User Reviews

"Was man von hier aus sehen kann" is a German film that had its release already back in 2022, but it is still shown in German movie theaters now in 2023 and the movie is of course also in the German language. I cannot find an international title in the English language yet and the reason is probably that the film did not have an international release yet, but you can translate it into "What you can see from here". This would be the literal translation then. It runs for almost 105 minutes, so it is not a particularly short film, but also not too long. The writer and director is Aron Lehmann and he has been in the industry for approximately 15 years now, so one of the newer German filmmakers as he turned 40 a while ago and it seems as if this film here could become one of his bigger successes. This movie is book-based and the writer is Mariana Leky. The cast list on imdb is still a bit all over the place as it is alphabetical and this is also the reason why the stunning lead actress Luna Wedler is not found on the main page. She is maybe not the biggest name from the cast, but plays the central character. We also see her character as a young girl early on. The most known name is perhaps Karl Markovics. I always like to see him. Corinna Harfouch is also easy to identify, even if I do not like her as much anymore as I once did. Peter Schneider I could also mention maybe and this is pretty much it with the most known names here. The film received one award (so far) and this was not really an award, but more like an attribute from an important culture institute here in Germany you could say. As you see from my rating, I would not agree, however, that what we have here is an especially recommendable feature film. It has its moments and it is far from a failure, but there are also key weaknesses.

The overall premise that a woman around the age of 60 or so has dreams of an okapi sometimes and every time she does, somebody dies. Okay, it sounds absurd, but you can make it work. Still, there is the idea that you surely do not remember your dreams all the time, so maybe people died on other occasions too when she did not remember or otherwise she should have found the opposite of lucid dreaming maybe. Just what came to my mind. The one thing I did not like there at all was the fact that she told her granddaughter what she was dreaming of the night before. I mean you can say that she did it as a warning for the child, but still I think it would have been more realistic to not say anything to avoid panicking. But I guess at that point they were already convinced enough that death could not be stopped. We only did not know to whom it would happen. Or actually, it could be stopped because nobody died that day if I remember correctly. But tragedy happened nonetheless a little later then and it hits a character who really did not deserve it, namely not the violent dad who was close to dying himself when he fell down a few meters, but his son who was already in a bad enough spot anyway with his violent father, who was maybe also an alcoholic. The boy was the protagonist's bets childhood friend. So yeah, this was in theory maybe the saddest moment from the film. I must say the story and connection between the two kids was not depicted in a way here where I would really feel sorry for the boy or the girl to be honest. They could have done much better there.

These okapi dreams resulting in tragedy were not the only supernatural thing happening here at all. Apparently also every time when the girl lied, then something nearby would fall down and break. Fairly bizarre inclusion and really here less would have been more and the other fantasy aspect would have been enough. These scenes when whatever falls down maybe lands on the dog or actually it was not just stuff falling down, also a bus hitting the main character, were odd to say the least and not in a good way. These are only scenarios going on in the main character's mind then, just like the scene when the two young people towards the end are close to each other and confess their love for each other was too good to be true and in reality, there was other stuff on the boy's mind. Okay. Honestly, I had a pretty hard time with the end. There is so much going on that it does not feel one bit realistic anymore. Harfouch's character dies. The protagonist then heads for the neighbor's house and sees she is about to commit suicide. Then, all out of nowhere, the protagonist's crush shows up again that very moments after being in Japan before that. And then the protagonist manages to stop the suicide form happening thanks to her "gift" and of course succeeds. Enough people have died she says, or something along the lines of that. Then the house also crashes down there, but it is acceptable because the neighbor woman then lives. Honestly, this character was also overdone already during the meal with the love interest and she stopped being interesting soon.

Oh yeah, it was also a bit unrealistic that moments after Harfouch's character's death there actually happens a phone call from a significant character that we never see though. That was also too much of a coincidence. I have not read the book that this film is based on, but honestly with all the negative aspects happening here on the screen, I would be surprised if the key problem is really the book already and not just the transition from book to screenplay. I doubt the book was as bad. I mean you could really see the filmmaker's/filmmakers' ambition here to turn this into something special, something magical and sobering and maybe even a bit depressing at the same time, but neither the (dark) comedy nor the dramatic aspects (and there are quite a few serious ones: death, premonitions, domestic violence, disappeared animals etc.) were half as good as they could have been. This film is a lost opportunity and it wanted to be much smarter than it actually turned out in the end. I would not really blame the cast. They did what they could and I doubt others would have played it better altogether. I am especially disappointed because I really do not think too highly of German films, but I saw that this one here received good ratings, so I was a bit optimistic that it could perhaps win me over, but the outcome was the same lack of creativity that has just become the standard in terms of German film culture.

Most neighboring countries are so far ahead of us now that it is not even funny anymore and this at least includes Austria, Denmark and France, maybe Belgium and Poland too. But why would things look different with somebody like Claudia Roth in charge of the culture sector in our government? This means everything there is doomed to fail. German films have to bring the right (actually left-wing) message, preferably propaganda even, or they do not get any funds. Simple as that. And don't even get me started on what has been mistaken by many for quality comedy films from Germany in recent years. People abroad must be laughing at this. Okay, enough with this little excursion in the German film landscape. A wasteland. This film cannot change anything about it no matter how hard it tries at times. It is a mess here and there, especially at the aforementioned ending when everything escalates. Do not watch. Not even the big dog was worth it. Oh yeah, I almost forgot about Markovics' character hearing voices in his head. Another example with how they did not manage to convert an idea/inclusion from the book into something successful on the screen. And again, less would have been more. This is really a film to stay away from. I suggest you do so as the solid moments are clearly outnumbered by the moments when this is simply not a good movie at all. Thumbs-down.