Here we have "Marlene" one of the lesser known films by Bavarian director Joseph Vilsmaier, who was probably back then more famous than he is today close to his 80th birthday. The script is by Christian Pfannenschmidt, not too much to say about him, not necessary if you take a look at his recent works in particular. This one here is his most known, for Vilsmaier definitely not. He has many more famous films under his belt, for example the one about Stalingrad. This film is almost 20 years old now and by standards back then the cast is massive: Rohde, Lauterbach, Knaup, Hagen, Paul, Ferch etc. and of course Katja Flint playing Marlene Dietrich and the former has really vanished almost completely from attention in the German film industry these days. But she does a good job overall I guess. This is by no means a defining film on Dietrich, even if it wants to be. For that description, there is just too much cheese, too much unauthentic drama and too many over-the-top moments in here. The story line with Ferch's character is the best example. He is based on a real character as well I think, but there are others in here who actually reference existing characters like Jannings or Sternberg of course. So this film is interesting theoretically from the perspective of somebody curious about the days of early film, especially here in Germany with the production of "Der blaue Engel" and others, but yeah instead of going credibly in depth there, the film loses itself far too much in romantic plots unfortunately that also could have taken place the exact same way in some soap opera. From the visual perspective, it is not a bad film, but not a great one either and I am talking about sets there, costumes, makeup etc. Well that's almost all that comes to mind already, not too much looking at how long the film actually was I guess. It ran for comfortably over two hours. There are many interesting references in here, also about sexism for example when it comes to Lauterbach's character on one occasions, but they just threw them in there and that was enough, they did not really elaborate on them profoundly the way I would have hoped, which was a bit of a shame and kept the film from becoming something more essential. The subject of Marlene sure is interesting enough as Maximilian Schell has shown us in his Oscar-nominated documentary. But maybe there is hope as looking at how old this film already is now and how it is certainly not a masterpiece perhaps we will get a better Marlene Dietrich film at some point in the nearf future. I sure hope we do. There are enough talented actresses to play the part out there, not just here in Germany. Overall, I do think that the positive is still more frequent than the negative, even if it is a bit of a shallow film all in all, also in terms of the references about Jews, National Socialist Germany etc. where it just isn't as effective and spot-on as it clearly wants to be. I can see how the writer has not enjoyed a spectacular career since then. So maybe watch it if you care for any oif the actors/characters/times in history in here, but don't go in it with too great expectations. I give it a cautious thumbs-up.
Review of Marlene
