The Secret of Green Lake

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Movie
German title The Secret of Green Lake
Original title Holes
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 2003
length 117 minutes
Age rating FSK 6
Rod
Director Andrew Davis
script Louis Sachar
production Andrew Davis,
Mike Medavoy ,
Lowell D. Blank ,
Teresa Tucker-Davies
music Joel McNeely
camera Stephen St. John
cut Thomas J. Nordberg ,
Jeffrey Wolf
occupation
synchronization

The secret of Green Lake (original title Holes ) by director Andrew Davis from 2003 is the US film adaptation of the youth novel Holes by Louis Sachar , which was published in Germany under the title Holes. The Secrets of Green Lake was published.

action

The children's and youth film tells the story of the Yelnats family, who come from Texas. The main character, Stanley Yelnats, redeems the family (now, in our time) from a grave curse that had been placed on the family more than a hundred years earlier. Stanley's last name Yelnats is his first name read backwards.

In the flashback, the following becomes clear: Elya Yelnats, Stanley's great-great-grandfather, wanted to marry the beautiful farmer's daughter Myra in Latvia, but had only a heart full of love to offer in return for the bride's gift from an ugly old rival, namely a pig. Discouraged by this, he turned to the gypsy and fortune teller Madame Zeroni, who gave him her pig. She stipulated that he should nurse it up by bringing it up the mountain every day, letting it drink from a spring and singing a song to it. She also made it a condition that Elya had to carry herself up the mountain to the spring at the end. But since Myra turns out to be stupid and simple-minded, Elya renounces the courtship . He goes to America without having met Madame Zeroni's conditions. Since that time, every mishap in the family has been explained by their curse.

Like when Stanley Yelnats walked under a bridge one day. Suddenly a pair of sneakers fly over his head out of the blue. Unsuspectingly, he takes them with him, but is charged with theft because the sneakers belonged to a famous baseball player and were about to be auctioned. Stanley comes to Camp Green Lake, Texas , where juveniles who have committed criminal offenses have to dig holes for “character building” that should be as deep and as wide as their shovel is long. They are supervised and harassed there by Mr. Sir and Mr. Pendanski. As if by the way, the boys are ordered to hand over anything unusual that is found while digging. As a reward you get the rest of the day off. A fossil that Stanley finds does not achieve the desired effect, for which he is nicknamed Caveman by the other boys. Finally he finds a small tube on which a heart with the initials KB is engraved. But he has to deliver it to X-Ray, one of the guys who sees himself as the leader. He shows it the next day and has an unexpected effect: The Warden, the big, unknown boss (to the astonishment of the boys, a female person), comes and arranges the supervisors and the boys in X-Ray's hole, the alleged place of discovery to dig.

In various retrospectives to the time 110 years ago, one learns the following: On the desert plain on which Camp Green Lake is located, there was a lake at that time, the Green Lake. There was a teacher named Katherine Barlow teaching at the time. She falls in love with the onion seller Sam, an African American . She asks him to renovate the schoolhouse for her. Some time later, the first kiss occurs late in the evening. Hattie Parker watches through the window. The news spreads quickly through the village and finally the school house is set on fire at Trout Walker's instigation. The sheriff, with whom Kate Barlow is seeking protection and justice, explains to her that Sam is being hanged and wants her to kiss her. Horrified, Kate flees to the lake, where she sees Sam's boat. Trout Walker in his boat arrives and shoots Sam. Kate Barlow then becomes one of the most notorious and dangerous outlaws in the Wild West , robbing Stanley's great-grandfather, among others ... Over the years, the lake dries up more and more. One day Kate comes back to Green Lake, goes to the sheriff, shoots him and kisses him. When she came back after many more years, she found Sam's boat “Mary Lou” on the dry lake, where she met Trout Walker and his wife Linda, who tried to force them to reveal the hiding place of all their prey. Kate, however, dies from the bite of a yellow-spotted poisonous lizard . Before that, she had stated that Trout and his children would look for their treasure on this vast plain for many years and would never find it.

The naturally unsuccessful search in X-Ray's hole drags on and on, finally the Warden goes back to the camp. Stanley makes special friends with Zero, one of the boys. He is the youngest of them all, actually too young to come to such a camp. Nevertheless, it is the fastest grave in the camp. One day Stanley takes the blame for stealing Mr. Sir's sunflower seeds. Stanley has to escort him to the Warden, who tells Mr. Sir that it was not Stanley but one of the others who was to blame. Annoyed by the nonsense of this saying, the Warden knocks Mr. Sir down. When Stanley comes back to the holes, he sees that Zero has dug his hole further and is now giving him lessons in reading and writing, with Zero naming his real name: Hector Zeroni. As a reward, Zero digs part of Stanley's hole every day. One day there is a fight between Stanley and another boy. Zero interferes and helps the almost defeated friend. When the Warden found out about this and Stanley was confronted, Mr. Pendanski mockingly gave Zero a few spelling problems, but Zero answered none. When Mr. Pendanski mocked him for his stupidity, Zero knocked him to the ground with a single blow with a shovel. Then he tries to escape as quickly as possible. No one can catch up with him. Zero's data is deleted as never before. This works because he has no more relatives.

The next day, while drinking water is being distributed, Stanley gets into Mr. Sir's car to find Zero. But it doesn't get far because it accidentally drives into a hole. He now continues his escape on foot. After a while he finds Sam's boat "Mary Lou", where he meets Hector. In the legend of Stanley's ancestor, it was said that Stanley I could only survive in the desert because he found God's thumb. Stanley IV recognizes this thumb in a mountain that has a similar shape to a thumb. For this reason, Stanley and Hector set off to the mountain to find the source on the mountain. You are facing a cruel mountaineering tour. Without water and food, the two of them, especially Hector, get weaker and weaker. Eventually Hector collapses. Stanley has to carry it on with the greatest effort, while Madame Zeroni’s voice rang out: "But if you forget to carry Madame Zeroni up the mountain, your family will be cursed forever and ever." After a long time he comes to the source. Hector soon recovers and confesses that he is to blame for Stanley's arrest for stealing Clyde Livingston's shoes and throwing them back down the bridge in fear. The two of them feed on the numerous onions they find there.

Stanley remembers the initials KB on the metal tube and connects them with Kate Barlow. He remembers that his great grandfather was robbed by this outlaw. Hector and Stanley make their way to Green Lake at night and look for Stanley's hole to dig for Kate Barlow's prey. Hector sneaks into the camp for shovels. Finally they find a box, but at the same moment they are surprised by the Warden, Mr. Sir and Mr. Pendanski. When Mr. Sir holds the lamp in the hole, the carers and Ms. Walker are horrified to find that there are some yellow-spotted lizards on the boys' bodies and on the box. Despite the threat of death, Hector and Stanley do not hand over the box and stand still. Stanley's attorneys come to testify to his innocence, and Stanley jumps out of the hole with Zero when he realizes that the lizards won't bite. The Warden, who is a granddaughter of Trout Walkers, wants to take the treasure as her own. But Hector discovers the inscription "Stanley Yelnats" on the box, which was the same name of Stanley's father, grandfather and great-grandfather. Since Hector's data has been deleted, his guilt can no longer be proven and the two friends leave the camp with the box. At home, Stanley's father has just finished a remedy for foot odor that he had been developing for years but was never able to finish because of the curse. There is gold in the treasure chest, with the help of which Hector can now hire detectives to look for his mother, which actually works.

It turns out that he was a descendant of the fortune teller Zeroni, who was then asked for advice by Elya Yelnats. The two boys become neighbors and Camp Green Lake is turned into a holiday camp. In addition, the secret that the lizards did not kill Stanley and Hector is revealed: Sam's numerous onions, which twice saved their lives.

Cast and dubbing

role actor Voice actor description
Stanley Yelnats IV (Caveman) Shia LaBeouf Nico Sablik Main character, great-great-grandson of Elya Yelnats
Warden Louise Walker Sigourney Weaver Karin Buchholz Granddaughter of Linda and Trout Walker, "Boss" at Camp Green Lake
Marion Sevillo / Mr. Sir Jon Voight Jan Spitzer Assistant to Warden Walker, known as the actual boss of Camp Green Lake
Mr. Pendanski / Mom Tim Blake Nelson Michael Pan Supervisor of the tent D
Hector Zeroni (Zero) Khleo Thomas Guilleaume Mormon Great-great-great-grandson of Madame Zeroni, can neither read nor write
Stanley Yelnats III Henry Winkler Lutz Schnell Father of Stanley
Stanley Yelnats II Nathan Davis Werner Ehrlicher Grandfather of Stanley
Tiffany Yelnats Siobhan Fallon Heidrun Bartholomäus Mother of Stanley
Rex (X-Ray) Brenden Jefferson Hannes Maurer One of the juvenile offenders at Camp Green Lake, leader of tent D.
Theodore (deodorant) Byron Cotton Tobias Müller One of the offenders at Camp Green Lake
Alan (torpedo) Jake M. Smith Constantin von Jascheroff One of the offenders at Camp Green Lake
José (magnet) Miguel Castro Nico Mamone One of the offenders at Camp Green Lake
Ricky (zigzag) Max Kasch Vanya Gerick One of the offenders at Camp Green Lake
Brian (zapp) Noah Poletiek Kevin Winkel One of the offenders at Camp Green Lake
Lewis (puke bag) Zane Holtz One of the offenders at Camp Green Lake
Miss Katherine Barlow (Kissin 'Kate Barlow) Patricia Arquette Ulrike Stürzbecher First a teacher, later one of the most notorious outlaws in the United States, kisses people she killed herself (lipstick print)
Sam (onion Sam) Dulé Hill Michael Iwannek Dark-skinned onion seller, fell in love with Kate Barlow, was killed by Trout Walker
Madame Zeroni Eartha Kitt Barbara Ratthey Great, great, grandmother of Hector, fortune teller of Elya Yelnats
Elya Yelnats Damien Luvara Karlo Hackenberger Great-great-grandfather of Stanley
Charles "Trout" Walker Scott Plank Boris Tessmann Warden Walker's grandfather, shot Sam
Linda Walker (née Miller) Allison Smith Diana Borgwardt Grandmother of Warden Walker, former student of Miss Katherine Barlow
Clyde Livingston (Sweetfeet) Rick Fox Roman Kretschmer Famous baseball player whose shoes were stolen
Carla Morengo Roma Mafia Iris Artajo Stanley's attorney
Myra Menke Sanya Mateyas Angela Ringer Elya Yelnats wanted to marry her, but she couldn't make up her mind
Morris Menke Ravil Isyanov Eberhard Prüter Father of Myra Menke
Igor Barkov Ken Davitian Like Elya Yelnats, he wanted to marry Myra Menke
Mr. Peck Brian Peck Thomas Hailer Citizens in the classroom
Stanley Yelnats I Allan Kolman Great grandfather of Stanley
Mr. Collingwood Louis Sachar
Prosecutor Bruce Ramsay Gunnar Helm

Reviews

“[…] Children under ten years of age will be doubly overwhelmed by the mysterious Green Lake. For one thing, things can get pretty scary at times. The surprising attacks of the deadly desert iguanas swarming everywhere, for example, are likely to cause one or the other nightmare for elementary school students. On the other hand, the film also touches on topics such as racism, social neglect, homelessness and violence against children. People in the single-digit age range cannot keep up with that. Bigger kids and their adult companions, on the other hand, will be fascinated by the tricky story construct. [...] Conclusion: [...] An infinitely imaginative cinema puzzle. "

- ( Gernot Gricksch in Cinema )

"An original adventure film for young people, based on a popular youth novel, which, despite its length, entertains with bizarre characters and an abstruse intertwined narrative without overwhelming its target group."

- Lexicon of international film

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The Secret of Green Lake. In: synchronkartei.de. German synchronous file , accessed on May 24, 2014 .