"Sonnensucher" or "Sun Seekers" is an East German movie from 1972, so this one will have its 45th anniversary next year. The director is Konrad Wolf who is widely considered among the best East Germany had to offer in terms of filmmaking and he is definitely a lot more known than his two writers here: Karl-Georg Egel and Paul Wiens. The cast of this movie probably does not ring familiar with many anymore today so much later, but Erwin Geschonneck (father of Matti) may be known to film buff here in Germany even these days. It is a black-and-white film and it is actually really long, makes it close to the two-hour mark. It focuses on the East German mining industry and the title is of course a little play on words on the subject of light versus dark because down there it is extremely dark. However, sadly, the film is not a revelation at all. It may have been a bit on the controversial side back then, but looking at it today I felt it was fairly underwhelming, especially compared to some of the other pretty good works by Wolf. The characters don't feel written in a way that keeps me interested for easily over 100 minutes and I must also say I found the acting and most of the performances really bland and not memorable, also from lead actors. And this in combination with the massive run time of course results in a film that drags on several occasions. I'd only recommend the watch to those with a huge interest in what life back in the GDR was really like. And as I have not experienced it back then in a way that I could still remember today, it's also tough for me to say how accurate the film is. I give it a thumbs-down. Not recommended and sadly another example of how the GDR did not really produce that many films worth watching if this is one of the more known given how mediocre it is.
Review of Sonnensucher
