"Bis zum Ende der Welt", which means "Until the End of the World", is a German television film from 2014, so this one ia lerayd over five years old. It runs for 1.5 hours as they usually do, minimally under, and the director is Matthias Tiefenbacher wwith his writer bein Thorsten Näter. Both are really experienced and really prolific, bit their bodies of work are nothing special at all. Tiefenbacher has been in the industry since the 1990s, but seeing this one here it seems as if he never got beyond the level of trashy German daily soap "Verbotene Liebe", with which he launches his career. Näter has started even earlier, in the 1980s. Both their careers are the epitome of quantity over quality, even if they are not downright horrible I'd say. But it is never about them with this film here, but always about lead actress Christiane Hörbiger. I personally see nothing in her at all and think she is terribly overrated. She has been in many of these trashy German television films over the years. There is really also not too much you can say about the rest of the cast. Sellem is somewhat known, but she is as wasted as Michael Wittenborn, who I believe is a good actor, but it is ridiclous he only has one scene here and even in that one scene his only purpose is to propel Hörbiger's character. While the latter barely manages three different face expressions throughout the entire film. Of course, the script is not helping her at all with hiw cringeworthy it all feels, but then again nobody forced her to accept the part. Some supporting players here are Roma or actually their characters are, so not a big surprise that they are not portrayed by famous actors. The only one close to being a co-lead to Hörbiger is the young one you see directly left of her on the photo here on imdb and that would be Samy Abdel Fattah. Don't know him either, but I see he is having a decent career now with success in a pretty popular television series. Oh yes, Ninidze is in here too. He is also somewhat famous.
Now a few words about and references to where this film really sucked. Asd you can see from the title of my review, it tries to be so much and comes short from every perspective. Honestly, already the idea of the protagonist being a bit of a racist, but then quickly warming up to her neighbors felt so fake and please don't tell me it was the music that caused it, caused this change in her. Already how she walks down the stairs early on is so cringeworthy. Same is true about the lesson she gets at the police station from the cop dealing with her complaint, how she is somewhat of a foreigner herself and how she is the real criminal with her racist views. Of course, said cop reappears several times over the course of these under 90 minutes, but hey it's a small world right? Even in a big city. Also pay attention to how she never wears a uniform, so we don't see her as one of the bad guys performing illegal searches. Police must be happy with the way they are depicted here. No surprise everybody hates them nowadays. Okay, another thing I want to mentiion is the scene when Hörbiger's character talks to her landlord when the latter sees the boy in her apartment. And there Hörbiger goes all in and equally over the top because she is so dedicated to show us what a good character she is in fact. I mean the Mars reference of course. So, so bad. But yeah, girl is also pretty smart obviously. Then there is a great deal of pseudo drama with a gang of crooks burgling the old woman's apartment with the help of her prodigy of course, but by then she already had the boy deep in her heart to forgive him after she finds out who was really the leader there and also about the violent threat that was mentioned. Still the moment Hörbiger's character hits the ground when being attacked is also more pseudo drama. She is completely fine though, don't be worried simple audience members! Of course, also the instrument takes some damage during the course of all that, but Hörbiger has it fixed quickly for her boy and she tells him in the car during another scene when the actress is missing all the right notes showing us in fact not how caring the character is, but how full she is of herself. The very final shot was a prime example of that too. We see nothing but Hörbiger's face in it and the artificial lights on her face making 100% clear again this ie never about anybody else, never about any of the characters, but always about the actress who does not have 10% of the range and versatility to make it work. Fittingly with our political climate, of course this film also tries to make a political statement on tolerance. And is as clumsy as it gets. The real villains here are a gang of brutal young Germans and not the wild Roma as it is implied early on. And said German even attack the Roma on several occasions. Okay, what else is there to say. It is really all a terrible mess from beginning to end and it is actually films like this one that are so void of any creativity or talent that they result in the exact opposite oof the tolerance they should result in. It's downright embarrassing how poor the production values in here are from literally every perspective. Lots of sympathy is created by the mentions of the protagonist's deceased man and the Roma's concentration camp past. The only thing missing really would have been Hörbiger ending up in a romantic relationship with one of the Roma or her dying in the end, but this much over the top they did not go luckily. No worries though, it is still extremely over the top, also with the happy ending where the talented boy all of a sudden gets invited to a prestigious Roma music festival when barely anybody knew him before that. Makes sense. Or how the headstrong protagonist is convinced to come with him there because she longer feels uncomfortable in the presence of Roma, be it one, ten or a thousand. Oh yeah, the lost money scene early on also shows us what a good kid he is and how he gets it back to her. These were the moments that shhould show us how she warms up to him/them, but it's simply so shallow and completely void of subtlety taht it is impossible for me to take this film seriously. Although this is exactly what the film wants so much from beginning to end, also when the son ends up having to do physical work instead of pursue his talent. I cringed when she said something like the music was nothing anyway because it was so clear that she would help him return to making music and it took seconds until she did. So yeah, this film really wants to be taken seriously 100%. Actually it wants nothing else. This is not one of those many German comedies about different cultures, but really full-on drama. So yeah, enough with that now. I think you get the point. This movie is failure territory and it was clear since minutes one. If I gave out 1 out of 10 ratings, then I probably would here. A total abomination of a film. Highly not recommended.
Now a few words about and references to where this film really sucked. Asd you can see from the title of my review, it tries to be so much and comes short from every perspective. Honestly, already the idea of the protagonist being a bit of a racist, but then quickly warming up to her neighbors felt so fake and please don't tell me it was the music that caused it, caused this change in her. Already how she walks down the stairs early on is so cringeworthy. Same is true about the lesson she gets at the police station from the cop dealing with her complaint, how she is somewhat of a foreigner herself and how she is the real criminal with her racist views. Of course, said cop reappears several times over the course of these under 90 minutes, but hey it's a small world right? Even in a big city. Also pay attention to how she never wears a uniform, so we don't see her as one of the bad guys performing illegal searches. Police must be happy with the way they are depicted here. No surprise everybody hates them nowadays. Okay, another thing I want to mentiion is the scene when Hörbiger's character talks to her landlord when the latter sees the boy in her apartment. And there Hörbiger goes all in and equally over the top because she is so dedicated to show us what a good character she is in fact. I mean the Mars reference of course. So, so bad. But yeah, girl is also pretty smart obviously. Then there is a great deal of pseudo drama with a gang of crooks burgling the old woman's apartment with the help of her prodigy of course, but by then she already had the boy deep in her heart to forgive him after she finds out who was really the leader there and also about the violent threat that was mentioned. Still the moment Hörbiger's character hits the ground when being attacked is also more pseudo drama. She is completely fine though, don't be worried simple audience members! Of course, also the instrument takes some damage during the course of all that, but Hörbiger has it fixed quickly for her boy and she tells him in the car during another scene when the actress is missing all the right notes showing us in fact not how caring the character is, but how full she is of herself. The very final shot was a prime example of that too. We see nothing but Hörbiger's face in it and the artificial lights on her face making 100% clear again this ie never about anybody else, never about any of the characters, but always about the actress who does not have 10% of the range and versatility to make it work. Fittingly with our political climate, of course this film also tries to make a political statement on tolerance. And is as clumsy as it gets. The real villains here are a gang of brutal young Germans and not the wild Roma as it is implied early on. And said German even attack the Roma on several occasions. Okay, what else is there to say. It is really all a terrible mess from beginning to end and it is actually films like this one that are so void of any creativity or talent that they result in the exact opposite oof the tolerance they should result in. It's downright embarrassing how poor the production values in here are from literally every perspective. Lots of sympathy is created by the mentions of the protagonist's deceased man and the Roma's concentration camp past. The only thing missing really would have been Hörbiger ending up in a romantic relationship with one of the Roma or her dying in the end, but this much over the top they did not go luckily. No worries though, it is still extremely over the top, also with the happy ending where the talented boy all of a sudden gets invited to a prestigious Roma music festival when barely anybody knew him before that. Makes sense. Or how the headstrong protagonist is convinced to come with him there because she longer feels uncomfortable in the presence of Roma, be it one, ten or a thousand. Oh yeah, the lost money scene early on also shows us what a good kid he is and how he gets it back to her. These were the moments that shhould show us how she warms up to him/them, but it's simply so shallow and completely void of subtlety taht it is impossible for me to take this film seriously. Although this is exactly what the film wants so much from beginning to end, also when the son ends up having to do physical work instead of pursue his talent. I cringed when she said something like the music was nothing anyway because it was so clear that she would help him return to making music and it took seconds until she did. So yeah, this film really wants to be taken seriously 100%. Actually it wants nothing else. This is not one of those many German comedies about different cultures, but really full-on drama. So yeah, enough with that now. I think you get the point. This movie is failure territory and it was clear since minutes one. If I gave out 1 out of 10 ratings, then I probably would here. A total abomination of a film. Highly not recommended.
