Beautiful, moving film.

Admirable film.

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

if their story seems completely bonkers, almost like a feverish work of fiction, you ain't heard nothing yet.

If you don't find the scene where Jakob's mother recites the names of her deceased children moving then can I suggest you go elsewhere for your entertainment.This shows life nasty ,brutish and short.However the details of village life are so interesting,the acting so good,the writing,characterisation so real and the use of black and white with colour such an interesting device that it doesn't become a depressing film.Rather I found myself caught up in its drama.That doesn't happen very often.Just a great film and a great success in my view.I must seek out the director's other work. I don't have to show-off by telling the world who played Humboldt either!

This may be the finest film I have seen in years. Four hours and I wanted more. The story, characters, script, photography, acting, history are so artfully done, it is hard to imagine how to have made it better (or shorter). The Industrial Revolution had yet to reach Prussia, but in the midst of this backward village, a romantic and scientific mind emerges, who becomes our hero. Everything appears to be historically accurate with a bit of fantasy thrown in to bring brightness to the basic dreariness. How does Jakob become proficient in Spanish and English? Not important. But how does he become a master of Amazonian native languages and carry on a correspondence with the great Alexander von Humboldt! Well that's just a special filmmaker's dream we accept with all the mundane reality. All in all a wonderful film.

Not only a song title, but also a dilemma many people in villages might face. There's always reasons that will feed into both sides of the argument (or the decision on what to do). This movie has been considered and called "boring" by some. And I wouldn't blame anyone saying that, because the pace of the movie is really slow.It takes the time to introduce the characters and it also takes the time to make the evolve (or devolve). The journey might not lead always where you expect it to go and "rules" (unwritten ones) defy feelings many times. But some things can obviously not be changed. So the characters do have to go with the flow of things. Melodrama that could be easily avoided ensues, but that's life isn't it?

I loved "Zweite Heimat" from Reitz before knowing he was famous or important, so I was looking forward to this film, and got a 4 hour disappointment. The "death toll" was as high as the depiction of sitcom situations, only not even mildly interesting. I never understood nor sympathize with our main character, "Jakob". A bookish dreamer, mistreated by her father, who was basically a tough brutish man, and dramatically out of place in this small town. He, J., was a born linguist and scientist but with obvious lack of "emotional intelligence" as we would put it nowadays. Even when he cries on camera, it didn't transmit anything, the emotions he has being like a child, rather like tantrums. He speaks in many tongues but seems to be unable to relate to the world around him. Take Jettchen, who says rather womanly: "You are different from ALL people around here", and gets the usual flat emotional response from him. You can't make a movie without one single likable character.Reitz made a pretentious film with a trite plot that is way too long. I wanted to leave many times during the showing at a film festival. Had it been on TV I wouldn't have endured it for more than 20 minutes, and I do love European films. Yesterday on the same I saw "Banklady" from Christian Alvart , who says on a recent interview "I want viewers to be on the edge of their seats during the whole film". Nothing of the like happened to me during this ordeal.I liked photography and music. The effect of "putting something in color for contrast" is interesting at first, but it grows annoying and a bit corny, like for instance the red cherries it highlights late in the film. If you want to know the "economic conditions" of that time in rural Europe or an anthropological view, this film may appeal to you. Otherwise skip it, you won't regret it.PS: Cameo of Werner Herzog as Von Humboldt.