Land of wonder

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Movie
German title Land of wonder
Original title Le meraviglie
Country of production Italy ,
Switzerland ,
Germany
original language Italian ,
French ,
German
Publishing year 2014
length 111 minutes
Age rating FSK 0
Rod
Director Alice Rohrwacher
script Alice Rohrwacher
production Carlo Cresto-Dina ,
Karl Baumgartner ,
Tiziana Soudani ,
Michael Weber
music Piero Crucitti
camera Hélène Louvart
cut Marco Spoletini
occupation

Country of Miracles (Original title: Le meraviglie , .: dt "The Miracle works" international English-language title: The Wonders , dt .: "The Miracle") is a feature film by Alice Rohrwacher from the year 2014 . The European co-production, for which the director also wrote the screenplay, tells of the everyday life of a German - Italian family who live on a farm on the border between Tuscany and Lazio and produce honey under difficult conditions . When the eldest daughter (played by the amateur actress Maria Alexandra Lungu ) wants to register the family for a commercial television show, this leads to an open conflict with the father ( Sam Louwyck ).

Rohrwacher's second feature film premiered on May 18, 2014 in the competition at the 67th Cannes Film Festival . There, the coming-of-age story , which was praised as realistic and at the same time fairy-tale-like, was awarded the jury's Grand Prize . The official cinema release in Italy took place on May 22, 2014, in Germany on October 2, 2014, in Switzerland and Austria on October 9 and 10, 2014 respectively.

action

The 12-year-old Gelsomina lives with her three younger sisters Marinella, Caterina and Luna, her parents Wolfgang and Angelica and her aunt Cocò on a farm in the country. Her father Wolfgang, who is raised by Italian farmers because of his missing son, comes from German-speaking countries. He runs the farm with a hard hand, which repeatedly leads to disputes. The family keeps sheep and grows their own vegetables. The livelihood is mainly earned with the production and the local sale of honey. The family seeks relaxation from hard work through occasional swimming trips in the area. While other farmers are thinking about switching to ecotourism , Wolfgang isolates himself from all innovations and condemns them.

The family's financial situation worsens over the summer and is threatened with eviction in the coming winter. When the extravagant Italian reality series "Il paese delle Meraviglie" held a casting with the attractive presenter Milly Catena, Gelsomina dreams of participating. The format looks for families who produce local agricultural products. Despite a prize money for the winners, Wolfgang is against participating. At the same time, the family takes in the criminal Martin from Germany, because his rehabilitation on the farm promises an additional financial source of income. Gelsomina instructs the silent boy in dealing with the bees. She soon has feelings for Martin, who can whistle very well but refuses any kind of physical affection. Gelsomina's affection for Martin does not go unnoticed by Wolfgang, who tries to strictly prevent a possible love between the two.

Gelsomina secretly registers her family for the series casting. When her parents have to leave the courtyard one day to go to the authorities, events come thick and fast. Marinella injures her hand in the centrifuge and has to go to the hospital. As a result, the bucket for the honey processing cannot be changed as usual and most of it overflows. At the same time, a casting agent from the series visits the farm and chooses the family. Wolfgang, who has secretly bought the family a camel, is deeply disappointed with Gelsomina. Nevertheless, he takes part in the series together with Cocò, Gelsomina, Mariella and Martin, which is recorded in a necropolis on an island. Suffering from stage fright, Wolfgang has no words for the final interview with Milly Catena. Even a trick spontaneously shown by Gelsomina, in which she lets bees run out of her mouth over her face while Martin whistles, cannot avert the defeat of the family. When the disappointed Cocò tries to urge Martin to kiss Gelsomina first and then her, he takes refuge in the nocturnal forest and, despite Carabinieri's intervention, is gone. On the way back from the island, Milly Catena tries to comfort the sad Gelsomina. As a result, the family is first forced to sell their sheep and then leave the farm. In the meantime, Gelsomina returns to the island in a sequence that seems like a fairy tale and finds Martin again. They spend the night together in one of the many caves.

reception

Alice Rohrwacher in 2014

International criticism

On the Rotten Tomatoes website , Land of Wonders currently (as of August 2019) has a rating of 96 percent, based on 67 English-language reviews and an average rating of 7.38 out of 10 points. The bottom line is: “'Land of Wonders' offers an enchanting coming-of-age story that is at the same time a quiet and effective homage to a disappearing way of life”. On Metacritic , the film received a 76 percent rating based on 17 evaluated reviews.

At the premiere of Rohrwacher's directorial work at the 67th Cannes International Film Festival , Land of Miracles was not traded as a favorite for the Palme d'Or , the main prize of the festival. The film received 2.6 out of 4 possible stars in the international reviews of the British trade magazine Screen International and thus took 8th place among all 18 films in the competition together with the competing productions The Homesman , Mommy and Timbuktu . Mike Leigh's Mr. Turner - Master of Light (3.6) topped the list ahead of the Russian entry Leviathan (3.5) by Andrei Svyagintsev and Nuri Bilge Ceylan's later palm tree winner Hibernation (3.4). In a purely French review of the website Le film français , none of the 13 critics saw Land of Wonder as a palm tree favorite and almost consistently gave it the lowest rating.

On the other hand, the film was euphorically reviewed by Robbie Collin ( The Daily Telegraph ) , a member of Screen International's critics and the only reviewer who gave the Land of Wonders in Cannes the highest possible rating of four stars. In his review, published more than a year later for the British theatrical release, he stated that his love for the "calm and apparently light film" "deepened" the second time it was seen and the "magic" that surrounds it was even more "beguiling" more seductive ”feelings. The revealed social context of the “bittersweet story” reminded Collin of the work of Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne or a little of the great neorealist films of the 1940s and 1950s. Nevertheless, the Land of Miracles would set itself apart from the works mentioned with its “vortex of enchantment”. One example he named was the scene with Monica Bellucci in disguise in the creeks, which is reminiscent of Federico Fellini . In the coming-of-age story, the transition from childhood to adolescence is staged "as gently and magically as dusk".

Awards

Land of Miracles won twelve film and festival awards in 2014/15 and was nominated for 18 more, including the following:

  • Cannes International Film Festival 2014 : Grand Jury Prize
  • Abu Dhabi Film Festival 2014: Black Pearl Award in the New Horizons competition (Alice Rohrwacher)
  • Filmfest München 2014: CineVision Award (Alice Rohrwacher)
  • Nastro d'Argento 2014: Guglielmo Biraghi Prize - Honorable Mention (Maria Alexandra Lungu), nominations in the categories of director, producer (Carlo Cresto-Dina, Tempesta, Rai Cinema), screenplay, editor (Marco Spoletini)
  • Festival de Cine de Sevilla 2014: Best Actress (Maria Alexandra Lungu), Special Jury Prize (Alice Rohrwacher)
  • Ciak d'oro 2015: Best producer (Carlo Cresto-Dina), nominations in the categories of supporting actress (Alba Rohrwacher), screenplay, production design (Emita Frigato), costumes (Loredana Buscemi), editing
  • David di Donatello 2015: Nomination in the category Best Producers (Carlo Cresto-Dina, Tempesta, Rai Cinema)
  • Italian Online Movie Award 2015: Best Italian Film (Alice Rohrwacher)
  • Festival del cinema di Spello 2015: Best sound design ( Marta Billingsley )

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Certificate of Release for Land of Wonders . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry , September 2014 (PDF; test number: 146 629 K).
  2. ↑ Nobach, Marius: Land of Miracles . In: Filmdienst 20/2014 (accessed via Munzinger Online ).
  3. ↑ The Wonders . In: rottentomatoes.com (accessed August 1, 2019).
  4. ↑ The Wonders . In: metacritic.com (accessed August 1, 2019).
  5. ↑ Adams, Mark: Mr. Turner tops Cannes Screen jury scores . In: screendaily.com, May 29, 2014 (accessed August 1, 2019).
  6. ↑ Cannes 2014: le tableau complet des étoiles de la critique In: lefilmfrancais.com, May 24, 2014 (accessed on August 1, 2019).
  7. ↑ The Wonders review: 'a beguiling coming-of-age tale' . In: telegraph.co.uk, July 15, 2015 (accessed August 1, 2019).
  8. ↑ Awards . In: imdb.com (accessed August 1, 2019).