Reviews

"Die fliegende Windmühle" (="The flying windmill") must be my favorite animated movie. Partly, I blame this on the fact that I grew up in East Germany. Among a certain group of former East Germans who are now (i.e., 2003) moving into their mid-twenties or early thirties, this film constitutes their childhood and has gained a cult status.

Olli, the main character in the movie, got a very bad grade (a 5, which equals an F) and is terribly annoyed. She runs away from home and, together with a dog and a horse, finds a (mad? nutty?) scientist in a windmill. They experience the strangest adventures in this windmill and find other interesting characters, a lot of excitement and peril.

While you may well interpret something as the "socialist value system" into this movie, it is more meant to be a children's movie, showing the kids that there are more exciting things out there than the ones that your parents and teachers show you, and that you will only find out most of those things on your own, if you show enough curiosity. Personally I think that this is a wonderful contradiction to the common concept that only your school grades make you a better person.

The East German DEFA film studios produced a considerable number of amazing children's films (among them the almost-legendary "Sandmännchen", which is a little manikin generously spreading "sleeping sand" in a nightly tv show to send the children to bed), this being one of the most beautiful ones.

I give this film a full ten, mainly because it's both fun to watch for children and adults; it's entertaining, funny and terribly cute.