, I am kinda surprised to see they cast him for a lead role in a primetime movie best television slot of the night. I mean don't get me wrong I am not saying he was bad or anything and the script also did not really do him too many favors, but I think maybe a more familiar face or, if they really want to go for somebody relatively unknown, then a more talented actor could have elevated the materiel. However, the way it went here, nothing really happened ever that really draws you in the story.

In general, I would say the cast list is not too good and this goes deep down to the supporting characters. There is one single actor in here I am familiar with and that is Edgar Selge, everybody else is really not even known a big film buff like myself. As for Selge, he plays the biggest supporting part and in-between he is gone for quite a while too, so the fact that he prominently reappears towards the end, does not make it a lead performance. Selge is pretty decent though. Most of the time you can rely on him and sometimes he elevates the material even, which is not too easy because the way his character was written is nothing Golo (or Thomas) Mann would have been happy with I am sure. The moments when we see how Golo struggles (almost a bit comedically) with his father's big footsteps are still what is most memorable about the character, but it also gets repetitive eventually and it shows that the screen writer really wasn't able to come up ith any new creative ideas about the characters. Still I guess they also recognized Selge's character is (among the most) interesting here and so it was a good decision they brought him back towards the end, so the film would at least not end in a manner as forgettable as almost everything before that. However, it is fairly telling and almost a bit ironic that Golo Mann gets a film with this one here that is just as mediocre, bland and bleak as it gets and again includes nothing that maybe a good film would/could have been about if it was about his dad and it is probably gonna take a few more years, if not a decade, until another film comes out that includes Golo Mann so much at the center of the action. So yeah, this film is not a failure, but like I said taking into account the prime time spot on ARD, the outcome is certainly not satisfying. Afternoon material at best. Watch something else instead because this one here is a missed opportunity.