Der kalte Himmel (2011 TV Movie) User Reviews

A mother fights for her gifted, unusual child

[hgmichna · 6/10 · 7 January 2014]

In 1967 Germany a farmer woman does whatever she can, against heavily stacked odds, to save her 6-year-old boy, because she recognizes that he is intelligent and not treated right by the people trying to control him. She travels first to Munich, then to Berlin to find advice from psychiatrists. Whenever she sees that the doctors don't do him any good, she pulls him out and moves on.

Finally a young psychiatrist in Berlin comes to a helpful diagnosis, but at the time public health insurance does not pay for psychiatric treatment. This has to change.

TV movie, two parts, 89 min each.

Good idea with flaws

[Bluegull99 · 6/10 · 7 January 2020]

It worth watching both parts of this movie for several reasons. It captured quite accurately how things were back in the 1960s in small villages in Germany. The actors are well chosen and it shows, how family life was seen in these times, especially on farms where several generations had to live under one roof.

The story itself is about a probably autistic little boy who stands out in his village as he is in no way compatible due to his (for the villagers and his family) strange behaviour. His mother is the only one believing he is intelligent and tries to fight for him not to be put into a special needs school of the times. She does so by taking him to different doctors in different cities, an expensive and exhausting way if finding help at these times, and against the will of her family at home. If found it plausible that she takes her son to Munich and tries to get him medical help. When that fails completely she goes back home with him and decided, again against the will of her husband and family, to take him to Berlin instead as she had met a young doctor in Munich who had offered help. That was the point when it got a it unlikely for me. Her husband is already in debt for the farm and other things, the family can come by somehow but they have no money to spare and they actually have three children altogether. The mother still goes to Berlin with the son, and does not return for a long time so he can get treatment there. She starts working as a waitress and remains in Berlin with her son. While I do understand her will to fight for her son, it does not make sense that she seems completely indifferent to her two other children, just leaving them alone and not returning to them. The movie means to show her unconditional motherly love, but what it is worth if that love is just for one of three children? I didn't like that and it kiind of ruined that actually nice thought of a loving mother. Good ideas, good intentions, but quite some flaws too