User Reviews

Director Monika Treut has painted an idyllic picture of ranch life in the German countryside with her film Of Girls and Horses. Though beautiful, the film is very quiet, and while there is something to be said about tranquility in gorgeous scenery, it proves difficult for an audience to connect to the characters and learn to care for them.

Alex (Ceci Chuh) is a sixteen-year-old high school dropout who is sent by her adoptive mother to a horse ranch to work off the angst. While there, she is mentored by resident horse whisperer, Nina (Vanida Karun). Alex is getting into the swing of things when another young girl, Kathy (Alissa Wilms), comes to the ranch with her own horse on holiday. Kathy and Alex strike up an immediate friendship, which turns into something a little bit more.

Of Girls and Horses deals with two couples. In addition to Alex and Kathy, there is also Nina and her girlfriend, Christine (Ellen Grell), who have a long-distance relationship that's hard on both of them (Christine lives in Hamburg while Nina lives with the horses in the country). They reunite in the film with much passion and love, but when morning breaks, Nina is gone with just one phone call from the ranch about a horse with a minor injury. You may get the idea that Nina has more of a commitment to the equine then her human lover. Nina and Christine may be a future reflection of Kathy and Alex, who become smitten with each other. Kathy promises Alex a job at her father's ranch so they can be together, but whether or not she can deliver on that promise is as sure as Nina staying the full weekend in Hamburg with Christine.

Like most European film, the action in Of Girls and Horses is slow- paced and the characters react to their lives with a kind of nonchalance. When Nina realizes Alex has stolen her prescription pills to buy weed, she goes out and looks upon the grassy fields for a bit of reflection and then calmly tells Alex she is disappointed by her actions. Then the two sit in silence while Alex rests her head on Nina's shoulder. In another scene, Alex and Kathy wake up after a night of drinking and realize the horses have gotten out of their pen. What follows is a slow methodical search with the two girls acting like they are searching for a lost pencil and not four living creatures they were tasked to look after. In an American film, these sequences would have involved fast cuts, frantic music, and overt emotional reactions. In this German film, all action is dealt with with little to no fuss.

You'd have to be in a certain mood to truly enjoy Of Girls and Horses; it's methodical and at times almost boring. In the last beautifully rendered shot, Alex and Kathy ride off together on the beach. The horses seem to show more urgency and emotion than their human counterparts.

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"Von Mädchen und Pferden" or "Of Girls and Horses" is a German movie from 2014 that runs for approximately 80 minutes and was written and directed by Monika Treut. These are the days of Detlev Buck's take on the famous Bibi Blocksberg franchise, but this film here is less supernatural and fun and tries to deliver on a more serious note. It is the story of a teenage girl who struggles at school and in life and is taken to a farm where she is intended to come into contact with the more essential values of life. The main character is played by Ceci Chu and given the fact that she was already 6 or 7 years older than her character when this film was made, it's a fairly solid performance from her and also thumbs up to the costume designers as they manage to hide nicely that she does not have the body of a teenage girl, but of a woman. So Chuh is fine and admittedly her looks are pretty stunning too. But she is one of only very few positive factors I recognized here. First of all, the film thrives off realism. Nothing too spectacular or too extraordinary happens in this film and that's perfectly fine. However, if you go for realism, you also have to deliver in terms of character development and honestly, the character "transformation" does not feel crucial at all. I did not really have the impression that I was seeing another character at the very end than at the beginning. In terms of Alissa Wilms, I was not impressed at all, neither by the performance nor by the looks and especially not by the way the character was written which seemed really bland to me and not half as effective as they intended. Also, what I found a bit strange in terms of realism here was that apparently everybody in this film is a lesbian. It's not enough to make a film for a certain group of people by only including their sexuality. You also have to come up with a convincing story around it. It did not feel too authentic. Maybe they should have made the farm owner, the main character's boss, a heterosexual. Anyway, the kissing scene early on also seemed strange and really only bait with little relevant substance to it and they certainly could have come up with better ways in showing us the main character's sexuality, maybe with the help of Wilms' character. Why rush things like that. This also has nothing to do with the apparently immense longing of Chuh's character, but just with clumsy character development. And like I said, all in all very little happens in here and the stuff that does happen rarely feels real or convincing. This is why I give this one a thumbs-down. Fairly disappointing outcome and Chuh alone cannot make it work unfortunately. Not recommended, even if I kinda like the film's title and if some of the scenes with focus on the female body have quite a decent aesthetic touch to them. I want the lead actress, but I do not want the film.

I gave this 1 star but I can't actually say I hated it. I hated that I felt tricked into sitting all the way through it waiting for something to happen. The photography was pleasant to look at and the characters were interesting to look at but nothing ever happened between any of them. At one point in the film one character communicates the word "chemistry" to another. Why? To let me know that the movie was devoid of any? The love scene between the two older women was contrived and soporific. The whole part with the two older women made no sense to the plot whatsoever. I kept waiting and waiting and waiting for something to happen in this movie. Nothing ever did--except some nice shots of the sky and clouds and fields and horses. I felt taken in the end. What a waste of time.