Goetz von Berlichingen - DVD

Film: Germany in the 16th century: The feared fighter and womanizer Götz von Berlichingen (Henning Baum) and his men have once again snatched gold during one of their raids. But with this action Götz von Berlichingen attracts the wrath of the ice-cold princess Adelheid (Natalia Wörner). She actually wanted to use this gold from the French king for an intrigue against Emperor Charles. And Götz now stands in the way of this plan. When he is betrayed by a once loyal friend, the robber baron loses a hand during a night raid. This wound threatens to kill him, but with the help of the mysterious healer Saleema (Dennenesch Zoudé), Götz is able to cheat death once again. With his strength restored and equipped with a hand of iron, Götz leads a peasant uprising to crush the plot against Emperor Charles and put an end to Adelheid and her henchmen once and for all...

Director Carlo Rola and his team have clearly drawn inspiration for Götz von Berlichingen from successful event TV such as Die Wanderhure and acclaimed series like Game of Thrones. Elaborately staged fight scenes, lots of naked skin, a few amusing one-liners and quite drastic scenes like the one where Götz loses his hand confirm this impression. The result, however, is a somewhat ambivalent affair. While Henning Baum cuts a really good figure as the main character, a lot of the dialogue comes across as flat and some scenes, especially with healer Saleema, are rather unintentionally funny. The scene in which she tries to stop a horse, for example, is of an embarrassment that can hardly be topped, while other moments like the tongue-in-cheek handling of the famous Götz quote (Er aber, sag's ihm, er kann mich im Arsche lecken!) are a lot of fun.

Whenever Rola makes it clear that his version of the story about the Frankish imperial knight wants to be neither a factually accurate historical film, nor a faithful adaptation of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's play, but simply a very straightforward adventure film with a cool hero and nice show values, this Götz von Berlichingen is really entertaining despite clear weaknesses. But if especially in the more dramatic sequences something like ambition should be achieved, the whole thing quickly turns into unintentional comedy. Here, the script simply lacks strength and the direction lacks finesse to convincingly implement the different moods of the story.

So, on balance, this TV production is entertaining and worth watching as a pure entertainment product. As a quality historical film, on the other hand, the whole thing works only to a very, very limited extent. And so there is, especially thanks to Henning Baum, the good equipment and the appealingly implemented battle sequences, in the end still an absolutely satisfied: recommendable!

Picture + Sound: The elaborate TV production pleases on the DVD with a good audiovisual implementation. The picture is very clean, showing powerful colors and has decent detail sharpness. The Dolby Digital 5.1 mix is very lively and has a good utilization of the surround channels, especially in the numerous action scenes. Good!

Extras: In addition to a Making of (approx. 12 min.), in which various aspects of the production are examined more closely, there are also short shooting diaries by Henning Baum (approx. 3 min.), Dennenesch Zoudé (approx. 3 min.) and Andreas Guenther (approx. 3 min.).

Conclusion: Goetz von Berlichingen is at times unintentionally funny and arguably clichéd, but on balance works really well because of Henning Baum and some good fight sequences - provided, of course, you don't take the whole thing too seriously or you don't expect an authentic history lesson. For as a pure entertainment film for fans of TV productions like Die Wanderhure, this very own interpretation of the story of Götz von Berlichingen is well worth seeing, despite some obvious weaknesses. The DVD presents the action in good picture and sound quality and there are even a few minutes of bonus material. Recommendable

An article by Frankfurt-Tipp