"Das Luther-Tribunal. Zehn Tage im April" is a German television movie from 2017, so this is moving closer to its fifth anniversary now and maybe it happened already depending on when you read this review of mine. This was on television today, but it probably isn't too often really, so chances are high that some time has passed since my review here. I called this a "movie" and I am not sure if this is really the appropriate term to go for this time. But it's not really a reenactment either because there is clearly a great deal of fictionalization here. Just take the two at the very end and where they are when they talk about Luther's future for example. Surely they kep the key historic events accurate, but that is really it. Cannot blame them though. I mean it iis not as if we havd cameras back then when this film took place that show us what things were really like. So you can call it a movie I suppose. This refers to "motion pictures" anyway and this always fits and it does not matter one bit what the contents are like. So I am more hesitant to call it a documentary with all the acting going on in here. Yes, there are interviews in-between, but these are clearly the minority in terms of screen time, but also in terms of how memorable they are (i.e. not a lot) compared to the live action scenes. This is also one reason why I did not rate this too highly honestly. I mean it is relatively recent and if we are honest, then there is nothing in here during these almost 1.5 hours we have not seen on other projects from the informative perspective, the perspective of historic knowledge. Instead, they tried their best to make it interesting for general audiences of all ages, but there they also succeeded only partially at best. The title here means "The Luther tribunal: Ten days in April", so you see this is set during a very specific and not too long period of time. By the way, this was on Phoenix today and to be honest, this is a television station where I expect way better because they also belong to those stations that force people to pay GEZ and what I got back here with this film, documentary... (call it whatever you like) is absolutely not on a level that justifies these gigantic amounts of money they are making (billions, in fact) and if you don't pay, then you are taken to court. It's basically a service forced upon the German people. But enough of that now. For the basics still it must be noted that the director is Christian Twente (not Enschede) and he has been making films, almost always documentaries (most of them with a historic background and also about Germany) for over 20 years now, almost 20 years when this one got made. So he is certainly experienced enough. And again, I would have expected a better outcome. But maybe he just doesn't have it and everything else is as weak as what he did here. If you have such a level after almost two decades in the industry (and he has been pretty prolific too, not just a new project every three years), then maybe there is little hope. The writer is Friedrich Klütsch. Not too much to say about him. He has also mostly worked on documentaries and there is a surprisingly big gap in his body of work time-wise. He started a long time ago, even way earlier than the director, but he has not been prolific at all. The outcome here does not get me curious about other works that he has been a part of.
As for the cast, the main character is played by Roman Knizka. I am talking of course about Luther. There are other familiar names in here. Stegemann would be one (not just because of who his wife was) and another is Alexander Beyer and that is far from everybody. Some smaller roles were played by actors with a non-German background as you can see from their names. It's alright. The acting is never an issue in here really. The writing is. These more memorable scenes are not frequent enough at all here for a positive recommendation. The most memorable scene is maybe the shot in slow motion in the snow outside when he is on his own. It looked nice honestly, but as they were using it more frequently then they should have, it also feels a bit pretentious to be honest. The reason may be that there is no further significance to it contents-wise. I love snow, but it just makes no impact other than looking fine, like a beautiful wrapping with nothing inside. I could elaborate on all kinds of scenes here, but I really don't to. So I will keep it short. Just take a look at the one when the antagonist comes to the group and they make clear how much they respect Luther and are maybe even ready to give their lives for his views. Or the one that follows immediately afterwards, the one I mentioned already with these two influential men there taking a bath and how they talk about making Luther disappear. All we get before that also feels fairly generic, like the scenes in which Luther's supporters are treated in a really harmful way. Also physically. Still, even with how underwhelming and maybe even uninspired these sequences felt, I still think they were better than all the interview parts. I did not like those at all. They did not really deliver any kind of informative quality, but you could feel that this is exactly what they were going for. But it just did not work out. Maybe the writing was too weak, maybe they just interviewed the wrong people, especially the one woman. But it's not a success. On the contrary, it feels rather try-hard. I guess this is it then. Maybe I am a bit biased here because this film is about a time in history that I have never had great interest in, but I must also say that this one here did not sparkle my interest at all, which could have been the consequence of a fulfilling (and fulfilled) documentary. And for those with more interest in here, it could feel even more forgettable because they know a lot more about the Luther years than myself and it will teach them absolutely nothing. So no matter which corner you are, the consequence may be the same, namely that you will wish you could unsee it. Okay, it is not that horrible, not a failure or anything, but also quite a bit away from the level they would have needed for me to hand out a positive documentary. The only somewhat good thing I see here is that they did not include some romance story or anything for the sake of it. That was alright. In that case, I maybe would have taken away another two stars. But it's still a thumbs-down. I would say that perhaps it is best if the filmmakers here return to full-on documentaries, but I am not sure about such a suggestion at all because the documentary parts (i.e. the interviews) here were indeed the film's weakest spot. Watch something else instead.
As for the cast, the main character is played by Roman Knizka. I am talking of course about Luther. There are other familiar names in here. Stegemann would be one (not just because of who his wife was) and another is Alexander Beyer and that is far from everybody. Some smaller roles were played by actors with a non-German background as you can see from their names. It's alright. The acting is never an issue in here really. The writing is. These more memorable scenes are not frequent enough at all here for a positive recommendation. The most memorable scene is maybe the shot in slow motion in the snow outside when he is on his own. It looked nice honestly, but as they were using it more frequently then they should have, it also feels a bit pretentious to be honest. The reason may be that there is no further significance to it contents-wise. I love snow, but it just makes no impact other than looking fine, like a beautiful wrapping with nothing inside. I could elaborate on all kinds of scenes here, but I really don't to. So I will keep it short. Just take a look at the one when the antagonist comes to the group and they make clear how much they respect Luther and are maybe even ready to give their lives for his views. Or the one that follows immediately afterwards, the one I mentioned already with these two influential men there taking a bath and how they talk about making Luther disappear. All we get before that also feels fairly generic, like the scenes in which Luther's supporters are treated in a really harmful way. Also physically. Still, even with how underwhelming and maybe even uninspired these sequences felt, I still think they were better than all the interview parts. I did not like those at all. They did not really deliver any kind of informative quality, but you could feel that this is exactly what they were going for. But it just did not work out. Maybe the writing was too weak, maybe they just interviewed the wrong people, especially the one woman. But it's not a success. On the contrary, it feels rather try-hard. I guess this is it then. Maybe I am a bit biased here because this film is about a time in history that I have never had great interest in, but I must also say that this one here did not sparkle my interest at all, which could have been the consequence of a fulfilling (and fulfilled) documentary. And for those with more interest in here, it could feel even more forgettable because they know a lot more about the Luther years than myself and it will teach them absolutely nothing. So no matter which corner you are, the consequence may be the same, namely that you will wish you could unsee it. Okay, it is not that horrible, not a failure or anything, but also quite a bit away from the level they would have needed for me to hand out a positive documentary. The only somewhat good thing I see here is that they did not include some romance story or anything for the sake of it. That was alright. In that case, I maybe would have taken away another two stars. But it's still a thumbs-down. I would say that perhaps it is best if the filmmakers here return to full-on documentaries, but I am not sure about such a suggestion at all because the documentary parts (i.e. the interviews) here were indeed the film's weakest spot. Watch something else instead.
