User Reviews

"Die lange Welle hinterm Kiel" is a German television film from 2011, so almost a decade old now and it runs for slightly under 1.5 hours like most German television films. The fact that this is an Austrian co-production stems from Nikolaus Leytner being the director here and his writer is Klaus Richter. These two have worked together on several occasions. Another would be much more recently "Der Trafikant", a film I saw at the movie theater and I thought it wwas really really good and also dealth with the years of National Socialism, which this one here does as well, even if it is set much later. However, it is not set iin the now as we find out because of a brief mention of actor Gregory Peck. Anyway, looking at how much I liked "Der Trafikant", I was pretty shocked how much I disliked this film here. But basics first: This is based on a book, a novel written by Pavel Kohout, and I have not read said novel, so I can't make any comparisons really and say if the major flaws this film has already existed in the base material. But honestly, I don't think it could have been as bad as the film turned out here eventually. The worst about it is perhaps that it really takes itself so seriously and tries to make a historic statement even, when an elderly woman on a ship thinks she recognizes (the voice of) a man who was a tormentor from her past. This is when the historic era comes into play, the one I mentioned earlier. Said lady is played by Christiane Hörbiger, a really experienced actress and many consider her one of the greats from my country (or I should say from Austria) with how long she has been working already, but I cannot agree there or at least not when it comes to the films she has been in over the last 20 years. A lot of garbage included there really. And this film just adds to that. They tried so hard to make her character meaningful and still we should like her and get all emotional over what happened near the end, but they just came short from every perspective. I think it is not necessarily Hörbiger's fault, except that she accepted the role of course. The guy she recognizes is played by Mario Adorf, back then around the age of 80, now around the age of 90 already. Well, he had nothing to work with in this movie at all honestly and the only thing slightly memorable when it came to his performance was his accent and overall he was decent as always. No doubt, he is by far the most talented cast member.

I went relatively easy on Hörbiger, but I cannot say the same about Veronica Ferres. Man, she is really unbearable in literally every film she has in. Same face from beginning to end, absolutely no acting talent and still she gets cast for playing central characters, which has been the case for years, if not decades now only because by now she has been in so many films that people recognize her immediately and because she looks tolerable given her age. She is the same as always in here. Really absolutely no range, no versatility, nothing. Her line delivery was so bad that it felt as if we were watching a messed-up voice-over performance. And don't even get me started on her story. This one includes her becoming part of an affair with a much younger man (almost 20 years), but hey Ferres is so beautiful, so we are buying it right? No I did not buy it. What was as much of a problem as the age difference was that Letkowski and Ferres had absolutely zero chemistry and as their relationship becomes more and more crucial the longer the film goes, it is definitely a negative deal-breaker. At the end, it actually is all the film is about when her man enters the picture and hey Ferres is so stunning that she is the one who is in the position to end the relationship with the young man. Before that, she has many scenes with Adorf's character and it is really obvious to see how different these two are in terms of talent during the many scenes they have together. It all starts with some struggle related to getting the right bedroom, but hey Ferres' character keeps spending the nights with the young one pretty quickly anyway, so they managed. So much for the characters I guess. I already said what I thought about the part of the film that deals with what happens many years ago and how the movie tries to elaborate on subjects like guilt, revenge and desperation and took itself so seriously in all these fields, while from the creative perspective having no right at all to do so, is really self-explanatory. Apart from that, it is also the small moments when the film crucially lacks attention to detail. One example would be that it is pretty unrealistic how the young man is so close to historic studies all of a sudden with what Ferres' character tells him. And lack of realism is also a key subject here: The fact that the old lady (thinks she) recognized the old man never felt authentic to me and how she tells the young man to find out who he is was one really bad acting moment by Hörbiger. The scene when she says she just wants to leave and get away was not any better from her. So looking at how the film is set on a big yacht, this one really speeds right into the iceberg. It should not be shown anymore on television, eeven for the afternoon program it is too weak. Highly not recommended. I wonder what Kohout thought about this one here, he is even older then Adorf now.