The story of Till Eulenspiegel, the gentleman joker (who tricks the rich and gives the poor), is a famous one and has been made as a movie many times. One of the most known may be the German animated version from 2003, which was not that positively received though. The German television stations ARD and ZDF made many fairytale movies in the last years, usually around the holidays and for Christmas 2014 they released this. The film consists of two parts, one hour each. It is set in Lübeck (Northern Germany) and deals with Eulenspiegel's pranks, but also with his relationship to a young girl and her mother. And all this, while he has to make sure not to be caught by the evil mayor. Eulenspiegel is played by Jacob Matschenz. You may have seen him in "Die Welle". The mayor is played by David Striesow, also a pretty famous German actor. The rest of the cast is not too known. The film's director is Christian Theede and it is by far not the first fairytale movie he made for television. same can be said about Dieter and Leonie Bongartz, the unusual combination of a father-daughter writers duo.
I was not too familiar with the story of Till Eulenspiegel before watching this. At least, the story here was entirely different compared to the one in the animated version. I believe this one is probably more accurate to the original. Also I heard about the owl- and meerkat-shaped bread in the past in connection with this tale I believe. However, I did not enjoy this version as much as I hoped I would. In general, this is less appealing to me than many other fairy tales in terms of the story and I also felt that 2 hours was simply way too long. It really began to drag in the second part and I believe they could have kept this at 60 minutes too, maybe at 75, and it would have been better for the overall result. The fatherhood plot at the end did almost nothing for me and it was also pretty surprising after it seemed earlier in the movie as if the single mom would get together with one of the mayor's helpers, the one who makes life in prison as bearable as possible for her. I guess the fact that the little girl got almost as much screen time as Eulenspiegel was to make this film as interesting to younger audiences as possible. The addition of the cute dog also helps the cause. Sadly, they also included farting humor on more than one occasion and that really made the film cringeworthy at times. Eulenspiegel's wild gymnastics were pretty ridiculous in a bad way as well. All in all, not recommended. One of the weakest ARD/ZDF fairytale movies I have recently seen. And I have seen many.
I was not too familiar with the story of Till Eulenspiegel before watching this. At least, the story here was entirely different compared to the one in the animated version. I believe this one is probably more accurate to the original. Also I heard about the owl- and meerkat-shaped bread in the past in connection with this tale I believe. However, I did not enjoy this version as much as I hoped I would. In general, this is less appealing to me than many other fairy tales in terms of the story and I also felt that 2 hours was simply way too long. It really began to drag in the second part and I believe they could have kept this at 60 minutes too, maybe at 75, and it would have been better for the overall result. The fatherhood plot at the end did almost nothing for me and it was also pretty surprising after it seemed earlier in the movie as if the single mom would get together with one of the mayor's helpers, the one who makes life in prison as bearable as possible for her. I guess the fact that the little girl got almost as much screen time as Eulenspiegel was to make this film as interesting to younger audiences as possible. The addition of the cute dog also helps the cause. Sadly, they also included farting humor on more than one occasion and that really made the film cringeworthy at times. Eulenspiegel's wild gymnastics were pretty ridiculous in a bad way as well. All in all, not recommended. One of the weakest ARD/ZDF fairytale movies I have recently seen. And I have seen many.
