"Bauhaus" or "Lotte am Bauhaus" is a German television movie that runs for 105 minutes, so sligthly longer than the usual 1.5 hours for these, and was released earlier this year, so it is still pretty new and fresh. Director is the fairly experienced Gregor Schnitzler nd his writer is the not inexperienced Jan Braren. The central character is played by Alicia von Rittberg. Well, what can I say about her. She is in basically every scene with a pretty (seemingly) baity character. What she does with it is extremely disappointing. As for different face expressions and range, she basically sinks the character and the movie itself too. It may sound harsh, but from what I have seen her, her talent does not justify lead actress casting. Maybe her looks do, bit this decision then funnily goes completely against every message this film has to offer in terms of gender equality and emancipation by trying to convince us that she is good enough for the role because she is a woman not taking her (lack of) talent into account, which is really the essence of it all. Admittedly, it has to be said in AvR's favor that the script she has to work with here at times is pretty disastrous too. It is still tolerable in the first hour, bit the longer the film goes the weaker it becomes. In the end, it is basically completely dismantled down to the filmmakers' desperate and unsuccessful attempt to make a statement about sexism and lack of equality back in the day. A very shoddy approach. There are many cringeworthy scenes. With Lotte, it is basically a prime example of horrible character writing. There are no flaws to her character, not a single reason to dislike her. It has nothing to do with realism honestly. A role that the likes of Veronica Ferres, Christine Neubauer and Simone Thomalla would play if the character was 25-30 years older. But back to how old it actually is. I will only mention one specific scene that was maybe intended as the film's positive highlight in terms of the injustice happening to Lotte and that is when we have her scream at the people placing the order if it because she is a woman. Actually, this is a double-sided sword. Had this scene been prepared and led to more convincingly, it could have worked honestly, maybe with a better actress I would say, but it wasn't, so it is truly cringeworthy to watch. Like goosebumps in the most negative sense. Sometimes less is more and this is definitely true here. A little more subtlety would have helped the film altogether. Like I said, there are other painful moments. Like how they include her pregnancy here. The vomiting scene, how they move on to (potential) abortion it is so rushed in and feels so pointless honestly in what otherwise could have been a crucial plot element. Just have her feel the worst that could happen to a woman, but lets not invest a lot of time on that. Or also basically everything that involves her family, which was not on a terrible level, but the way they explained her background was really clumsy and only done to show us what a young uncompromising headstrong woman she is. In the most negative sense when it comes to story-telling. Of course more victimizing when she is cheated on by her husband. They sure want to give her that strong independent woman thingey here too and it cannot work if she is with a man in the long run and not on her own. Of course, she is also gorgeous and desirable enought hat he wants her back. And after the escalation near the end the way they turn it into a (somewhat) happy ending again feels forced too and not believable at all. What a shame to see a talented actor like Jörg Hartmann wasted on a ridiculously bad inclusion like Gropius here. Just the name they should be ashamed of using honestly too. At least they refrained from usijng the name of Alma Siedhoff-Buscher for the main character with how fictionalized it all is basically. They should not have used any real names. And finally, the ways in which the film takes shots at rising Nazi Germany also felt truly embarrassing like know-it-all in the worst sense possible on 3 or 4 inclusions really, with unbearingly bad references to the completely false assumption that right-wing extremism is on the rise again in Germany these days. Well, in the end it is what it is: a movie that takes itself far more seriously than it has any right to. Of course the rating here shows that many people have actually fallen for it. Be proud if you are not one of them and see through it. This is not artistic creation from any perspective. It is vain, shallow and empty moviemaking that resulted in a big mess and never should have been made. Highly not recommended.
Review of Bauhaus
