European Films

A bucolic German "Amélie" hooks up with a terminally ill man who literally crashes into her pig farm in Sven Taddicken’s nevertheless down-to-earth and surprisingly touching Emmas Glück (Emma’s Bliss). The film, an adaptation of the hugely popular Claudia Schreiber novel, is a storytelling, acting and visual treat that is not bold enough to be a real triumph but a lot less melodramatic and more effective than the premise might lead one to believe. Emmas Glück was recently nominated for three Lolas (the National German Film Prizes) including Best Film and is already out on DVD in Germany after a successful run in theatres last summer. It will be a great catch for any festival or foreign distributor not afraid of this smooth mix of emotions, heart, whimsey and farm animals.

 

Stage actress Jördis Triebel impresses as the titular Emma, a young woman living and working on her farm and apparently quite content, though she only has her animals for company. Her polar opposite is Max (Jürgen Vogel, from Der freie Wille/The Free Will), who works for a dishonest second-hand car salesman (has there ever been a car salesman in a film who has been honest?) and who has just learnt that he suffers from pancreatic cancer and might have only a few months ahead of him.

 

He empties his boss’s cache of black money and wants to run off to Mexico but, after a blood-curdling chase scene and a balletic crash, ends up at Emma’s farm instead. Emma seems unfazed by the arrival of the stranger even though his car (well, not exactly his car) has destroyed her chicken coop. When the police turn up the next morning she covers up the fact that Max is inside. Whether a facile plot contrivance or simply part of Emma’s enigmatic personally, it is the start of a touching story of two outcasts who reach out to each other tentatively and learn to admire and respect each other and their habits without asking prying questions or judging based on appearance alone. Though it needs some time, even that eternal evil-doer money seems to be treated differently by them.

 

In a wonderfully conceived sequence, Emma goes about her daily farming job of slaughtering a pig while city man Max looks on in civilised horror. When the intestines are spilled and she shows him the heart, he asks to be shown the pancreas instead. Director Sven Taddicken (Mein Bruder, der Vampir/Getting My Brother Laid) finds exactly the right tone for the scene, focussing on the emotions of the two characters and their instinctive responses to what is happening. The ripped-open dead animal is not the point of the scene; it only acts as a vehicle that facilitates the exposure of Emma’s and Max’s emotions. Taddicken uses this technique throughout the film to both explore and contrast his characters.

 

The story has more than a few quirky touches, including a subplot involving the village police officer (Hinnerk Schönemann) who is in love with Emma and who is always closely followed by his stern-faced mother, who does not approve. Daniela Knap’s widescreen cinematography is also a source for not only pretty bucolic landscapes but some touching visual humour as well. They help lighten the mood and underline the fairytale qualities of life at Emma’s Eden, where even terminally ill might get a new lease on life – if only for a couple of weeks – but where true evil and death also lurks in the darkness (a scene involving people being locked behind bars in a barn is especially reminiscent of Hansel and Gretel).

 

Emmas Glück is not revolutionary enough to be an unmitigated triumph that not only delights but also surprises and the outcome of the film is never really in doubt. This should not stop anyone from going to see it however, as, again just like fairytales, well-known stories are a treat when told by a storyteller who pays careful attention to emotional truth and adds a dash of visual imagination.

 

Buy the DVD at amazon.de. 

 

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