AristarchosTheArchivist

I recently stumbled across a second hand Bluray of this movie opera.

I had no idea that this had been made. After a bit of research, I found out that it seems to have totally failed at the box office.

After having seen it, I wonder why. Maybe 2010 was a bad time for this kind of experiment.

Anyway, this is so far the most amazing movie opera I have seen.

You need to know about opera history to really appreciate what they did: "Der Freischütz" (or as it is called here by the original title Hunter's Bride - yes, producers changed the names already back then) is what the perfect horror-romance B-Movie would be in today's cinema. Its influence on romantic opera is immense.

The story is as B-Movie horror as it gets: Max is a run down war veteran with PTSD. To marry his sweetheart Agathe (she is still in love with him), he has to win her family by showing off as a good marksman, as family tradition demands.

Unfortunately, because of his PTSD he can't shoot anymore.

He's approached by creepy guy Kaspar, who is a demon worshipper and can create magic bullets. He promises to make 7 bullets with him. Little does Max know that Kaspar has some beef with him because he also had a crush on Max's bride.

So they go into a creepy canyon to summon the demon Samiel and make those bullets.

Kaspar already has some debt to pay to the demon. He promises him the bride. So the 7th bullet will hit Agathe when it's fired... Classic horror thriller stuff.

After this opera's success, many more opera composers turned towards horror and fantasy material. Marschner's "Der Vampyr" is an opera version of the first modern vampire story by Polidori. Richard Wagner evokes zombie pirates in The Flying Dutchman (yeah, the one from Pirates of the Carribean), and later, after some history drama, goes on to write the first epic fantasy tetralogy about a dwarf who crafts a magic ring to bind them all, then curses it as it's taken from him by the gods. The ring corrupts everyone who has it. Over four operas (the first one is the shorter "prequel") he manages to create a world of power and deceit among gods, demigods, dwarves, giants, dragons, and mortals with lots of good dialogue and action scenes.

It was the LOTR of that time. Dwarf chases after cursed ring...

Then cinema came, and everything was rolled up again, in silent movie, and then again in B&W talkies, and then again in color...

Now opera should return to the cinema, and I think Jens Neubert was cursed to be too early.

It is an awesome effort, for sure.

Neubert uses original locations and has an eye for extreme detail and realism.

The movie is therefore sometimes pretty gory and gruesome. But it's in the opera, and developed all logically.

Horror fans will be pleased.

The cast and orchestra are recorded in a way that resembles more of a movie score, which is perfect, because now one can feel how creepy the soundtrack in the canyon scene really is.

The whole acting is surprisingly good, because many singers just can't act properly.

The cinematic way also deepens the characters.

One little flaw: there's some weird CGI effects used in the canyon scene, that could have been done better, or maybe different.

But then again - it looks exactly like good independent horror of that time, cinematography included.

I didn't mind it too much. I was actually surprised that they went through so much work for that scene to make it really look like a horror movie of the demon worshipping type.

Not a flaw in itself, but I would have preferred them to work with a historically informed orchestra like Anima Eterna. The sound would have been even more creepy and the singers wouldn't have had to strain their voices as much.

Unfortunately, after the commercial fail of this great movie, I guess there was no other attempt at an opera movie.

But now is the time - young people are more interested in this stuff, after having been confronted with it through influencers of different kinds.

Tons of operas are waiting.

How about The Flying Dutchman, The Vampyre, or even a LOTR style Ring Cycle?

Romantic opera is full of interesting stuff that works like modern movies.

And the soundtracks are always amazing.

After decades of not touching this subject (except for the sneaky adaptation in the 2000 year anniversary of the Battle of Teutoburg Forest, the 2009 movie "Avatar"), finally there is a great German series that serves this legendary story well.

Despite the statement of the producers not wanting to give Neo-Nazis anything to drool over, Barbarians is actually still quite a patriotic achievement: The Germans are the good guys, despite their ruggedness, and the Romans are clearly the imperialist bad guys.

The production value is great, and the historical accuracy when it comes to clothing, houses etc. Is sufficiently true, with some concessions.

Also, the story is only known through Roman sources, so the real truth may have been different, but we really don't know.

Some artistic licenses are taken, but again, the real story isn't clear anyway.

For the German viewers, the Germans may speak in an awkwardly modern way sometimes, which may be a point of criticism. I did not care personally, as the acting is fine throughout. The Romans speaking correctly pronounced Latin is pretty awesome.

Now some people have complained about wokeness in Season 2 - but here's the thing: Netflix requires some racial diversity and sexual diversity. Without it, your series won't be made. Under those circumstances, the producers did a marvellous and even subversive job to meet minimum requirements: The Black woman is from Africa, which is plausible in this scenario, and the backstory of the character is pretty awesome too. They do not claim there were Black German women back then.

Marbod is bisexual or gay in the series, but he's also mostly the bad guy... Since we don't know what he was like, it's not implausible, as he is also the guy who succumbs to the luxury of Roman imported goods, and corruption.

Cool and strong women are a staple of German culture, so it's not wrong to depict some of those, even if it's a bit of a stretch that Thusnelda is going into battle, and women were not part of the Thing as much as it is depicted in the series.

However, Roman historian Tacitus tells us about German women who stood beside the Battlefield as cheerleaders, exposing their breasts to motivate the warriors.

(not shown in the series though...)

Despite those things, wokeness is as minimal as it could be on Netflix, so don't complain, there are SO many more woke productions that really get on your nerves.

Germany is in a similar state right now, so... it may be good to be reminded by the series to be a little more patriotic.

This is a timeless story about Patriotism, and Barbarians delivers the message without watering it down.

I did not know anything about this movie when I watched it on Netflix.

I suggest you dive right in.

This movie , directed and starring Daniel Brühl, with Peter Kurth as "the other guy" centers around an actor named Daniel who just wants to read the only page of a script he got for an audition, hence entering a pub for a coffee before taking his flight.

What unfolds is one of the best German movies I have seen in a long time.

Despite rarely leaving the premises, and playing in real time, this is veritable seat glue with brilliant dialogue and hard to guess twists and turns in the story.

Daniel Brühl got Daniel Kehlmann as the writer, who is also a novelist, and it shows in every detail.

Add to this a beautiful and effective cinematography and rare but masterful score/songs and we have ourselves a movie that will be shown in film making classes.

One can learn so much watching it.

I don't understand how this is not even rated a 7.0 on imdb.

You certainly won't be disappointed even when you go in with high expectations.

Well done, Daniel. Please make more movies. You are Germany's best talent.