In the valley of wild roses: what the heart commands

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Movie
Original title What the heart commands
Country of production Germany
original language German
Publishing year 2006
length 89 minutes
Rod
Director Oliver Dommenget
script Barbara Engelke
production Dieter Stempnierwsky ,
Joe Thornton ,
Winka Wulff
music Hans Günter Wagener
camera Georgy Pestov
cut Ursula Höf
occupation

What the heart commands is a German romantic film drama by Oliver Dommenget from 2006. The film is part of a ZDF film series that operates under the title In the Valley of the Wild Roses and which focuses on women who were pioneers in the 19th century Century ventured into new territory and built a new life against all odds. It is the first film in the series with the leading roles starring Eva Habermann and Oliver Bootz as well as Moritz Lindbergh , Carin C. Tietze , Eleonore Weisgerber , Miguel Herz-Kestranek and Maximilian Werner .

In the opening credits to the film, Gerlinde Locker speaks the following text to introduce the story: “The valley of wild roses. Our valley, our world, in which we lived and worked as settlers. We looked after our animals, tilled our fields, drove herds of cattle across the country and prepared for the harsh winters. It was not an easy life and yet the women in the valley knew what it means to love and how high the price is that you sometimes have to pay for it. "

action

Preface: “Sarah Ripley wasn't from here, but she was one of us nonetheless. She was beautiful, strong, and smart and, to top it all, had the daring dream of returning to work as a teacher after her husband's death. But before that came about, her unconditional belief in great love should bring her into a conflict from which there was apparently only one way out. "

After Sarah Ripley's husband Mark dies, the young mother has to raise her eight-year-old son Tim alone. Sarah and Tim live with Sarah's mother Ruth Abbanat on a small farm on the edge of a Canadian valley. Ruth Abbanat has left her hometown of Boston to help her daughter. The timber trade Mark Ripley had been running has stalled. Money is tight, supplies are almost exhausted and the approaching winter is cause for concern. Sarah, who is trained as a teacher and would like to give lessons to the children of the settlers, knows, however, that the social conditions in this remote area are such that a single woman will not be given this job. So she tries to earn something as a photographer.

Sarah is friends with the young clergyman Ben, who feels more for her than just friendship and would be happy if she married him, ignoring that Anna Maria, whom he has known since childhood, loves him dearly. Although there is no love involved with Sarah, she plays with the idea of ​​being Ben's wife for reasons of reason and in order to be able to offer her son a secure future. Sarah's mother Ruth, on the other hand, has reason to be happy, Jerry, now a successful cloth merchant, once her great love, suddenly appears in the valley. He tells her that his wife Emily has died and gives her a precious ball of cloth. He also invites her to visit him.

But then suddenly Robert Ripley, the brother of Sarah's deceased husband, stands at the door, who intended to claim his share of the parents' farm, as he needs money to be able to save the small boat building company he started. Sensitive and warm-hearted as he is, he immediately recognizes that Sarah only has the bare essentials and wants to withdraw again. Before that, however, he wants to help women survive the winter. The first thing he does is build a new woodshed because the old one is raining through.

Subtext: “Robert had touched Sarah's heart, brought it back to life and now threatened to break it. But then Sarah made sense. ”Sarah tells Ben that Thanksgiving is a good time for a wedding, and he says he won't let her down.

Subtext: "It was the moments of deepest happiness and greatest satisfaction that made Sarah ignore her premonition that fate had different plans for her." Although the wedding date has been fixed, the next few weeks between Sarah and Robert are filled with many happy hours and closeness that Sarah didn't know before. Robert advises her to apply for the teaching post or, if she doesn't want to, to try somewhere else. In a conversation in which Sarah asked Robert why he left years ago, he replied that he was on the verge of marrying a woman he didn't love and that that was pretty much the worst thing you could do to someone, especially when the other is feeling real love. When asked, he said that it was Doris, Ben's sister. When Sarah and Robert fry fish by the lake, intimacies arise between them, which Stevie, Dori's son, who has been commissioned by her to monitor Sarah, observes.

After Sarah broke off her engagement with Ben, her mother, who had since spoken to Ben's partner Walter, told her that he was only there to sell his half of the property. She gives her daughter money to pay off Robert. Sarah, who wants to speak to Robert, only overhears the misleading beginning of a conversation between Robert and Walter, but not that Robert confesses to his friend that he loves Sarah and wants to stay.

After Robert has saved Ben, who fell from his horse, from the dangerous rapids, Ben approaches Sarah. They decide to try again together. Walter implores his friend to go back to Sarah and finally tell her how much he loves her before wearing Ben's ring. And so Robert bursts into the wedding before Sarah Ben has given her yes. They leave the church together. Jerry, who is also present, seizes the opportunity and asks his childhood sweetheart Ruth to come to the altar with him.

“In the years that followed, Sarah and Robert built a flourishing timber trade. Sarah became the first married teacher in the history of the valley and Timmy also had three siblings. Ruth moved to Lake Athabasca with Jerry and Anna-Maria finally married her Ben. But this is another story."

Production notes, publication

The film was produced by Videoscope Fernseh-Film GmbH. The shooting took place in Canada. The idea behind the new film series is Claus Beling , head of the main entertainment / word department at ZDF . The topic has haunted his head for a long time, said Beling, so that he then presented his vision to the author Barbara Engelke and the then Polyphon boss Matthias Esche.

The film was first broadcast by ZDF on January 29, 2006 as part of the “Great ZDF Sunday Film”. In Italy it was released on August 23, 2009.

The first three films in the series were released on DVD on December 4, 2006, published by Universum Film GmbH.

reception

Audience rating

On the Blickpunkt: Film page it was said: “In the valley of wild roses”, the new Sunday series on ZDF, celebrated a very good debut. The first 90-minute film of the stories set in the Canadian west of the pioneering days, What the Heart commands , became the sovereign Sunday winner yesterday with 7.29 million viewers (market share: 19 percent).

criticism

The only critique from TV Spielfilm was: "Wild and romantic like on the pony farm."

The film service site stated : "Adventurous (television) film from a three-part series that wants to erect a monument to the daring settler women of the 19th century and allegedly directs a particularly feminine view of the hard life in the wilderness."

Kino.de commented on the first three films: “Three melodramatic stories from the great wide world of Canadian nature. Barbara Engelke's great Canada stories about strong women were filmed lavishly. Great landscape shots in the midst of untouched nature make it easy to see over one or the other story weakness. Shallow entertainment, great melodrama and the above all unrealizable love set the tone in these ZDF films. "

Frank Heine von Blickpunkt: Film certified the new series: "A strong start: 'In the valley of wild roses'."

Julian Miller fromquotemeter.de, on the other hand, could not gain anything from the opening sequence and said the film was a failure , the "basic idea" alone sounds "not particularly great", the "implementation" "ridicules the entire concept". Miller takes the view that the "already stereotypical characters from immensely untalented actors (the only exception here is Eva Habermann, who gives this melodrama at least a bit of credibility)" are "very inapproachable", which means that "the viewer has no access to them ”And“ consequently cannot identify with them ”. Anyone who likes good television entertainment with an intelligent story and characters with emotional depth can certainly not recommend 'In the Valley of the Wild Roses', was Miller's closing sentence.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ In the valley of wild roses: What the heart commands at crew united
  2. ↑ New ZDF series originated in Canada see page mediabiz.de
  3. ↑ "In the valley of wild roses" with the films: "What the heart commands - renunciation out of love - until the end of the world"
    see illustration on DVD case
  4. ↑ a b Frank Heine: Thanks to the start of the new Canada series “In the Valley of the Wild Roses” on Sunday (…) there was no getting past the ZDF in the weekend's ratings charts at beta.blickpunktfilm.de, January 30, 2006. Accessed on July 15, 2019.
  5. ↑ In the valley of wild roses: What the heart commands at tvspielfilm.de (including 31 film images).
    Retrieved July 15, 2019.
  6. ↑ In the valley of the wild roses: What the heart commands. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed February 22, 2020 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used 
  7. ↑ In the valley of wild roses see Kino.de (including photo gallery). Retrieved July 15, 2019.
  8. ↑ Julian Miller: In the valley of wild roses at quotenmeter.de, January 25, 2006. Accessed on July 16, 2019.