User Reviews

"Das singende, klingende Bäumchen" is a German fantasy film from 2016, so noth really new, but also not old at all and this is the modern version of the old DEFA movie with the same title. So this is of course based on another Brothers Grimm fairytale and ARD and ZDF (and their many smaller copycats) have been producing modern versions of old fairytale for many years now and this is one of the more recent. Most of the time, they run for exactly an hour and this is also true for this one here. The running time stated on is incorrect, maybe something got mixed up with the old version, but there is only one one-hour version of this television film. No director's cuts or anything. Director is Wolfgang Eissler and he has worked on several of these new fairytale movies and same is true for his writer Gabriele Kreis. Actually they have also worked together on many occasions, mostly for the long-running German children's hit show Löwenzahn. Everybody knows it here and their late host Peter Lustig. But now back to this one here: We got the usual: A princess, a suitor who has to go through quite a bit to win her heart, a king, some people working at the royal court and of course a main antagonist. The latter is a gnome here that has magical powers and reminded me slightly of Rumpelstiltskin, even if initially it is not even safe to say he is really a bad guy. I mean he did not force anybody into any contract and the fact thatg animals and flowers are living creatures too is totally correct. But yeah at the end, it does get obvious because he is clearly abusing his powers for evil. Maybe not the very best choice because like I said earlier he seemed to be a man of integrity and honestly looking at how he is mocked by the prince, the latter is far from likable as well. Same is true for the vain princess. Both of them are really turning to the good side after being pretty nasty individuals early on. And the fact that they turn into these nasty creatures visually through magic in the middle of the film emphasizes this. They need to look and really sound the way they are in order to see their mistakes and let goodness into their hearts. And at the same time the gnome transforms into evil. Well, he sort of was evil all the time, but didn't really show it. As for the cast here, it is pretty impressive for sure. Perfect example of how also big name actors enjoyed appearing on these fairy tale movies and there are many other examples, even if they do not have a lot of screen time at all. Here of course, you will recognize Heinz Hoenig immediately and for him it is true too with just playing a supporting character. Steffi Kühnert comes to mind as well and her role is even smaller. Or Bodenstein whho got out of retirement for this and basically everybody else here is pretty experienced, also the young actors. A tremendous cast if put into perspective. Maybe not a tremendous film overall, but still a pretty good one and I don't think it is consideraly worse than the old version. If it is worse at all. If you like fairytale films, then go check this one out. Another example how it was a good decision to remake all these old fairytale movies, even those that do not immediately come to mind as the Brothers Grimm's most famous. Thumbs up.