A call out of the blue sends the British Stanley Baker to Bavaria to check out the news that his father, whom he believed had died years before, has actually just recently died. Now if that isn't news enough, when he arrives, he begins to draw hints from the goings-on of the estate that his father is indeed alive still and being hid from him. Of course, everybody (including Peter Cushing!) Insists that's not the case, and some people, when they discover his identity, are not pleased to see him. The audience, if they followed along so far, begin to either go in one of two directions, either on the something else or to sit and take in every visual and every word to figure it all out.
I'm glad I chose the second option because while I was perplexed and confused a lot of the time, when it was all wrapped up, I could honestly say, okay that made some sense. This certainly could have been a lot clearer in nature, but thanks to good performances and excellent production design and little hints dropped here and there to help the viewer along, I finally got back on track. Certainly not everybody is going to have that fortune, and had I not been prepared for such a overly intelligent narrative, I would have lost interest because I would have just felt too stupid to bother or too frustrated to care. At least it's better than a later equally complex post World War II drama, "The Holcroft Agreement" (1984), and very similar in themes. The ending is quite jarring.
I'm glad I chose the second option because while I was perplexed and confused a lot of the time, when it was all wrapped up, I could honestly say, okay that made some sense. This certainly could have been a lot clearer in nature, but thanks to good performances and excellent production design and little hints dropped here and there to help the viewer along, I finally got back on track. Certainly not everybody is going to have that fortune, and had I not been prepared for such a overly intelligent narrative, I would have lost interest because I would have just felt too stupid to bother or too frustrated to care. At least it's better than a later equally complex post World War II drama, "The Holcroft Agreement" (1984), and very similar in themes. The ending is quite jarring.