The men of Emden
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| Original title | The men of Emden |
| Country of production | Germany |
| original language | German |
| Publishing year | 2013 |
| length | 148 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 12 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Berengar stake |
| script | Axel Ricke |
| production | Berengar Pfahl, Axel Ricke, Ingrid Wagner |
| music | Matthias Raue |
| camera | Erich Krenek |
| cut | Annemarie Bremer |
| occupation | |
| |
The Men of Emden is a German feature film directed by Berengar Pfahl . It was produced in three versions: as a two-part for ARD and as a shortened theatrical version, which started in 2013. The theatrical version with 148 minutes is on loan from Kinostar . The film is a production by Berengar Pfahl Film GmbH .
action
The story of the film is based on real events from the First World War : The German small cruiser SMS Emden is stationed in the German colony of Tsingtau on the Chinese coast. After the outbreak of war, the ship leads u. a. trade war in the Indian Ocean and intended to cover the withdrawal of the German East Asia squadron. At the Cocos Islands in the Indian Ocean, the Emden was shot and incapacitated by the Australian cruiser Sydney in November 1914 . Part of the crew is killed. The 245 survivors become British prisoners of war . The 50 or so men on a landing train who went ashore before the enemy attack because they were supposed to destroy a radio station are still on a small atoll. They commandeer the copra - schooner Ayesha and make their way back to Qingdao, initially dominated by Allied troops Sea to Padang , Sumatra . In the Dutch East Indies , the men learn that Tsingtau was captured by the Japanese . Therefore, they set off for Germany on board a camouflaged merchant ship. The men from Emden cross the Indian Ocean to the port city of al-Hudaida on the Red Sea , at that time part of the allied Ottoman Empire . However, the caravan route towards home is threatened by hostile Bedouins , with whom the Germans fight a stubborn battle. After being rescued by the allies, the troops finally crossed the Arabian desert to the Hejaz Railway . In June 1915 the rest of the group reached Berlin and were honored in the name of the emperor .
background
The director and producer Pfahl discovered the material while filming in Indonesia . The Emden is still the most famous German warship in East Asia. Pfahl often heard the saying "He's a real Emden" there and was amazed that an East Frisian city is also known in the Far East. In Tamil , the word emṭaṉ , spoken [ˈemɖən] , still means “clever fox” or “clever fellow”. Due to the historical presence of that ship, the expression “Emden” is still a synonym for “clever, devious and fair”. When writing the screenplay, Pfahl relied on historical sources, especially Hellmuth von Mückes' diary . Nevertheless, the Raja Laut used to depict the Ayesha is , in contrast to the original ship, only a two-masted schooner and significantly smaller than the original.
Some scenes were filmed on board the Greek armored cruiser Georgios Averoff , which is a museum ship as part of the Trokadero Marina ship museum in the port of Paleo Faliro near Athens .
Frames
In autumn 2012, a version shortened to 116 minutes was shown to the press. In January 2013 an extended version with 148 minutes was released in the cinemas, in which a narrative thread was inserted parallel to the main plot. The 180-minute version was shown on April 18, 2014 on ARD.
Reviews
The film received mostly poor reviews. Cinema judged, for example: "Conclusion: dry history lesson in sedate TV dramaturgy" and "Particularly unmotivated: Sibel Kekilli's appearance as a desert amazon".
The taz summed up: “ The men of Emden want to imitate big cinema, but it is a genre film without a genre, in which hubris seems to turn into parody, a fusion of boastful production values and trash . […] At the end there is a bit of pacifist morality. War is kind of stupid. And The Men of Emden is only a two-parter for ZDF. "
In the FAZ , too, the film doesn't get off much better: “All too often, one has the feeling of watching actors intimidated by the immense setting, as they gracefully recite their texts in ironed or (from one moment to the next) artistically dirty uniforms. A pinch of Robinsonade, a pinch of war film with singing sailors, a lot of colonial kitsch and even more old adventure cinema: Because this event film looks like a mixture of pirates of the Caribbean and The Boat , it seems to be drowning a little, that it certainly has an exciting approach. Pfahl tells the celebrated legend as an antihero piece without directly discrediting the myth. He lets him run aground, so to speak [...] "
At Filmstarts.de , which rated the film 1.5 out of 5 points, it concluded: “Conclusion: Berengar Pfahl shot Die Männer der Emden with great caution and tried to achieve historical correctness and balance. The only thing he seems to have forgotten about it at times is the story.
The SZ compares the film disparagingly with Rosamunde Pilcher and writes: "The film transforms the horror of war into a colorful buccaneer's fairy tale."
The star gives the film only one of five possible points: "Verdict: Tough history, which does not taste better even if it is broad."
literature
- Eberhard Kliem: Sailors on land and in the desert. The men of Emden , in: Schiff Classic. Magazin für Schifffahrts- und Marinegeschichte , vol. 1, 2013, pp. 24–29.
- The men of Emden - Beregar Pfahl Film GmbH press booklet, PDF 2.4 MB , accessed on April 30, 2013
See also
- Cruiser Emden , film adaptation from 1932
Web links
- Homepage of the film
- The men of Emden in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- The men of Emden at filmportal.de (with photo gallery and trailer)
Individual evidence
- ^ Certificate of release for the men of Emden . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry , January 2013 (PDF; theatrical version 148 min; test number: 134 771-a K).
- ↑ http://www.ndr.de/fernsehen/sendung/s-h_magazin/zeitreise/zeitreise575.html ( Memento from March 13, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Ndr
- ↑ Thomas Malten: Emden Tamil-German Dictionary , Institute for Indology and Tamil Studies, Cologne 1994, p. 44.
- ↑ Hamburger Abendblatt of June 7, 2012, accessed on February 4, 2013
- ↑ Ronald Hopp: Film set and visitor magnet, in: Schiff Classic , No. 1, 2013, pp. 36–41.
- ↑ http://www.cinema.de/film/die-maenner-der-emden,5180139.html
- ↑ http://www.taz.de/Die-Maenner-der-Emden/!110075/
- ↑ Oliver Junge: Please forgive me, may we sink your ship? They fled halfway around the globe in the First World War: ARD tells the story of the "Men of Emden" , in: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung of April 16, 2014, p. 13.
- ↑ http://www.filmstarts.de/kritiken/208398/kritik.html
- ↑ Lots of Rosamunde Pilcher. In: sueddeutsche.de. April 16, 2014, accessed June 28, 2018 .
- ↑ http://www.stern.de/kultur/tv/das-fernsehgericht-tagt-die-maenner-der-emden-das-boetchen-2104224.html