Wunder von Lengede, Das (2003) (TV)

User Rating:

6.8/10   

Director:

Kaspar Heidelbach

Writer:

Benedikt Roeskau (writer)

Release Date:

9 November 2003 (Germany)

Genre:

Adventure | Drama

Plot Keywords:

Drowning | Mine Disaster | Mine Shaft | Heroism | Legend

Awards:

4 wins & 3 nominations

Cast

Heino Ferch	...	Franz Wolbert
Jan Josef Liefers	...	Bruno Reger
Heike Makatsch	...	Renate Reger
Nadja Uhl	...	Helga Wolbert
Armin Rohde	...	Jürgen Grabowski, Bohrmeister
Günther Maria Halmer	...	Dr. Heiner Dietz, Bergwerksdirektor
Sylvester Groth	...	Harald Hansen, Markscheider (Vermessungsingenieur)
Thomas Heinze	...	Rudolf Schönfeld
Axel Prahl	...	Erwin
Benjamin Sadler	...	Salvatore
Jürgen Schornagel	...	Willi
Katharina Wackernagel	...	Anneliese Stegmeier
Gustav-Peter Wöhler	...	Dr. Schleip, Zechenarzt (as Gustav Peter Wöhler)
Klaus J. Behrendt	...	Pit Spieker, Steiger
Martin Brambach

Also Known As:

A Light in Dark Places (International: English title)

Country:

Germany

Language:

German

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.78 : 1

Certification:

Germany:12

Filming Locations:

Goslar, Lower Saxony, Germany

Company:

Medienfonds GFP

Trivia:

Had the record audience for a German TV film.

Very emotional and gripping, but not perfect

"The TV-event of the year" as the ads have proclaimed for (as it seems) months has finally settled down, leaving me with less satisfaction than I hoped. After a good start and the suspense rising in part 1, part 2 got too many things wrong and was slightly disappointing.

The story is somewhat well known. A group of 13 mining workers get trapped after an accident and have to wait 11 days until they are found. Meanwhile their families suffer, their colleagues go on searching and all the time the media goes wild for the first time in German media history.

Overall it can easily be said that the performances by the large cast of well-known actors is good most of the time. Jan Josef Liefers and Heino Ferch deliver good performances as the heroes. All of the trapped workers do a great job in showing the viewer what kind of horror this accident must have been. Trapped in a dark hole for 11 days (plus 2 days until they were rescued) must have been a terror one can hardly imagine. They grow desperate, they cry, they fight, they scream and some of them die. Some details are shown which are all but pretty, especially the way two of the workers die. It can easily be said that those scenes in the whole were the highlights of the movie.

What is happening on the outside world is less impressive, none of those experiences can stand a comparison with the worker's drama. The wives of the heroes, played by Heike Makatsch and Nadja Uhl, are somehow more passive than I would have thought and actually liked. The relationship between Makatsch and the news reporter (played by Thomas Heinze) did just feel awkward most of the time. The children have no character whatsoever, which was a shame, since there could have been a great potential here.

On the other side is the rescue team, headed by three characters, the director the factory (Günther Maria Halmer), the expert of calculations for the rescue (Sylvester Groth) and the head of the rescue itself (Armin Rohde). Those scenes were all very convincing and gripping too, because you could feel their inner conflicts between the hope to find the men and the impulse to give up. The villain part of the director is drawn out a bit too much, especially because there is no payoff to it.

The suspense in the movie runs very high, because even though you know they are rescued in the end, you do not know if all of them will survive. And the actors give all reasons to believe they did not know if they were being saved. Nevertheless the tension is hurt by a really sloppy editing which intercuts dramatic scenes with loud music very suddenly with quiet dialog scenes for no reason. Also frustrating are the flashbacks to the main couples of their happier times. I'm sure there were other things than just a night in a dancing hall. Still the same flashbacks were repeated over and over again.

Some things really bothered me towards the end. I already mentioned the strange relationship between Makatsch and Heinze. Other characters don't get enough time to develop. Basically all of the actors are granted some major scene in which they can show their acting talent (the scene with Liefers not feeling his legs anymore being the highlight of all acting in the movie). But the focus is on the 4 main characters and this is frustrating because you want to know what those other people feel. What do the other men say to their loved ones? Who are their loved ones anyway? All of this is kept in the dark (so to speak) and this is a shame.

The music is another point. Although I liked it at first, I got quite distracted when suddenly the cue "The Hunter's Prelude" from Wojciech Kilar's score of Coppola's "Dracula" appeared during a climatic scene. In part 2 this music was repeated quite often. I find it annoying to have to listen to music from other movies when it couldn't be so hard to have an original one. And also in part 2 the main theme of the original score was repeated way too often.

This goes together with the fact that towards the end there were too many cheers and tears, too many faces of relief, too many embraces. At some point the movie starts to repeat itself, at least in the depiction of the outside world. They have hope, they lose hope, they regain hope, they lose it, and so on. At some point the movie has said all it could say about the people on the surface but it goes on saying it again and again.

Nevertheless "Das Wunder von Lengede" is a movie worth watching. The scenes in the cave with the workers are so intense that they make you forget everything else.

3 Stars out of 4 / 7 out of 10 / 2- (1+ to 6-)