"Das Märchen von den 12 Monaten", is a German television film from 2019 and this is of course one of the many recent fairytale adaptations by ARD and its smaller stations. They have been doing one (or more) per year now for many years in fact and this is one of the most recent releases. No surprise with all the famous one sbeing taken care of already that not too many have heard about this one, especially in its original shape. This one we got here is based on motives by Bohemian (Czech/Austrian) writer Josef Wenzig, who lived in the 19th century, and this is probably among his most known works, maybe even the number one. He is of course not particularly famous if we compare him to the Grimms or Andersen, but no offense. I am not sure the fault here lies in the base material, but the execution by ARD just did not seem particularly top-notch. Also shows by the incomplete title page here on imdb. The cast list is missing Bruno Eyron for example at this point and his role may not have been huge, but he is still easily one of the most famous and most experienced cast members. Which is also pretty telling because for other years and editions this series of films had some of the most known German actors (for example the two Gwisdeks and many more), but there are pretty much no famous names part of this project at all. Disappointing. Still no biggie if the execution is high-quality nonetheless. No need to focus entirely on the cast then. But here it is not. It never felt even half as fantastic as the film wanted us to think it was. Christoph Bach deserves a mention still. I think he is an alright actor and maybe the best the film had to offer. Fairly telling he also plays the only character with at least a bit of character development. The kids are almost always played by relatively unknown actors and this is also the case here. But they are also not as much at the center of the story as they are in other movies, other fairytale adaptations, so it is what it is I suppose. As for the director and writer, Thielecke and Schönberger, it's a bit unusual for me to see them here because I would have expected them to go for people who have been part of other fairytale adaptations in the past. This is usually where they rely on experience. But not the case either. I guess though if those people have mostly walked on Katie Fforde adaptations, "Rote Rosen", "SOKO" and "Verbotene Liebe", then we can still be glad with an outcome of 2 stars out of 5 because honestly all these shows are truly the pond scum of German television quality-wise.
I think that frequently these fairytale films stand and fall with how memorable the main antagonist feels. I mean here you cannot really blame the actor, but the man is basically a parody only the way he was written. Also ridiculous that they did not recognize him earlier. February's inner turmoil is still among the better aspects, but the significant moments there, like the strawberry scene, also were not half as impactful as they could have been. The story between the two kids was mostly disappointing too. Never memorable and sometimes even cringeworthy, like when the guy asks if he can hold the girl's hand and help her this way, but she says that she manages on her own and he says something like "pity". I cringed. Not gonna lie. I guess emancipation and #metoo have also made it to these films finally. Already make sure the small ones watching this are fully exposed to the agenda as well. The one good thing I can say here is that at least the costumes and set are fine overall, makeup not so much either, if the writing was poor already. Admittedly, the director's body of work is far more terrible than the writer's, but this may only be the case because the director is much more experienced. When writer Schönberger will be Thielecke's age, then it could be even worse. Definitely no Schöneberger talent-wise. So yeah, it is definitely a pity how this turned out because it's probably gonna take another 10, maybe even 20, years until this story will be turned into a movie again. I am sure it deserves better. I will probably check out the newest 2020 ARD fairytale release too at some point this year (happy 2021!), but if what we have here is the quality to expect for years to come now, it may be the wiser choice to stop with these films instead of doing more damage. I felt that especially the impact of the months in terms of the weather and how they were talking and thinking about it felt especially clumsy and uninspired. Again, a key component where they came really short. I must say I am glad this only ran for under an hour, which is by the way (despite very few exceptions) the standard running time for these movies by ARD. The outcome here gets a thumbs-down from me and it was never really close to a positive recommendation. One of the worst from the series. Really annoying how ARD is burning the people's GEZ money with projects like this and the worst is that "The Tale of the 12 Months" is not even the worst from it all. It's still miles ahead for example of the newest Kindermädchen film starring Saskia Vester. Justt thinking of this one right now because I saw the trailer right after this fairytale movie ended an hour ago. Shameful stuff. But I am drifting a bit away now. This one here you wanna skip of course. Negative recommendation.
I think that frequently these fairytale films stand and fall with how memorable the main antagonist feels. I mean here you cannot really blame the actor, but the man is basically a parody only the way he was written. Also ridiculous that they did not recognize him earlier. February's inner turmoil is still among the better aspects, but the significant moments there, like the strawberry scene, also were not half as impactful as they could have been. The story between the two kids was mostly disappointing too. Never memorable and sometimes even cringeworthy, like when the guy asks if he can hold the girl's hand and help her this way, but she says that she manages on her own and he says something like "pity". I cringed. Not gonna lie. I guess emancipation and #metoo have also made it to these films finally. Already make sure the small ones watching this are fully exposed to the agenda as well. The one good thing I can say here is that at least the costumes and set are fine overall, makeup not so much either, if the writing was poor already. Admittedly, the director's body of work is far more terrible than the writer's, but this may only be the case because the director is much more experienced. When writer Schönberger will be Thielecke's age, then it could be even worse. Definitely no Schöneberger talent-wise. So yeah, it is definitely a pity how this turned out because it's probably gonna take another 10, maybe even 20, years until this story will be turned into a movie again. I am sure it deserves better. I will probably check out the newest 2020 ARD fairytale release too at some point this year (happy 2021!), but if what we have here is the quality to expect for years to come now, it may be the wiser choice to stop with these films instead of doing more damage. I felt that especially the impact of the months in terms of the weather and how they were talking and thinking about it felt especially clumsy and uninspired. Again, a key component where they came really short. I must say I am glad this only ran for under an hour, which is by the way (despite very few exceptions) the standard running time for these movies by ARD. The outcome here gets a thumbs-down from me and it was never really close to a positive recommendation. One of the worst from the series. Really annoying how ARD is burning the people's GEZ money with projects like this and the worst is that "The Tale of the 12 Months" is not even the worst from it all. It's still miles ahead for example of the newest Kindermädchen film starring Saskia Vester. Justt thinking of this one right now because I saw the trailer right after this fairytale movie ended an hour ago. Shameful stuff. But I am drifting a bit away now. This one here you wanna skip of course. Negative recommendation.
