Summertime Blues (film)

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Movie
Original title Summertime Blues
Country of production Germany
original language German , English
Publishing year 2009
length Cinema: 116 minutes
DVD: 111 minutes
Age rating FSK 6
Rod
Director Marie Reich
script Friederike Köpf
Uschi Reich
Robin Confidently
production Bernd Krause
Uschi Reich
music Youki Yamamoto
camera Egon Werdin
Tony Hofmann
cut Barbara von Weitershausen
occupation

Summertime Blues is a German youth film from 2009 directed by Marie Reich . It is based on the youth novel of the same name by the British author Julia Clarke. François Goeske embodies the young Alex Homann, who for many reasons gets into a special kind of emotional chaos. The young women played by Sarah Beck and Zoe Moore are not entirely innocent .

action

Alex Homann is 15 and lives in Bremen when his living conditions change dramatically. His parents are getting divorced. His father Steffen has already reoriented himself and has entered into a relationship with his much younger assistant Mandy, who becomes pregnant shortly after the separation. Alex's mother Diana does not stay alone for long either, because she has fallen in love with the actor Seth McElroy and wants to spend the summer with him in Kent , as he has to film there as the leading actor in a series.

Alex feels betrayed and unloved by his parents, the blues have him under control. After a brawl at school, his mother thinks it best to take him to England for the summer. The minor gives in only reluctantly and is initially not enthusiastic when he ends up in a sleepy English village called Stodmarsh. But when he met the unconventional and extremely animal-loving Englishwoman Louie, it helped him to stop feeling everything negatively. Louie is very committed to animals, is funny and independent. She also manages that Alex perceives the surroundings, which he dismissed as boring, as they really are, namely extremely attractive. Louie and Alex become friends.

Then Faye shows up, Seth's daughter, who comes from the USA to spend the summer with her father. She is not only smart, polite and helpful and has extremely good manners, but also exceptionally distinctive and easily manages that Alex does not ignore her, as he had planned, but quite the opposite. It contributes to the fact that his emotional chaos increases many times over, as Faye exerts a never-before-known fascination on him.

In the meantime, Mandy has had her baby and Alex's father wants him to be there for the baptism in Bremen. He leaves hastily and tries in his home country to bring order back into his life and to face his feelings and accept that no one is spared pain and responsibility and that they are part of growing up. When he returns to England, he is sure who his heart belongs to and where his place is - with Faye. Louie also fell in love while he was away.

Production, background, publication

Production companies were Bavaria Film GmbH and Bremedia Produktion GmbH in cooperation with NDR and Arte , Constantin Film AG, Solaris Filmproduktion and Universum Film . The film was funded by the Filmförderungsanstalt (FFA), the FilmFernsehFonds Bayern , the Nordmedia mbH and the German Film Fund . Filming began on July 8, 2008 and ended on August 22, 2008. The filming locations were Bremen, Bremerhaven and, in addition to Kent, other landscapes in the south-east of England. The film was first distributed by Universum Film GmH in Munich.

For Marie Reich, Summertime Blues was her directorial debut. Her mother, the screenwriter and producer Uschi Reich , was involved in these roles in the film.

The cinema release in Germany was on August 20, 2009. On January 27, 2010 the film was released on DVD by Universum Film. It premiered on television on September 3, 2011 on Arte in both French and German programs.

Reviews

The lexicon of international films spoke of a "sensitively staged, laconically lined comedy, which without clichés describes the uprooting of a child of divorce between a family crisis, self-discovery and first love and reflects on social reality as attentively as it is entertaining ]. ”Especially the young actors were certified that they would convince“ through naturalness and versatility ”.

“The photo novel in a school exchange brochure couldn't have been nicer. The county of Kent - whose provinciality Alex 'original dislike refers to - has a loveliness, as if it had been invented by the children's book author Enid Blyton, ”stated Philipp Bühler of the Berliner Zeitung . […] It was also said that Summertime Blues “is an attempt to instill a few English sentimentalities in German teenage films: cheerful melancholy, romanticism in nature, raving for rapture's sake”. "References to Jane Austen and the Brontë sisters " are "free". Unfortunately, "the dialogues and especially the adult characters are so flat that one would rather go for the originals".

The taz criticized: “Pretty landscape shots or not, protagonist Alex now comes from Bremen instead of London and so he also looks at the rural English landscape, where he, yes what actually - Bremen urbanity? - missed. Just as there is a lot of staring in German films, Marie Reich learned what is called a craft in this country quite well at the film school. ”The dialogues were found to be“ wooden ”, the camera work as too“ static ”, only that Female lead roles were conceded that they would "convince" and "provide some bright spots".

The German Film and Media Assessment (FBW) , which gave the film the title “valuable” and justified it as follows: “ Summertime Blues is a refreshingly successful work that seriously addresses the problems of young people of puberty and without going in the famous educational index finger. And not with cool sayings and loud disco sound. You can clearly see that the carefully written script is based on a novel. [...] From the point of view of Alex, told with humor and irony, often also off-screen, his inner turmoil and his search for love and security. This is not only well played by François Goeske , his language is also appropriate for his age and consistently believable. "

Kino.de's conclusion was also positive and certified Marie Reich that she described "the gradual growth of a young person in a witty and empathetic manner under everything other than simple conditions". It went on: “With a light hand and a melancholy undertone, the injustice and insecurities of an adolescent are staged who do not yet trust their feelings and who do everything wrong when it comes to girls. No wonder the 'Summertime' blues grabs him. Marie Reich succeeds in creating an atmospherically coherent first work, she takes her young protagonists seriously and consistently dispenses with crude teenage sex comedy or kitschy romantic comedy elements. [...] An authentic film about blended families, the complicated process of growing up and first love, the search for a place in life with great potential for identification for young people. "

Awards (selection)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Summertime Blues. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used 
  2. ^ Philipp Bühler: The German debut film "Summertime Blues" gives lessons in Anglophilia - Divorce in English In: Berliner Zeitung , August 20, 2009. Accessed August 31, 2017.
  3. ^ Summertime Blues In: Die Tageszeitung , archive. Retrieved August 31, 2017.
  4. ↑ a b Summertime Blues adS fbw-filmbeval.com. Retrieved August 31, 2017.
  5. ↑ Summertime Blues: Atmospherically coherent coming-of-age story about a 15-year-old child of divorce. adS kino.de (with trailer and film images). Retrieved August 31, 2017.