User Reviews

"The Brasch Family" or "Familie Brasch" is a new German documentary that runs for slightly over 1.5 hours and is the first filmmaking effort as writer and director for Annekatrin Hendel. I think we hear her voice occasionally too when she interviews some of the guests during this movie. Anyway, I am pretty interested in German history, but I must say I cannot really remember coming across members of the Brasch family yet. To my own surprise that is as at least father Horst and son Thomas managed to make quite an impact in their careers in their respective fields. Maybe it also has to do that there weren't really any films made about the Braschs (or I did not see them) just like they were about the Manns, the Adlons, the Dasslers and many others who are today considered among Germany's most defining families of the 20th century. Family dynasties you could almost even say. Anyway, this particular movie is very difficult to elaborate on for me. I personally never really managed to develop a great deal of interest in the characters this is about, but I cannot really put a finger on it either what I felt was wrong with the film to be honest and why it felt so difficult to make a connection here for me. Maybe because almost none of them (except the daughter perhaps) was really likable? I don't know. Another reason could be that the GDR is always a pretty bleak subject if you exclude emotions about people risking their lives to leave the country, but the inside is hardly colorful or very exciting and a great deal of what we find out here just happens inside. Or maybe it is because I felt that it was almost necessary, almost asked for to be familiar with the Braschs before watching this film and it's not a film intended to teach the audience from zero about said family. So yeah it helsp if you (unlike me) have come across them at some point. On the positive side, the interviewees are good enough really and it makes sense that they were included because of their connections with the Braschs, the relatives, but also friends like Thalbach for example, who is most likely the most known cast member we got in here. It's really interesting to see how many connections she has in all kinds of directions I must say. Now back to the film. At the very end, I still wasn't 100% convinced the family really deserved this documentary made about them, but like I said perhaps that is just personal and subjective evaluation. I guess there were many less significant people in film history who had films made about them and actually watching this film makes me slightly (but not very) curious about Thomas Brasch's cinematic efforts. I saw that they will show some of these (or at least one) soon here to accompany the movie I am writing about right now and lets see what I think about that one. The one thing I agree with is that his name is really way too forgotten given the success and consideration he found in Cannes. That was certainly more memorable to me than the pretty generic confliced relationship between him and his father I must say. Overall, I give a thumbs-up to these slightly over 90 minutes we got here and recommedn checking it out. If you have an interest in German history, especially GDR, then this could be a good watch for you. Just don't expect Hendel's work to really sparkle that interest if it hadn't been there before. Also pretty amazing how everybody until this days knows immediately who Honecker is, but hardly anybody remembers the name Brasch despite how impactful he was back then and how close he was to Honecker. Perhaps this film will change said status a bit, then it's good it was made I guess.